tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67214686575353458132024-03-13T06:03:17.870-07:00Israel, Zionism and the DiasporaHistory does not repeat itself but does serve as precedent. 17th Century secularized Europe transformed Jews from religion to nation, then race. But 1700 years of Christian anti-Judaism preceded antisemitism. The Holocaust was the nearly successful final solution to Christendom’s Jewish Problem. Most Jews today limit blame to the person of Hitler. We believe our country exceptional, free of lethal antisemitism. Thus convinced we raise, no subject our children to the Precedent. This is Denial.David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-47573001148729578072017-08-15T18:42:00.004-07:002017-08-15T18:42:40.856-07:00Bibi’s “vague” response to Charlottesville: Comity with Trump trumps support for the Diaspora?<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<i><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Outraged by expressions of anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism and racism. Everyone should oppose this hatred.” </span></i><a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/after-3-days-pm-condemns-charlottesville-in-vague-statement/"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Prime Minister Netanyahu’s tweet regarding Charlottesville</span></i></a><i><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sincere and heartfelt. So what's wrong with this tweet which earned the PM the ire of Times of Israel, Jpost and other Israeli forums? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Had the PM been responding to, say, a lynching of a Black or a Native American such a tweet might have described deeply felt "outrage" regarding racism, although admittedly such interference in the internal affairs of the US might be considered undiplomatic from a foreign head of state. But this was an alt-right march targeting Jews and other other minorities. The question here is, "is it appropriate" for the Israeli prime minister to criticize racism directed at Jews living in the US? If it is, then, is the PM's tweet adequate as response to those attacking Jews in the US? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">AS I view the situation the answer is yes because Bibi represents Israel, the refuge created by the Diaspora for the Diaspora. He is not just leader of Jews in Israel, but of the Jewish People wherever they are found across the Diaspora. As such he is <i>obligated</i> to address antisemitism in the US, or wherever Jews are threatened. Because threat at a national level is precisely the what Charlottesville represents. Hitler began in one city, Munich, ten years before the Nazi Party was elected to rule the Third Reich.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Has antisemitism always existed in the US, YES. One need only look over recent decades of ADL surveys for confirmation. Is antisemitism less dangerous in the US compared to its European expression, NO. In fact, distribution and intensity of antisemitism in the US during the years of the Holocaust was little different than during, before and after Auschwitz. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And how does this bear on Bibi's comments regarding Charlottesville? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Trump was called out by his own Republican Party for his inclusive condemnation, not just of the perpetrators whose racism inspired the riots, but his obligation, as president of the United States, to condemn racism, to console its victims. (Trump today walked back his comments describing the KKK, et al< and again aimed his attack at the left). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As political leader of the Jewish People Israel's prime minister is obligated to speak out on behalf of antisemitism's victims, the Jewish Nation. To not do so may or not better position Israel in the eyes of the US president; it does not stand beside, and support Diaspora Jewry. Nor is this the first instance in which Bibi has failed to stand with the Diaspora. As the antisemites of Bannon’s alt-right minions spouting antisemitism emerged from the shadows during the US primaries, nary a word of concern or support from the prime minister lest he upset his “friend”. And Bibi’s recent violation of his promise to the Diaspora regarding access to the Wall; and more significant and far-reaching support for the Rabbinate’s long held ambition to determine Jewish identity for Israel and the Diaspora; Who is a Jew legislation! A betrayal of promises to the Diaspora to retain Hardi support for his coalition! Power over People! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Israel is Zionism's creation and exists to serve the entire Jewish Nation and not just a single religious stream holding the government hostage. Israel was intended and exists as the national homeland for Jews, ALL Jews: regardless of religious affiliation or none, whether religious or atheist, self-identified or vainly believing they can disappear through assimilation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Today’s Israelis are not "citizens" as appear in western liberal-democracies. Today’s Israelis are custodians of the universal homeland and refuge for ALL Jews of the Diaspora. Only when the “ingathering of the exiles” sees the last Jew in Israel will all Israelis truly achieve citizenship!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-1577615295315531182017-08-07T17:55:00.006-07:002017-08-09T15:41:29.239-07:00America, Israel and the “Special Relationship": an Uncertain Alliance<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">When JPost published the editorial “Clueless Trump” last week it reminded that much that appears in Israel’s </span>poplar<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> media falls short in recognizing the limits of its “special relationship” with the United States. As Saddam Hussein reportedly justified Iraq’s need for WMD, “We exist in a very dangerous neighborhood,” Israel has little room to substitute wish for </span>fact<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> regarding the limits of this critical alliance. At least at its leadership </span>level<span style="font-size: 14pt;"> Israel is responding realistically to the changing global balance of power. Israeli diplomacy and trade regarding China and India are consistent with not just her emerging markets, but also global centers of power in the coming decades.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">For the near-time, as regards the Palestinians: if there was little hope for accommodation before 2006 when, following elections resulting in a Hamas victory and the failed US-backed coup against victorious Hamas: what likelihood an accommodation between Israel and not just one, but two competing centers of Palestinian “authority”? As regards the extended region of Arabia, from Morocco to the Arabian Gulf; the “Arab Spring” has left states in the region unstable and under threat from within. The United States lit the fuse when Bush, following American’s commitment to Democracy, replaced Iraq’s Sunni regime, barrier to Iranian ambitions, with a majority Shiite regime placing Iraq in Iran’s orbit.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Obama’s approach to Iran remained basically unchanged from Bush, “to end the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons.” But where the Bush administration never tired of threatening military force, Obama was committed to dialogue. That the “dialogue” would take seven years to bear fruit and result in Iran first achieving “nuclear threshold status” suggests a policy well beyond the stated goal, consistent with Kenneth Waltz’s </span><a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2012-06-15/why-iran-should-get-bomb"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">vision</span></a><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> , “Nuclear Balancing Would Mean Stability,” the subheading to his article. But </span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Waltz’s elegant theory suggests that where a single regional power possesses nuclear arms neighboring states would have been motivated to seek the bomb to counter the threat. But Israel was assumed to have a nuclear arsenal for half-century with little such counter effort. True that Saddam sought the bomb, but that was to achieve his hegemonic ambitions in the Arab world; and Syria’s short-lived nuclear adventure was more likely an Iranian effort rather than Syrian. If any Arab state confronting Israel ever felt directly threatened by her assumed nuclear arsenal, that threat was never sufficient to demand an Arab response. The “Arab response” only emerged in response to the realization that the Obama policy was not just to end Iran’s nuclear threat to the Arab world, to “cut off the head of the Iranian snake,” but instead to <i>allow</i> Iran to achieve breakout nuclear status.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Observing the tortuous seven-year-long “negotiations” </span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">between Obama and Khameini, an apparent charade in which a petulant Iran repeatedly withdrew from the talks only to return months later enticed by ever-new Obama concessions. Whatever Bush’s reasons for not pursuing Iran’s 2003 offer to quit its nuclear program, whether by chance or design the US provided Iran sufficient time to advance its nuclear program, to become a nuclear power and threat to its Arab neighbors, and to Israel.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">There are today at least half-dozen Arab states, from Egypt and Jordan to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait at various stages of building nuclear reactors. And, reflecting the new reality of today’s regional “superpower” most are funded and built by Putin’s Russia. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">When Obama entered office</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> one of his central promises was to reign in global nuclear proliferation. Without going into discussing a possible American strategic motive to explain his providing for the Iranian bomb, Obama loosed a nascent nuclear arms race in this most unstable region in the world. And if there is a “silver lining” regarding that future nuclear cloud now hanging over the region it is that Israel and Arab states not yet victim to the Arab Spring, now share a common threat. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">With all the benefits that a hopeful Shimon Peres saw to motivate peace in the region, it took President Obama to provide the conditions for an Israel-Arab accommodation! </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-21658026548132052142017-07-15T08:29:00.005-07:002017-07-15T08:29:55.862-07:00<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>This article was written in January, 2017. </i><i>Not posted at time of writing, it should appear as first in the present series.</i> </span></blockquote>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Israeli Post-Zionism and its abandonment of Diaspora Jewry<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Politically, Netanyahu is right, </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><a href="http://www.jpost.com/printarticle.aspx?id=477265"><i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">any future prime minister will have to have the haredi parties with them</span></i></a></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">. You can’t have a right-wing prime minister without the haredim.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">When I first arrived in Israel in 1960 it was “in” for teens and young adults on my Ichud (Mapai) kibbutz to refer to Zionism as passé. Surprised, maybe even a bit “offended,” still I dismissed the attitude as youthful rebelliousness. That was Israel twelve years after Ben-Gurion declared the state. Tnuva, the dairy collective for kibbutzim still flew the red flag next to the Israeli flag at their Tel Aviv facilities. Tensions over religious intrusion on the social life of secular Israelis; concerns over an anticipated not distant “kuturkampf,” consequences of Ben-Gurion’s “compromise” exchanging Orthodox participation in the Knesset for Yishuv unity in anticipation o the 1947 UN Partition vote. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Sixty-nine years after the First Knesset the consequences to Israeli democracy and society of inclusion of religion in government are profound. In 1947 it was rationalized, with some justification, that the two religious parties invited were “Zionist.” Certainly the National Religious Party was, and likely remains. But even the “moderate” NRP, once provided the platform of the Interior Ministry, set as priority determining Jewish identity for the state, and for the Diaspora. A series of Supreme Court decision provide background to the ministry refusing to issue even a Teudat Zehut (identity card) to an immigrant not providing evidence of an orthodox conversion in accord with the Chief Rabbinate. It was NRP, not the haredi parties, that introduced Who is a Jew legislation in the Knesset. Anti-Zionist haredi parties, later dominating the Chief Rabbinate, just made the effort to install Israeli Orthodoxy as the “official” stream of Judaism for state and Diaspora more publicly strident. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Likely the most egregious attempt by haredi politics to dictate identity for Israelis occurred in May, 2008 when the authority of Israel’s official conversion court headed by NPR’s Rabbi Haim Druckman was challenged by the Chief Rabbinate’s Supreme Rabbinical Court of Appeals for his lack of rigid compliance to halacha and Who is a Jew. The Court’s three “judges” issued a 50 page verdict which overturned the conversions of 40,000 Israelis made over a ten year period. Rabbi Druckman, a highly regarded rabbinic scholar and member of the orthodox National Religious Party was accused of performing conversions that failed to meet halachic standards! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">40,000 Israelis overnight no longer “legally” Jewish, their marriages declared illegitimate, their children now bastards according to the Chief Rabbinate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Whenever the issue of Who is a Jew is raised in Israel the Diaspora responds with outrage at the legislation’s intent to deprive them of their identity, of the legitimacy of their religious practice. In response to this particular action by the Chief Rabbinate even, <o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="color: #111c24;">“</span><a href="http://forward.com/news/13347/rabbinical-court-puts-thousands-of-converts-in-leg-01823/">the main body of Modern Orthodox rabbis</a><span style="color: #111c24;">, the Rabbinical Council of America, which traditionally views the Israeli Chief Rabbinate as a definitive religious authority, issued a rare rebuke of the rabbinate’s religious court, saying in a formal statement that the court’s ruling and tone were “beyond the pale,” “create a massive desecration of God’s name” and “are a reprehensible cause of widespread conflict and animosity within the Jewish people in Israel and abroad.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Rabbi Druckman, who had reached retirement age a year earlier and only stayed on at the request of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, once the haredi parties demanded the government compliance with the Rabbinate the prime minister did what any politician wanting to remain in power would, and fired the rabbi. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">The list goes on. In January, 2016, in an effort to satisfy Diaspora demands that the Western Wall be available for prayer by all Jews, the Knesset passed legislation setting aside a small area of the Wall, the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Robinson’s Arch,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"> for “pluralistic” prayer. Its passage was followed in December, a month before enactment, by a bill introduced by Shas to block use of any part of the Wall to non-orthodox prayer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“The legislation would </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Bill-criminalizing-progressive-prayer-at-Kotel-hard-to-stop-477265"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">criminalize</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> anyone participating in progressive prayer services at the Western Wall, including the Robinson’s Arch area, who would be liable to prison sentences and hefty fines.” [</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">It is recognized that the bill will be] “</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">a disaster abroad (the Diaspora) but it’s a necessity here… You can’t have a right-wing prime minister without the haredim” said the official.” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">*****<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">At what price political expediency? Israel was created by the Diaspora in response to antisemitism following the Emancipation of the Jews, particularly in the 19<sup>th</sup> century. Political antisemitism, the West’s reaction to including Jews in society, was the background to the election of National Socialism and the murder of our six million. As we look around today can we say antisemitism is no longer? Are Jews in the US confident that their security is assured by the legal machinery upon which they place their faith? FBI statistics demonstrate that Jews are targeted four times more frequently (60%) than our closest neighbor in persecution, Muslims (14%). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Regardless of how America’s new president turns out, whether he sympathizes or rejects them, Donald Trump’s populist appeal served as a magnet for radical-right fringe elements who identify as racist and antisemitic. And for Jews, barely 70 years since Auschwitz and aware even as denying the Holocaust as evolved from two-thousand years of persecution inspired by anti-Judaism and Judeophobia are understandably skittish, concerned that no country, not even their own, may turn out to be exceptional. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And what if the unthinkable actually does occur, that Jews in the United States at some point in the future are threatened as Jews for centuries, as happened in Germany? How will they view their options? Israel will, as countless times since 1948 encourage and accept all as choose to come. But how many, viewing Israel represented by Who is a Jew, may hesitate and, as German Jews who hesitated before them, how many will be lost?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This is the issue before Israeli leaders, whether to adhere to its obligations as the expression of its Zionist identity as welcoming to all Jews refuge, or to continue to play the coalition shuffle of choosing anti-Zionist haredi parties because the political cost is less than the demands of political compromise with opposition secular parties. Commitment to Zionist ideals, or to selfish and transient political rewards? </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-65387234349793792422017-07-14T14:11:00.000-07:002017-07-14T14:11:11.006-07:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #2a2e2e; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.5333px;">The Battle for Identity, Israel: Zionist or anti-Zionist?</span></b></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #2a2e2e; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 16.1px;">Yishai Fleisher is a well known Zionist and advocate for Israel. In today’s <b>Jerusalem Post </b>he provides an article with the evocative title, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Two-Jewish-nations-one-flag-499655" style="color: #1155cc;">Two Jewish Nations, One Flag</a>, which suggested a commonality in outlook between he and I. Yet immediately below the title he frames the issue as now within Israel but rather, “the greatest divide in the Jewish world today is between <i>American Jewry and Israeli Jewry."</i> As if American Jewry rather than Israel politicians was responsible for the growing divide.</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #2a2e2e; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 16.1px;">Follows in my response to Yishai regarding “the divide” as seen by this Diaspora Zionist.</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #2a2e2e; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 16.1px;">Likely Yishai, you and I are not far apart in our overall thinking as Zionists except that I am still in Galut, and you, from the same Galut, live in Israel. By the title of your article, I was certain that our view on the issue of “two bars and a star” also coincided but not so. I won't discuss ZIONISM as ideology, Israel as the realization of Diaspora Jews efforts to create the state of the Jews since you are likely as aware as I of those efforts. As you, I too am concerned at Herzl's warning that given the opportunity most in the Diaspora would long have voluntarily assimilated. But as he also said, and as the Holocaust taught more starkly than ever in history, even “assimilation” provides for Jewish survival. And it is this that demands that Israel remains true to the primary reason Pinsker and Herzl, two secular Jews, realized the need, and a century of Diaspora effort has created and supported the state of the Jews. Put bluntly, Yishai, whether or not Jews in the United States retain their Zionist, indeed their Jewish identity, in order to continue to serve its obligations to the Jewish people it must hold sacred the state’s definition of who is a Jew, the Law of Return and its 1970 “grandparent” amendment. As recent decisions by the present government indicate, backtracking on the Kotel agreement and, for identity purposes, promoting legislation enacting the decades-long struggle over an Halachic definition for Who is a Jew. With the recent passage of legislation ceding full state authority to the Rabbinate over conversion, the struggle over Who is a Jew appears all but over.</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #2a2e2e; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 16.1px;">The point is that Israel is moving from "drift" to "accelerate" away from Zionism and its obligations and responsibilities to and for the Diaspora. And the reason is political expediency. Far easier and less expensive to provide Orthodox political parties with an anti-Zionist agenda largesse than to compromise with opposition secular Zionist parties and cede a measure of power. Not only does the arrangement result in protest among Israel’s secular majority seeing the minority benefit at their expense, but the Diaspora increasingly sees Israel increasingly distancing herself, becoming insular and unfriendly. No sooner had news of the government’s retreat from the Wall agreement; immediately following news regarding the government caving to Rabbinate authority over Who is a Jew the Rabbinate released its "Blacklist of the 160 rabbis”! Chutzpah encouraged by not just the present government capitulations, but decades previous. Except this time the Diaspora is pushing back: “Include me also on the black list” rabbis of all streams, including US Orthodox are challenging. The honor is the Diaspora denying Rabbinate authority over life outside Israel!</span></div>
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David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-42619968136526910452017-07-10T11:49:00.000-07:002017-07-10T11:49:36.933-07:00<div class="m5993335054875545573gmail-msonospacing" style="background: white; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 18pt;">A Discussion between a Zionist and a Holocaust Denier<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“As long as we’re playing with racism and stereotypes, where do Jews rank in the greed and power scale? Or the bad landlord scale? Or the cause of social inequality, war and exploitation of lesser people scale?” </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">(Michael Santomauro)<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In December, 2010, Marc Tracy wrote a review of Ruth Franklin’s novel <i>Freedom</i> which appeared in the on-line periodical, Tablet.<i> </i>The review inspired a lively exchange between readers, among whom was New York Holocaust Denier, Michael Santomauro. What follows is the unedited six-day exchange between the Denier and the Zionist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/" target="_blank">Michael Santomauro</a> says:</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-331432" target="_blank">Dec 2, 2010 at 3:13 PM</a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="mailto:ReporterNotebook@gmail.com" target="_blank">ReporterNotebook@gmail.com</a><span style="color: #333333;"><br />Call anytime:</span><a href="tel:(917)%20974-6367" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">917-974-6367</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">What sort of TRUTH is it that crushes the freedom to seek the truth? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Folks,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">The bottom line is that the Holocaust is claimed to be a historical event like the Civil War or the New Deal and therefore writing about it should be subject to the same standards of historiography. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">When Franklin says of Primo Levi’s Auschwitz memoir that it ”underwent a process of fictionalization” she should have said that he decided to pack his rather mundane experience in the German concentration camp with a bunch of fantastic lies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">The same can be said about Elie Wiesel, who she says of his book ”Night” that its ”poetic austerity comes at the expense of literal truth”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Not a single memoir of the Holocaust or as a matter of fact not a single historical study of the Holocaust by establishment historians can withstand the cross examinations of Revisionist historians. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">If you doubt this remember what Wiesel said “some things that never happened are true and some things that happened are not true ”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">And one more thing: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">I wish to express my outrage that the Holocaust, unlike any other historical event, is not subject to critical revisionist investigation. Furthermore, I deplore the fact that many so-called democratic states have laws that criminalize public doubting of the Holocaust. It is my position that the veracity of Holocaust assertions should be determined in the marketplace of scholarly discourse and not in our legislatures bodies and courthouses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Let’s get rid of Holocaust denial laws in Israel and 16 other nations. That have been instituted in Israel in 1986 and for the other 16 nations since 1990. Decades after the event. Why? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">What sort of Truth is it that crushes the freedom to seek the truth? </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><b>David Turner</b></a><b> <span style="color: #333333;">says:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-331719" target="_blank">Dec 2, 2010 at 4:56 PM</a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">In defending the pursuit of historical veracity through what he describes as an unbiased inquiry into the Holocaust, Michael Santomauro fails to distinguish between Holocaust inquiry and Holocaust denial. The first is an effort to marshal available facts in service of creating as “objectively” as possible, a past event. The second is to select from the available facts and, where absent, to extrapolate “facts” in order to present a predetermined ideological outcome. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Holocaust Denial takes many forms, represents various purposes. Some use it as a form of schadenfreude, the joy of creating and seeing others suffer. Some use it as a defense of their religion from the obvious part that millennia of Christian anti-Judaism played as foundation and inspiration to the crime. But such representations are not “history,” are not valid historical enquiry. Their purpose is not to describe factually, but to promote or defend a political or social position. And this is polemic, not history. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">There are many volumes relating the prehistory of the Holocaust, the event itself and its significance for the future with which I am in sharp disagreement. But I do not for that reason deny their authors the right to the study and presentation of their views. Nor are laws criminalizing Holocaust Denial or any other form of incitement against a minority directed at independent scholarship, even when the agenda is ideologically revisionist. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">You reason well, Mike. But you confuse <i>your </i>facts with <i>the </i>Facts<i>. </i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/" target="_blank"><b>Michael Santomauro</b></a><b><span style="color: #333333;"> says:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-333200" target="_blank">Dec 3, 2010 at 3:20 AM</a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Dear David Turner, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">The Holocaust narrative reads like a conspiracy not Holocaust Revisionism! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Preeminent Holocaust expert Raul Hilberg summarized his thesis in 1983 before an audience of nearly 2,700 at Avery Fischer Hall in New York City: the entire German policy for the physical destruction of the Jews was to be explained by mind reading! No document attesting to this criminal policy could be found, because no such document existed. For several years, the entire German bureaucratic machinery operated through a kind of telepathy. As Hilberg put it:</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">“But what began in 1941 was a process of destruction not planned in advance, not organized centrally by any agency. There was no blueprint and there was no budget for destructive measures. They [these measures] were taken step by step, one step at a time. Thus came about not so much a plan being carried out, but an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus — mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Let us note again those final words: “an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus — mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">In his 1985 “revised and definitive” edition of his book, in it, the University of Vermont professor did not use the expression “consensus” or “mind reading.” And yet he wrote: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">“In the final analysis, the destruction of the Jews was not so much a product of laws and commands as it was a matter of spirit, of shared comprehension, of consonance and synchronization.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">I refuse to believe that which is not believable. I refuse to believe in the incredible. I refuse to believe in what Hilberg himself calls “an incredible meeting of minds.” I refuse to believe in mind reading or telepathy, just as I refuse to believe in the intervention of the Holy Ghost or in spontaneous generation. I take exception to any historical thesis, any system of historical explanation, based on such hare-brained notions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><b>David Turner</b></a><b> <span style="color: #333333;">says:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-334240" target="_blank"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #1155cc;">Dec 3, 2010 at 10:17 AM</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Well, Mike, whether or not there was a plan or blueprint, whether or not the bureaucrats from Himmler on down got the message via telepathy, the evidence of Buchenwald and Auschwitz remains; the roll of Jews previously resident of Germany and France and Holland and Romania and Poland who vanished during the course of the Holocaust is also evidence of the event. Your position is based on ideology, not fact. It’s a form of “wishful thinking,” perhaps not that the Jews whose fate you dismiss as fancy were indeed victims of the West’s “final,” if incomplete solution to their Jewish Problem, but perhaps the adolescent joy of discovery of a flaw, the missing blueprint, that can be exploited to demonstrate to self and other your own superior insight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">In point of fact, Hitler wrote multiple times of his desire to murder the Jews, to erase the entire people (of course he used terms like parasite, vermin and bacillus) from the planet at least as far back as writing Mein Kampf in his jail cell. Interviewed in that cell by Josef Hell he said, “Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews. As soon as I have the power to do so, I will have gallows built in rows – at the Marienplatz in Munich, for example – as many as traffic allows. Then the Jews will be hanged indiscriminately, and they will remain hanging until they stink; they will hang there as long as the principles of hygiene permit. As soon as they have been untied, the next batch will be strung up, and so on down the line, until the last Jew in Munich has been exterminated. Other cities will follow suit, precisely in this fashion, until all Germany has been completely cleansed of Jews.” Of course this was 1922, before he was elected chancellor, before such primitive and time-consuming instruments of murder as the gallows was replaced by the efficient dispatch of life and remains through the application of Hitler’s idol Henry Ford’s assembly line at Auschwitz. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">The evidence, the material evidence remains there, Mike. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">The one piece of “evidence” you, and others of your thinking hang on is that we have not yet uncovered the “blueprint.” As if Germany would have admitted in writing that it was murdering the Jews! And who needed a roadmap or order; the Holocaust was quite content to progress “intuitively,” the blueprint already laid out by the fuehrer decades earlier. Are the battle plans for a war written in advance? The carnage proceeds at its own pace, advantages recognized and exploited or not. There is never a definitive “blueprint,” just the intention expressed by leadership to march. Why should the War Against the Jews be judged differently? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Speaking before SS officers a Poznan, Poland in 1943, Himmler stated that for which no blueprint existed: “…we have never conversed about it amongst ourselves, never spoken about it… I am talking about the “Jewish evacuation”: the extermination of the Jewish people. It is one of those things that is easily said. “The Jewish people is being exterminated,” every Party member will tell you, “perfectly clear, it’s part of our plans, we’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating them, ha!, a small matter.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/" target="_blank"><b>Michael Santomauro</b></a><b> <span style="color: #333333;">says:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-334453" target="_blank">Dec 3, 2010 at 12:01 PM</a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Dear David Turner,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">At the end of the Second World War, the Allies confiscated a tremendous quantity of German documents dealing with Germany’s wartime Jewish policy, which was sometimes referred to as the “final solution.” But not a single German document has ever been found that orders or even refers to an extermination program. To the contrary, the documents clearly show that the German ‘final solution’ policy was one of emigration and deportation, not extermination. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Moreover, there is no documentary evidence that Adolf Hitler ever gave an order to exterminate the Jews, or that he knew of any extermination program. Instead, the record shows that the German leader wanted the Jews to leave Europe, by emigration if possible and by deportation if necessary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Contrary to the popular propaganda image, the wartime German authorities were concerned about the high death rate in the concentration camps due to disease, and took measures to prevent deaths among the inmates. From a directive dated December 28, 1942, from the head of the SS camp administration office to all the German concentration camps, including Auschwitz. It sharply criticized the high death rate of inmates due to disease, and ordered that “camp physicians must use all means at their disposal to significantly reduce the death rate in the various camps.” Furthermore, it ordered: “The camp doctors must supervise more often than in the past the nutrition of the prisoners and, in cooperation with the administration, submit improvement recommendations to the camp commandants …” Finally, the directive stressed, “The Reichsführer SS [Himmler] has ordered that the death rate absolutely must be reduced.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">At one time, it was seriously claimed that the Germans exterminated Jews with electricity and steam, and that they manufactured soap from Jewish corpses. At Nuremberg, the United States charged that the Germans killed Jews at Treblinka, not in gas chambers, as is now claimed, but by steaming them to death. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">These bizarre stories have also been quietly abandoned in recent years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">In April 1990, Israeli historians conceded that the Germans did not manufacture bars of soap from the bodies of murdered Jews — contrary to what had been alleged for years in countless periodicals and supposedly authoritative history texts. If this story is not true, one might reasonably ask, how then did it ever get started? Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer had a ready answer. He charged that the Nazis invented it. In fact, this particular fable was first widely circulated in 1942 by the World Jewish Congress, and especially by its president, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Peace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><b>David Turner</b></a><b> <span style="color: #333333;">says:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-334696" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Dec 3, 2010 at 1:33 PM</span></a> </div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">I have already suggested, Michael, that I do not read your comments as from the more typical Holocaust Denial lunatic fringe. Indeed, you sound reasonable and well-educated… in the documents that serve your pursuit. Nor do I attack your right to pursue your studies as they affirm your beliefs. Nor do I reject most of the facts you marshal in defense of your thesis. The facts are generally correct, if not viewed within the actual process of the Holocaust. While there were beastly atrocities occurring in most ghettos, several were administered by officers whose approach seems out of sync with an outcome such as extermination. In fact the record of these more “humane” commandants was more concerned for preserving their wards as filling a labor shortage serving German war aims. Not exactly a humanitarian gesture. Von Braun likewise made efforts to keep his Jewish slaves alive as long as possible in pursuit of developing the super weapons that, had the war lasted a bit longer, might have ended the war differently. And then there might not be a Jew around today to respond to Deniers and Revisionists. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">As far as the legend of Jews turned into soap goes, again your facts are OK, but context is, again, everything. Rabbi Weiss was an ocean away, subject to rumor no less than any person a continent away. The rumor of people into soap was actually born during the First World War when, if memory serves, the British and French used the lie as a propaganda instrument against the Germans. Considering the barbarism of the Holocaust, it is no stretch to suspect that the Germans were cleaning the stench of burned Jews with soap manufactured from their ashes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Have you read my earlier quotes by Hitler in 1922, and Himmler in 1943? Himmler openly referred to the “secret” operation to “exterminate” the Jews: “The Jewish people is being exterminated, every Party member will tell you ‘perfectly clear,’ it’s part of our plans, we’re eliminating the Jews, EXTERMINATING THEM, ha!, a small matter.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/" target="_blank"><b>Michael Santomauro</b></a><b> says:</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-338205" target="_blank">Dec 4, 2010, at 9:07 AM</a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Dear David Turner,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Link for the speech in question:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.codoh.com/incon/inconhh.html" target="_blank">http://www.codoh.com/incon/inconhh.html</a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Excerpt from intro: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Reading Himmler’s speech in its entirety, rather than the usual out-of-context quotations, results in a new level of understanding. Brief, out-of-context quotations have been used to support the orthodox Holocaust story since the end of the Second World War. For example, Lucy Dawidowicz cited the Himmler speech in her book, The War Against the Jews 1933-1945. She reproduced however only 197 of the more than 24,000 words and these with a translation which directly supports her thesis. Dawidowicz is not alone in the misleading use of the Posen speech. Gerald Reitlinger, in his volume, The Final Solution also quotes from the Posen speech. Reitlinger reproduces 205 of the 24,000 words. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Carlos Porter has also provided interesting insights in his translation of the various controversial terms used by Himmler: ausrotten, ausmerzen, umbringen and totschlagen. Besides his translation of these German terms, Porter shows that all of these terms are used multiple times during the speech and that each is used at least once in a figurative sense. The less suspicious phrases in which these terms are used are never quoted in the traditional literature. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Many of those who accept the orthodox version of the Holocaust story refuse to accept Porter’s translation of Ausrottung, and the other terms which are typically translated to mean extermination. Porter’s translation shows that there can be a benign interpretation of these words, especially when taken within the context of the entire speech. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">In 1993, Robert Wolfe, supervisory archivist for captured German records at the National Archives admitted that a more precise translation of Ausrottung would be extirpation or tearing up by the roots. Wolfe also pointed out that in Himmler’s handwritten notes for the speech, that Himmler used the term, Judenevakuierung, or evacuation of the Jews, not killing. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><b>David Turner</b></a><b> <span style="color: #333333;">says:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-339767" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Dec 4, 2010 at 4:50 PM</span></a> </div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Mike, as I said earlier, I recognize that, for whatever reason, you are a serious student of the mass murder of my people on the European sub-continent. Your observations are useful as a caution to myself regarding accepting one or another translation from a foreign language. I am certainly aware of the problem in discussing Christian scripture, although while the standard of precision we might prefer can never be achieved word for word, still intent can be approximated from context. In the case of Matthew, for example, “his blood on our heads, and those of our children (from memory, not from text)” may or not have translated exactly from the original Greek or Aramaic (we can only rely on multiple rewrites over the first fifteen hundred years even for the present texts, and you know how meaning changes the original from the whisper-circle experiments). But whether or not the words are accurate, the meaning in context is suggestive. And that, regarding the gospels and other “original” texts, has resulted in what one scholar estimates is the murder of one of every two Jews born in the past thousand years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">As regards the Himmler speech, I have read it in entirety and although some words may have multiple possible meanings, the context and intent none-the-less refers to the systematic elimination of all Jews whom his soldiers were able to get their hands on. Was this originally the plan, as his words imply or a progressive elimination of options leading to their disappearance? Does it matter? The fact is that between 1941 and 1945 roughly six million Jews ceased to exist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">You and I can quibble back and forth over ideas, something I find not without value. But we are not likely ever to agree. And the reason is that the Holocaust for you is a topic of interest, an intellectual challenge. For me the Holocaust is a stark reminder of how tenuous my existence is in Diaspora that has murdered Jews for two millennia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">The Holocaust was only the most recent attempt to solve the West’s Jewish Problem. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/" target="_blank"><b>Michael Santomauro</b></a> <b><span style="color: #333333;">says: </span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-346810" target="_blank">Dec 6, 2010 at 10:08 AM</a> </div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Dear David Turner, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Thank you for your input. In his 1988 book, Jewish Professor Arno Mayer calls for “excavations at the killing sites and in their immediate environs” to determine more about the gas chambers. In fact, such forensic studies have been made. The first was conducted in 1988 by American execution equipment consultant, Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. [note added July 10, 2017: a known Holocaust denier, Leuchter’s “evidence” was part of David Irving’s failed defense in the libel case, Irving V Lipstadt, 2000] He carried out an on-site forensic examination of the alleged gas chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek to determine if they could have been used to kill people as claimed. After a careful study of the alleged killing facilities, Leuchter concluded that the sites were not used, and could not have been used, as homicidal gas chambers. Furthermore, an analysis of samples taken by Leuchter from the walls and floors of the alleged gas chambers showed either no or minuscule traces of cyanide compound, from the active ingredient of Zyklon B, the pesticide allegedly used to murder Jews at Auschwitz. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">A confidential forensic examination (and subsequent report) commissioned by the Auschwitz State Museum and conducted by Institute of Forensic Research in Krakow has confirmed Leuchter’s finding that minimal or no traces of cyanide compound can be found in the sites alleged to have been gas chambers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">The significance of this is evident when the results of the forensic examination of the alleged homicidal gas chambers are compared with the results of the examination of the Auschwitz disinfestation facilities, where Zyklon B was used to delouse mattresses and clothing. Whereas no or only trace amounts of cyanide were found in the alleged homicidal gas chambers, massive traces of cyanide were found in the walls and floor in the camp’s disinfestation gas chambers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14.0pt;">An aside to another responder:<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><b>David Turner</b></a> <b><span style="color: #333333;">says: </span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-346865" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Dec 6, 2010 at 10:28 AM</span></a> </div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Thank you, Leucippe. What appears above is a debate between two persons with opposite expressions (I cannot speak for Mr. Santomauro’s motives) of an issue important, perhaps central to Jewish identity and future survival. I hope it helped clarify both sides of the issue for others not that familiar with the challenge to the reality of the Holocaust, the denial by some that the event ever occurred; or if it did, was greatly exaggerated, manipulated by the Jews for some purpose or other. Shades of the Protocols! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">This is not the place to challenge Holocaust Denial; it takes many forms and reflects a range of motives from an effort to defend Christianity as inspiration and precedent, to the obvious provocation of the open antisemite. Neither is to be taken seriously as both, whether through subtlety born of self-deception, or willful polemic, fall well outside universally accepted norms of historical discussion. My debate with Santomauro above, his references to a missing “smoking gun,” the absence of a document by Hitler “ordering” or providing a “blueprint” for the Holocaust, while ignoring the existing record of writings, speeches and interviews precisely stating Hitler’s intentions, for example his 1922 jail cell interview, “Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews!”; or Himmler’s 1943 Poznan speech to his SS officers, “every Party member will tell you, we’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating them. Ha, a small matter!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">As regards the Himmler speech Mr. Santomauro tried blurring it’s obvious meaning through the subterfuge of mistranslation. Of course the speech was a translation, and of course individual words can be translated slightly differently. But the meaning comes through not by the weight of its individual words, but by its context. And by context Himmler’s meaning is as clear in 1943 as was Hitler’s in 1922.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><b>David Turner</b></a> <b><span style="color: #333333;">says:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-346922" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Dec 6, 2010 at 10:55 AM</span></a> </div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Sorry Mike, raising the Zyklon B issue demeans, not promotes your efforts. The means of murder are, at best, a side issue. In fact later studies demonstrated that the results you refer to were, to be generous, in error. But again, this is a bogus issue. You fail to convince based on arguing from texts, and fail also by this detour. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Where previously I reserved judgment on your motives, perhaps a misguided history buff who joyfully “discovered” what he felt a flaw in historical process, you now emerge from the closet fully regaled. What is it about provoking Jews that motivates you? Is it the effort at getting a rise from us, or just the reaching out of the lonely among others, striving for identity and affirmation?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/" target="_blank"><b>Michael Santomauro</b></a><b><span style="color: #333333;"> says:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-347081" target="_blank">Dec 6, 2010 at 12:17 PM</a> </div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Dear David Turner, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">As I stated before: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">“I refuse to believe that which is not believable. I refuse to believe in the incredible. I refuse to believe in what Hilberg himself calls “an incredible meeting of minds.” I refuse to believe in mind reading or telepathy, just as I refuse to believe in the intervention of the Holy Ghost or in spontaneous generation. I take exception to any historical thesis, any system of historical explanation, based on such hare-brained notions.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Peace. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><b>David Turner</b></a> <b><span style="color: #333333;">says:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-348270" target="_blank">Dec 6, 2010 at 7:38 PM</a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">So why is the Holocaust the object of your disbelief? Why are we Jews so important in your life? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/" target="_blank"><b>Michael Santomauro</b></a> <b><span style="color: #333333;">says: <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-352946" target="_blank">Dec 7, 2010 at 8:00 PM</a> </div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Dear David Turner, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Thank you for asking the question. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Most of us are mentally trapped to think Jewish. Actually, it is safe to say that virtually every mainstream publication or or other type of media organ is “nothing more than a screen to present chosen views.” The great battle over the last century has been a battle for the mind of the Western peoples, i.e., non-Jewish Euros. The chosen won it by acquiring control over essentially the complete mainstream news, information, education and entertainment media of every type, and using that control to infuse and disseminate their message, agenda and worldview, their way of thinking, or rather the way they want us to think. Since at least the 1960s this campaign has been effectively complete. Since then they have shaped and controlled the minds of all but a seeming few of us in varying degree with almost no opposition or competition from any alternative worldview. So now most of us are mentally trapped in the box the chosen have made for us, which we have lived in all our lives. Only a few have managed to avoid it or escape it, or to even sometimes see outside of it, and so actually “think outside of the (Jewish) box.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">The Holocaust is often treated with reverence, and as a central event of world history. For many Jews, says Rabbi Michael Goldberg, a Jewish author and religious leader, the “veneration” of the Holocaust has become a new religion. “And as with any organized church,” he adds, “this Holocaust cult has its own tenets of faith, rites, and shrines.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Two well-known Jewish writers, Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab, pointed out in their 1995 book, Jews and the New American Scene: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">“During the last three decades Jews [in the United States] have made up 50 percent of the top two hundred intellectuals… 20 percent of professors at the leading universities … 40 percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington … 59 percent of the directors, writers and producers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">This intimidating power is not a new phenomenon but has long been an important factor in American life. In 1972, during a private White House meeting, President Richard Nixon and the Rev. Billy Graham spoke frankly about the Jewish grip on the media. “This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain,” said Graham, the nation’s best-known Christian evangelist. “You believe that?,” Nixon responded. “Yes, sir,” said Graham. “Oh, boy,” replied Nixon. “So do I. I can’t ever say that, but I believe it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">In 1978, Jewish American scholar Alfred M. Lilienthal wrote in his detailed study, The Zionist Connection: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">“How has the Zionist will been imposed on the American people?… It is the Jewish connection, the tribal solidarity among themselves and the amazing pull on non-Jews, that has molded this unprecedented power … The Jewish connection covers all areas and reaches every level. Most Americans may not even sense this gigantic effort, but there is scarcely a Jew who is not touched by its tentacles.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">To sum up: Jews wield immense power and influence in the United States. The “Jewish lobby” is a decisive factor in US support for Israel. Jewish-Zionist interests are not identical to American interests. In fact, they often conflict. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">As long as the “very powerful” Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the Jewish-Zionist domination of the US political system and the American media, the Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the Israeli threat to peace, and the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><b>David Turner</b></a><b> says:</b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-353756" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Dec 7, 2010 at 11:13 PM</span></a> </div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Well, Mike, you’ve redeemed yourself in my mind. For a moment I thought you were quitting with that Zyklon B addendum. I appreciate you coming completely out of the closet, putting aside the non-issue of freedom of speech, since your repeated appearance in this vehicle of the (for real) Jewish media certainly provides even you a forum to air your decidedly from the start anti-Jewish point of view. You quote freely from Jewish sources to “prove” your point but, if you don’t mind my saying, you cherry pick and distort by your selections. Wiesel, who admitted the nightmare too unimaginable to present as anything than in a fictive form certainly was not saying, as you would have it, that the Holocaust was a creation of imagination. Likewise that since no specific order or blueprint has yet been discovered, that the process by which the Holocaust unfolded was as if by telepathy. Again, the closest document I, for one, am aware of was the Himmler Poznan speech, which you choose to nit-pick the translation to suit your purposes but, I suggest, any unbiased reader in the German or English translation, would have little difficulty understanding as a full admission that Germany from Hitler on down was fully aware of the program as full and systematic eradication of Jewish existence, if possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">The one piece of evidence for a “Jewish Conspiracy” that you do point at, relating to Jewish achievement in the United States again, to the eyes of a dispassionate non-Jew might evoke envy but, since the majority of graduates from the universities are non-Jews, and the institutions themselves, and particularly the “ivy leagues” are or were originally Christian in origin; well, I agree, in the 200 years since our “emancipation” Jews have proportionately contributed more artists, scientists, professors, and overall Nobel laureates than the general public, in all lands of the Diaspora. In fact, it has been assumed that had Germany not destroyed their Jews they would have won the war. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/" target="_blank"><b>Michael Santomauro</b></a> <b><span style="color: #333333;">says:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-355885" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Dec 8, 2010 at 11:22 AM</span></a> </div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Dear David Turner,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Remember the New York magazine cover story: “The Jewish Brain: Are Jew’s smarter?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/culture/features/1478" target="_blank">http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/culture/features/1478</a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Oct. 19, 2005<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><br />Re: Are Jews Smarter? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Dear Ms. Senior: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Why is it okay for white Jews (Ashkenazim) to sub-divide themselves from the Sephardic lower IQ? (Forty-five percent of Israel’s population has the Sephardic IQ of 88.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">And it is not okay for other White ethnics to be able to do the same when reporting IQ scores? For example, at the very minimum, it would show Northern and Western Europeans to be comparable if not slightly higher than the Jewish-white IQ, when you eliminate the Eastern European IQ. In some categories the European-White IQ is way higher, such as in spatial reasoning, even for all White ethnics including the Eastern European. This is rarely reported in the mass media. I wonder why? It reminds me of a joke from the Jewish comedian David Steinberg, who is married to an Italian-Catholic: “Whenever I go to family gatherings, the Jewish side breaks things, and the Italian side fixes them!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">In folk psychology and folk sociology, when it comes to E. Q., even my Jewish supremacist acquaintances and friends will think they have been culturally short changed, thinking of themselves as an unhappy lot. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">In aesthetics Jews “seem” to have an inferiority complex when it comes to physical aptitude, which I have argued with my Jewish friends, is absolutely uncalled for! For instance, in “folk talk,” my Jewish girlfriends believe what is often said (even by Bobby Fischer) about Jewish men in the “below the belt” department, that they have been short-changed from all that inbreeding. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">And what about Jewish women? Again, referring to David Steinberg’s promulgation of the joke: “What moves more Jell-O or Jewish women in bed”. The rate of Jewish men running away to marry “shiksa’s” for the under 35 age category is as high as 35-50%, depending on which data you want to embrace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Are we to make a correlation from any of this? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">The point being, it is hard to define what is a “Jewish brain” in the secular world. You mention the high percentage of Jewish Nobel Prize winners since its inception in 1901, yet about two-thirds of the Jewish winners come from inter-faith/inter-ethnic backgrounds. For centuries before 1901, the portion of Jewish contributions to the high sciences is almost void. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">To refer to chess master Bobby Fischer (another one of those 1/2 Jews), is slanderous to Jews. Your readers should be aware that he hates Jews with a fervent passion, and blames virtually any bad that is happening in the world on organized Jewry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">You wrote: “Of course, there’s another side to this shining coin. Jewish cleverness has also been an enduring feature of anti-Semitic paranoia.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">The implication here for your readers misunderstanding is that anti-Semitism is the result of Jewish intellect. Historically it has been as a result of resource competition, belief in a moral and intellectual superiority and a fierce policy of non assimilation with the host countries which initially offered you admittance with friendliness. Anti-Semitism is not in any way a mental illness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Western Civilization is a European-white accomplishment and Judaism has always been an appendage. Not the other way around. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">We are a better world today because Western Civilization took the road to Athens over the road to Jerusalem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">If we had a proper scientific study involving IQ tests that are not skewed to fit one group in particular (by, for example, including musical intelligence tests that are currently excluded because some people “don’t believe in” musical intelligence) then all this Jewish intellectual narcissism would disappear up its own arsehole. Which is precisely why we will never see such a thing, for it would be truly “anti-Semitic”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">As long as we’re playing with racism and stereotypes, where do Jews rank in the greed and power scale? Or the bad landlord scale? Or the cause of social inequality, war and exploitation of lesser people scale? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">One last thing, it’s too much of a reach to think that Charlemagne “lured” Jews there to lend money. Give me a break! </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Peace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><b>David Turner</b></a> <b><span style="color: #333333;">says:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-357091" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Dec 8, 2010 at 3:10 PM</span></a><span style="color: #333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Apparently you sent me this latest in response to my observation regarding the contribution of Jews to Western society over the past century or so. I did not mean to offend or threaten; in fact mine was only an observation in response to your earlier comments. But again your facts appear, as earlier, strongly colored by your ideology. I am not aware that the skew towards Jewish recipients of the Nobel were progeny of mixed marriages. And what if they were, that still would not explain why the far superior Aryan genes contributing to their talents would not be even more powerfully expressed in marriages between two Aryans? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">You ask, “Why is it okay for white Jews (Ashkenazim) to sub-divide themselves from the Sephardic lower IQ? (Forty-five percent of Israel’s population has the Sephardic IQ of 88.)” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">While I agree that among the ultraorthodox in Israel there is a tendency for the two groups to maintain separate communities, this is a cultural artifact reflecting their unique histories, not the superiority or bigotry you assert. And as to that reference to “the Sephardic IQ of 88,” once again, Mike, either you, or your source, is confabulating. And don’t take this wrong, I don’t mean to provoke yet another response regarding Aryan intellectual superiority, but Israelis are a world leader in technological innovation from health care to computers. And I suspect that does not result from a population where “Forty-five percent of Israel’s population has the Sephardic IQ of 88.´Unless, of course, you mean that the other 55% of Israelis are so intelligent as to… But I suspect that is not your conclusion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">And finally, Mike, you truly achieved a new low in referring to Jewish women. “What moves more Jell-O or Jewish women in bed”. Of course, as always, you are quoting a Jew, this time a comedian. And, as usual, out of context (we Jews are known to use ourselves as the butt of our jokes). But even here your biases confuse your conclusions. If Jewish women are such active partners, why would “[the] rate of Jewish men running away to marry “shiksa’s” for the under 35 age category [be] as high as 35-50%”? Again, I question your statistics. But your conclusions… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Mike, this all began as you protesting that somehow the “Jewish press” controls the freedom of you and others to explore and express your beliefs. That <b>Tablet</b>, a Jewish journal, has provided you a forum to express yourself from your historical opinions on such anti-Jewish issues as Holocaust Denial, Aryan superiority, and defamation of Jewish womanhood is clear evidence that paranoia, while sometimes justified, fails this particular test.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-25797108716530030632017-07-04T09:46:00.001-07:002017-07-04T09:47:06.027-07:00Whose Israel? Zionism, anti-Zionism and the struggle for the state<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">“This cabinet minister </span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">[Tourism Minister Levin: Jewry should have no role in internal Israeli affairs</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">]<i> </i></span><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">has no understanding of historical Zionism. Zionism brought about a Jewish state for the larger Jewish people </span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">[and the]<i> government represents more than just Israelis, </i></span><a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/key-israel-fundraiser-in-us-suspends-activities-over-western-wall-conversion-spat/"><i><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">especially in matters like this</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.”</span></i><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Introduction </span></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">In 1947 David Ben-Gurion sought to shore up support in the Yishuv in order to provide a unified front in advance of the United Nations partition vote. Whether or not the two more moderate Orthodox groups would have actively opposed the emergence of Israel minus messianic intervention, B-G apparently chose to take no chances. In exchange for their support he agreed that the Ottoman era institution, the Chief Rabbinate, would be preserved following independence. He also invited two Orthodox parties to participate in the First Knesset, to convene following statehood. Both acts have had a profound impact, both positive and negative, on the evolution of Israel ever since. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Political Orthodoxy, whether “moderate” and “Zionist” or Haredi and anti-Zionist have been dedicated to creating a legal system for Israel based on Halacha. As Orthodoxy increasingly became the “go-to” alternative to compromise between the dominant secular political parties, so also increased their influence over the secular character of the state. Increasingly over the decades Israel has drifted from a liberal democratic model to one increasingly chauvinistic and intolerant of the non-orthodox, contemptuous of the Diaspora. As Orthodoxy grows more secure in its role in Israeli politics, Israel’s Zionist identity grows increasingly weaker. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">This Introduction provides a framework for understanding this week’s government decision in favor of Haredi demands, and the government’s readiness to capitulate to those demands.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> The Kotel </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">is the remaining retainer wall to the temple destroyed by Rome in 70 CE. As such it is a powerful symbol both religious and national. In late July 2017 that symbol underscored the growing rift between Israeli politics dependent on Haredi support, and Israel’s relationship with the Diaspora. A headline appearing in JPost in which ultraorthodox politicians warn against Diaspora “meddling”: </span><a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Haredi-leaders-Dont-sit-in-US-and-interfere-with-religious-issues-here-498016"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 14.0pt;">Haredi Leaders: Don’t sit in U.S. and interfere with religion in Israel</span></a> <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">describes well the shift</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">. And when the prime minister sought to patch together a “compromise” the Rabbinate’s representatives in the Knesset, Shas and UTJ, bolted. The degree to which Israeli politics has grown dependent on the tiny and anti-Zionist Haredim appears as a plea for understanding in the prime minister’s explanation to a delegation from AIPAC. JPost reports that Netanyahu was “presented with threats from Litzman, Gafni and Deri who came to him and said they would </span><a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Shameful-day-for-Israel-as-it-freezes-plan-for-pluralistic-prayer-site-at-Kotel-497886"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">topple his coalition</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> if he didn’t cancel the Kotel deal. Without them, he has no government.” </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">In face of the crisis, several Israeli observers concluded that the reaction of American Jewish leaders to Israel was excessive. As they see it, it is the Americans who created the issue. Caroline Glick, as one example, allows that while the government had reneged on its agreement with the Diaspora regarding the Wall, that in the end “it didn’t change the status quo. <i>It just chose not to change it</i>.” And, she concedes, while that might be wrong, “</span><a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Column-One-Who-cares-about-Jewish-unity-498388"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">it doesn’t justify the vitriol</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> being leveled at the government by American Jewish leaders threatening to rethink their support for Israel.” And while I agree that representatives of Diaspora Jewry be more circumspect in considering the consequences of their words, still is Caroline’s argument wrong on two points: </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> 1. Their reaction was not regarding the prior “status quo” but about the promise by the prime minister to <i>change</i> the status quo, and;</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> 2. July 2017 was not the first protest against Israel Orthodoxy’s effort to delegitimize the status of Diaspora Jewry. Every effort by Orthodoxy over the decades to make Who is a Jew basis for civil law in Israel was met with strong protest! </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Where I do agree with Caroline is that the issue of the Kotel is more smoke than substance compared to the <i>second</i> decision of the prime minister that day. At his behest the coalition passed legislation expanding the authority of the Rabbinate over conversion: “ a </span><a href="https://www.google.co.il/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjf1vXyheXUAhXlJMAKHZNmDOsQqQIIJygAMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jpost.com%2FIsrael-News%2FPolitics-And-Diplomacy%2FContentious-haredi-conversion-bill-approved-for-passage-to-the-Knesset-497877&usg=AFQjCNHKGZGfrWJrm1A9aE53zYM1-Kradw" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">bill granting the Chief Rabbinate</span></a> <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">a total monopoly on conversion.” Should this legislation achieve final approval by the Knesset the Chief Rabbinate would have total control over Jewish identity for Israel and the underlying irritant since Orthodoxy first attempted to pass Who is a Jew will have finally have been enacted. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">In 2009 then Justice Minister </span><a href="http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1260181023097&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Yaakov Neeman</span></a> <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">promised an audience, composed of Orthodox legal scholars and the Chief Rabbis, that, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">“We will bestow upon the citizens of Israel the laws of the Torah and <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">we will turn Halacha into the binding law of the nation</span></i>… Soon, in the near future, amen.” Not even the optimistic Justice Minister could have imagined such would be achieved just eight years later, and by a secular nationalist government kowtowing to minority religious parties threatening to bolt the coalition!</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Who is a Jew, whenever raised for a vote in the Knesset, would spark immediate protest from American Jewish leaders. Should the move provide the Rabbinate the authority it seeks over conversion the debate over Who is a Jew will have been decided and Israel’s appeal in the eyes of the Diaspora and, more importantly, that when that need arises Israel’s image as inhospitable will cause potentially fatal hesitation deciding on Israel as refuge</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <b>Israel stands at a crossroads </b>regarding its Zionist trust. Will the state of the Jewish People renew its obligations to our Diaspora or, on the crucible of political expediency, abandon Zionism and its obligations to the Jewish People? It is ironic, tragic, that David Ben Gurion, secularist “father of the country” failed to appreciate the danger to the new state by his compromises with Orthodoxy. But the dream of Zionism remains its need far greater today in the wake of the Holocaust than when Pinsker and Herzl recognized the need as response to continuing antisemitism following Emancipation. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">It comes down to Israeli politicians and their parties’ willingness to compromise ideological purity for the good of the state and the Nation who will need refuge. And that need is not <i>if</i>, but <i>when</i>; whether or not today’s Diaspora is willing, or even able to appreciate the threat. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Religion does have a role in promoting Jewish identity. And the Zionist state was always intended for <i>all</i> Jews, even those who oppose on religious grounds the founding of the state not based on divine intervention. Zionism is tolerant and accepting even of such as the Neturei Karta who support Israel’s enemies against the state of the Jews. Israel was intended and created as refuge to all Jews, regardless of religious affiliation or not. The Law of Return in response to the Holocaust explicitly extends refuge also to non-Jews and their families threatened as “Jews” under the definition of the Nazi race laws. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">The Haredim, favored in Israel's political circles, are unashamedly anti-Zionist. By action and word Israel-as-refuge for the Diaspora is both anathema and threat. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">The aim of Zionism is not realized by the creation of its state. Its intent was to ensure the survival of a people who typically fail to appreciate their own state of danger (Germany following Hitler's election victory) until it’s too late. For centuries before the Holocaust, we had no means or destination of escape. Today there we have Israel. Whether appreciated or not, the Diaspora needs Israel. But when the time comes, the state of the Jews must appear welcoming, not ambivalent or, as at this moment, rejecting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Who is a Jew </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">is no less than the abnegation of the Jewish People and Zionism. It is, in the eyes of the Diaspora, rejection, a declaration of intent. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-74134791258910878692017-06-06T13:11:00.004-07:002017-06-06T13:11:49.348-07:00Donald Trump and Corporate America’s failed coup d'etat<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: center;">
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<span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; padding: 0in;">(</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">)</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Few today remember or are even aware that leading members of America’s elite, Corporate America, were busily engaged in planning to overthrow the United States government in 1933.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Among the plotters were DuPont, Goodyear, Bethlehem Steel, JP Morgan, DuPont, US Steel, General Motors, Chase Manhattan Bank, Standard</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Oil</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">and Goodyear. The plotters also included high-ranking members of the Democratic and Republican parties. “[As] the plans for a fascist plot developed, its organizers hoped to draw upon both the [American] Legion and the VFW [Veterans of Foreign Wars to a form of people’s militia, modeled on Mussolini’s</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">fascisti...”</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">(Charles Higham,</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> <i>Trading with the Enemy</i></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">) </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Chosen to lead the ill-fated coup was Marine Corp General Smedley Butler who, instead, informed the House Un-American Affairs Committee of the plot. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“In the last few weeks of the committee’s official</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">life</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">it received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country…There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.” (Report of the McCormack-Dickstein Committee, 1934) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> The continuing intentions of the plotters apparently did not die in the Congress: In 1936 ambassador to Germany William Dodd warned the president that, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“a clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime.”</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> For</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">a more complete</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">discussion of the history of relations between US interests and Nazi Germany before and during the war see Chapter 10: Corporate America and Hitler: a Love Story in my book,</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_26?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+jewish+problem+and+its+final+solution&sprefix=the+jewish+problem+and+its%2Caps%2C132&crid=2P363QAOS74UE"><i><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Jewish Problem and its Final Solution: Modernity and Destiny</span></i></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 16pt;">.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> That which Corporate America failed to achieve for America's elite in 1933 by military force it achieved at the ballot box in 2016 by the election of one of its own.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> In fulfilling his campaign promise to “Make America Great Again” President Trump filled his cabinet posts with millionaires and billionaires, some representing the same corporations implicated in the 1933</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">coup. The billionaires include Secretary of Education Besty DeVos, $5.2 Billion and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ros, $2.9 Billion. The remainder of the cabinet, beginning with</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Treaury</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Secretary Steven Mnuchin, $40 Million and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at $150 Million are all millionaires. The only non-millionaires represented are Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke: and Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin. Trailing behind is Vice President Mike Pence who, for all intents and purposes represents outsider Trump’s bridge to the Republican Party. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Not exactly a selection representative, or likely to represent the interests of the president’s wildly enthusiastic core constituents, the struggling Middle Class. In fact the two signal efforts at passing legislation in Congress to-date, Paul Ryan’s American Health Care Act and Trump’s budget plan for 2018 not only fail to promote the interests of the president’s core constituents, the middle</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">class</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">and working class, they seem intended to achieve the very opposite, to significantly harm his core constituents. As all are likely well-aware by now, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office headed by a very conservative Republican conclude that Trump(Ryan)care will result in 24-million people being eliminated from health insurance; the pre-existing conditions clause will become discretionary dependent on state funding. Costs of insurance premiums are projected to increase, and coverage for elder Americans would be reduced, cost increased. With projected cuts to Medicaid, even once-middle-class residents would be unable to pay for nursing home care. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> If the American Health Care Act intended to replace the existing Affordable Care Act does significant harm to the middle and working classes, what impact would the budget sent to Congress have on</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Trumps</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">core constituents? </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“While the proposal will reportedly leave Medicare and most of Social Security untouched—ostensibly keeping with Trump’s campaign promises—it is expected to slash some</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/scoop-trump-budget-to-slash-entitlements-by-1-7-trillion-2416931777.html"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">$1.7 trillion</span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> from other programs over the next decade, with the bulk of the savings taken from Medicaid, food stamps, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Social Security Disability program, among others.”</span><span style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Recall that quote by the president before Congress:</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> “We will provide massive tax relief for the middle class.” </span><span style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">And what of that promise? The title</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">to</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">an article appearing in</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Forbes</span></b><span style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">, not exactly a “liberal” magazine, cuts to its heart: </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 15pt;"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2017/05/04/how-can-trump-produce-the-apprentice-while-serving-as-president/#2e31a2231d0c">Trump's 'Massive' Middle-Class Tax Cuts Are Tiny Compared To Those Promised To The Rich</a></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“The large reductions in ordinary tax rates and those imposed upon business income, when coupled with the</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">elimination of the estate tax</span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">(no benefit to the middle-to-working class)-- results in truly massive cuts for the richest taxpayers in America: with annual savings of over $18,000 going to the top 5%... while the middle class will experience a 1-2% increase in after-tax income, the richest 20% will see a 6.6% rise, while the top 1% will have 14.2% more after-tax income under the Trump plan as compared to current law.” </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> And for those hoping the GOP Senate will moderate Trump’s tax relief to benefit the Middle Class, again according to Forbes, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“In their 2016 "Blueprint for Tax Reform," Ryan and Brady did indeed propose sweeping tax cuts of their own, amounting to $3.1 trillion over the next ten years… Under the GOP plan… the middle class will experience an increase in after-tax income of less than 1%, while the richest 1% will see their after-tax income rise by 13.4%. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Which raises the question, from where will the money necessary to support “tax relief” come from? </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">“</span><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/22/trump-budget-cut-social-programs-238696"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The president’s budget plan</span></a><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">calls for more than $1 trillion in cuts to a wide range of social programs with millions of beneficiaries, from farm subsidies to federal student aid. That includes a $600 billion cut to Medicaid over 10 years, despite Trump’s repeated promises on the campaign trail not to cut the program. The budget also takes an ax to the federal food stamp program and Social Security Disability Insurance.” </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> And then there are such known effective programs as meals-on-wheels, school lunches,</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">day care… According to White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, “There’s a certain philosophy wrapped up in the budget and that is — we are no longer going to measure compassion by the number of programs or the number of people on those programs… but by how many people we actually help.” Which translates to, “how many people we consider are worthy of help.” </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> During the first two-thirds of the</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">20<sup>th</sup></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">century</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">eugenics was how America measured human value. The “fit” were white and preferably of northern European extraction. The “unfit” were pretty much everybody else: non-white, poor, mentally or physically sick. Government programs promoted childbearing among the Fit, while sterilization and reservations</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">was</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">the “humane” solution for America’s “unfit.” America was unashamedly striving for</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">nationally</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">pure gene pool. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> It is clear that with the Trump presidency the United States has returned to an earlier time in its history, a time that, for the Fit, America was indeed Great! For the remainder, including Trumps “enthusiastic constituents” the new Unfit, not so great. The institutionalization of upward distribution of wealth sought by Corporate America’s failed 1933 coup d’</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">etat</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">was finally achieved bloodlessly by selling snake oil to the new Unfit facing the abyss.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-55187179663022178132015-11-28T17:48:00.001-08:002015-11-29T09:35:26.753-08:00America’s “Gospel of Democracy” meets Putin’s Realpolitik: Russia’s return in force to the Middle East<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-size: xx-small; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/171725/Egypt/Politics-/UPDATED-Egypt-plans-to-buy-large-amount-of-advance.aspx" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19.5pt;">Egypt to Buy Large Amount of Advanced
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: xx-small;"><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19.5pt;"><em>“Russian media reported
earlier that Russia may sign a deal with Egypt for the delivery of Kamov Ka-52K
helicopters. Last week the two countries signed a deal to build four
third-generation nuclear reactors in Egypt.”</em></i></span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">For more than
a decade I have described on JPost and other Israeli web-based forums the
retreat of the United States from the Middle East and the world. Since Bush
invaded Iraq and sued for peace in 2007 America has desperately sought a
graceful exit from the region. America, I concluded, would soon be replaced by
a more determined and aggressive Russia, with dire consequences for the US and
the EU.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
With 70% of the world’s oil reserves; with the Suez Canal as transit point for
global commerce; with the surrender of the region as military crossroad between
north/south, east/west: it seems beyond the ability of American politicians and
their academic advisers to see the implications of abandoning the region to
Russia. Apparently overlooked in the rush to vacate is that along with control
of the ground, Russia would also achieve its likely principal goal, control
also of the Mediterranean Sea. And, lest American policy-makers need reminding
Europe, already dependent on Russia for natural gas to heat its homes and fuel
its factories will find itself sandwiched between the Russian Navy to the south
and The Russian Army to the north. Does it really require deep strategic
imagination to appreciate that the loss of NATO will leave the United States
naked and alone, with but two oceans as buffer in a world of nuclear weapons
and intercontinental ballistic missiles? Is Isolationism a viable option in a
world which views the United States with equal measures of envy and hate?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">In an op-ed piece appearing recently in JPost,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Defeating-Islamic-State-435241"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Defeating Islamic State</span></a>,
Amitai Etzioni describes a counter-script to the general impression of the US
Government and its military. America, he insists, did not lose the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. Just the opposite, it</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">“won both wars easily and quickly, suffering few casualties and
low costs, and causing little collateral damage. Both campaigns ended up badly
once the US decided to make out of these nations<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">stable,
democratic, US-friendly regime.</span></em>" (emphasis added)</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">I
agree. It was the politicians: the White House backed by Bush’s
"yes-sir" appointees, including his defense secretary and chairman of
the Joint Chiefs who decided that the two war’s outcomes be determined not
on the field of combat but by the democratization of the invaded countries.
Etzioni is correct in describing both recent US presidents as committed to
nation-building after “America’s image.” It is this which for a decade I have
described as America’s Gospel of Democracy. Blind-sided by Ideology successive
US administrations failed to learn the lessons of serial failures of US
diplomacy at least back to Carter and Iran.</span><br />
</div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">
<br />
Whatever Bush’s true motivation for deposing Sadam Hussein, in the end he fell
back on, "providing the Iraqi people the gift of democracy.” And the
outcome was Iraq as failed state and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis.
Obama, determined to be “Not-Bush” wound up pursuing the same Bush agenda with
identical results: the failed states of Libya and Syria and hundreds of
thousands more dead Arabs. And while Obama did his best to add Egypt
to that list by ousting America’s loyal and secular ally Hosni Mubarak in favor
of an Islamist for president intent on imposing Sharia law on Egypt, in the end
it took another general to oust the Islamists and restore Egypt to secular
governance. Adding insult to injury Obama then refused to recognize the new
Egyptian president with the result that Egypt has now turned to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Russia</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>for military materiel needed in
fighting MB-inspired terrorists. Egypt is also purchasing several nuclear
reactors, a response to Obama welcoming the terror-state Iran into the nuclear
community. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<br />
It is likely that an Arab Spring and its revolutionary anti-West Islamism was an
event waiting for an opportunity. That it emerged when it did is clearly the
result America’s faith-based “diplomacy,” its stubbornly-held Gospel of
Democracy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
The single, most obvious lesson of United States-imposed regime change in the
Middle East is that not only does the American model of “liberal democracy”
fail as an option for ill-prepared states (recall it took two centuries for the
West to arrive at its present approximation of that political ideal), but most
of the world today is only recently emerging from a century and more of
western-imposed colonialism. And how many states born of that oppressive regime
even approximate the basic social stability fundamental for an “educated”
electorate? Imperialism created “states” without recognition or regard for
religious and traditional tribal distinctions. While a strong colonial military
with superior weaponry provided the appearance of “native” social tranquility,
rivalries simmered for centuries beneath that apparent tranquil surface. And so
the much heralded by the West Arab Spring; and al-Qaeda in Iraq have
metastasized into today’s “Daesh.” Amitai Etzioni' article, Defeating
Islamic State, describes the hoped for end to the terror empire. But Daesh
as seething memory of defeats past will continue to survive and evolve, to
metastasize likely into something even more brutal.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
<em><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Cultural grudges are not
soon forgotten.</span></em></span><i><span style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></span></i>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-62069675618332496962015-11-27T09:41:00.004-08:002015-11-29T09:24:44.877-08:00Response to Professor Sharkansky’s JPost blog on Jonathan Pollard: Another hero, also flawed<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I would have posted this as blog response to statements
made and issues raised in your present blog, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Blogs/Window-on-Israel/Another-hero-also-flawed-435016"><i>Another hero, also flawed</i></a>, but was
dismayed to find no response option. Which is why I decided to contact you by
email. I have rewritten parts of my response to you for readability by my blog
audience.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I recently responded to Fred Burton of Stratfor on much
of the same territory covered by you in your article so will leave that out of
my present response. You wrote: "What he [Pollard]provided to Israel
exposed US sources of information within the Soviet Union, set back US
intelligence efforts, and resulted in the death of informants." </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
To my understanding this falls into the problem of
Aldrich Ames, CIA mole and chief of East Europe who provided his masters in
Moscow the names, etc of agents known to him. “Somehow” responsibility for the
deaths of those agents, the compromise of CIA agents and methods remained
mysteriously on Pollard’s head justifying presidential inaction over the
decades to release him (remember Pollard as possible release at Wye River only
to face CIA Director George Tenant’s threat to resign should Pollard be released.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Early on, Pollard boasted about his affinity to
Israel. His supervisors should have taken notice of a man showing strong
commitments to another country and emotional instability, and reviewed his
access to sensitive material. What he provided to Israel was material that the
US would have supplied, if asked officially."</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The second issue first: What the US was NOT providing
Israel. In my discussion in the Burton/Stratfor article I responded to this
same question: why would Israel take such risks since there was in effect a Memorandum
of Understand covering intelligence sharing? The obvious answer immediately
suggests itself: the MoU was not being adhered to by elements in the US
intelligence community and, for present discussion, the Department of Defense
supervising Naval Intelligence, the agency for which Pollard was employed as analyst. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Which brings up the first part of your question regarding
the "lack" of vetting evident in the hiring of Jonathan Pollard. As
an outspoken Zionist one might have expected Jonathan Pollard to have been immediately flagged a security risk. Instead he was hired and serially promoted, increased in security clearance until his assignment to the team tasked by
NI to oversee the exchange of intelligence with Israel!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Hopefully this raises at least some doubt regarding US
motives and actions regarding Pollard, particularly when one takes into
consideration events surrounding his arrest: Irangate (for readers not familiar
with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair"></a> the term) describes a pattern of Reagan Administration <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair">criminal
activity</a> spanning several years involving the sale of arms to Iran
while using the profits to fund Nicaraguan terrorists called “Contras).” </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Why the Reagan Administration hullaballoo over Pollard
and Israel? After all, Dr. Sharkansky, as you acknowledge the United States
does, has since pre-statehood days, spied on Israel. How is reciprocal
espionage a "breach of faith" by Israel? As you certainly know, at
the time of Pollard’s arrest the CIA was running its own Israeli spy against Israel, the former IDF Major of intelligence, Yosef Amit! </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Pollard violated a pre-sentencing agreement with
respect to not talking to journalists. He spoke with Wolf Blitzer, and the
violation was instrumental in an extended sentence." </blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I agree that Pollard violated the letter of his
pre-sentence agreement. But who would have had the authority to authorize a reporter for an Israeli journal, Jerusalem
Post, access to the high security prison that housed him even as US media were denied access? Surely not the
warden! And considering that the US Government gave Blitzer access, <i>twice </i>(Blitzer expresses surprise that a second request was also approved); were you Pollard might you not at least have viewed the interview <i>approved </i>by the Justice Department? Not only was Blitzer approved by appropriate authorities to meet with the
prisoner, <i>twice</i>, but was granted “courtesies” possibly unprecedented. He was allowed to bring with him into that high security prison to interview a prisoner described as a security risk a tape recorder and camera! </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I leave aside the questions you raise regarding the
Israel Government’s role in the Pollard Affair. You are better positioned than
I, an American, to address that.</div>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-25842569670765649302015-11-27T09:38:00.002-08:002015-11-27T09:38:53.461-08:00“We felt betrayed, not only by Pollard but by Israel.” Broken Trust: The Pollard Affair<h1 align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">In an interview on <i>“the David Brinkley Show </i></span><span style="background: white; font-size: 10.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Richard Helms, director of Central Intelligence from 1966 to 1973, <i>was asked by Sam Donaldson, "Well, surely, Mr. Helms, the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>United States<span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><i>isn't spying on<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>its<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>allies,
is it?" Helms matter-of-factly replied, "</i></span><a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/11776/israel-us-spying"><span style="background: white; font-size: 10.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I certainly hope so</span></a><span style="background: white; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">.<i>"”</i></span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 10.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Several months ago Stratfor published an article by Fred Burton:<span style="color: #333333;"> </span></span><a href="https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/broken-trust-pollard-affair?login=1"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Broken Trust: The Pollard Affair</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Timed to coincide with Jonathan Pollard’s release from thirty years in
prison Stratfor chose to republish the “analysis” which, with its abundant
weaknesses should not have seen the light of day the first time. The piece is emotional
and lacking in objectivity, two qualities that are better suited for “pop
journalism” than a reputable open-source intelligence provider. Burton’s piece reads
more like “polemic”: <span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></h1>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">“Maybe
30 years is long enough to bring the former U.S. Naval Intelligence analyst to
justice. But I still vividly recall what a powerful sense of betrayal the
entire intelligence community felt... As special agents and analysts at the
intelligence services, every day we handled sensitive, classified information.
Most of us took that responsibility extremely seriously… But Jonathan Pollard
broke that trust… After he was discovered, a deep fog of anger settled over the
U.S. intelligence community. We felt betrayed, not only (or even primarily) by
Pollard but by Israel — and specifically, by the Israeli intelligence service.<span class="apple-converted-space">” <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">My primary criticism of Burton’s
starting point is his apparent naiveté, certainly unbecoming one who served
and, according to his biography, rose in the ranks of the US Defense Security
Service (DSS) and is described by Stratfor as </span></span><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">"one of the world's foremost
experts” in his field. “</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">We felt betrayed”? <i>Betrayed?</i> That any branch of US
intelligence, including that of the State Department, would be emotional
regarding the common practice of espionage between allies and enemies should,
by itself, raise questions regarding the author’s credibility and
qualifications.<o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">But back to the substance of Stratfor’s emotional and one-sided
“analysis” of Jonathan Jay Pollard’s admitted crimes and those of “the Israeli
intelligence service.<span class="apple-converted-space">” Coincidentally, even
as Pollard was spying for Israel, half a world away America’s Central
Intelligence Agency already had in place an Israeli spying for the United
States. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosef_Amit#Espionage"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Yosef Amit</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">was a former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) major who worked in intelligence
and operated agents in Arab countries. Soon after his release from the IDF Amit
was recruited by a CIA agent based at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv. Tasked with
providing highly classified information on Israeli intentions and troop
movements in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, Amit was arrested in
1986, one year after Pollard. Not only was he employed by the CIA against his
own, and far more vulnerable country, the major was also alleged to have passed
classified information to a NATO country in Europe. <o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">So much for Fred Burton’s plaintive, “After he was discovered, a deep fog
of anger settled over the U.S. intelligence community. We felt betrayed...” As former
CIA director Helms acknowledged when asked about US spying on allies, “</span><a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/11776/israel-us-spying"><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">I certainly hope so</span></a><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">.<i>” fdIt is a matter of record that</i> the United
States had been spying on the Yishuv <i>even
</i></span><a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/11776/israel-us-spying"><i><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">before it became Israel!</span></i></a><i><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">Having failed to provide a level playing field for inter-ally espionage
and limiting focus only on Israel, what follows from Burton’s article only
reinforces the rank amateurism with which he approaches his topic. Take, for
example, the following assertions:<o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">“Rather
than go through the established liaison channels, Mossad recruited Pollard and
went behind our backs to commit espionage that, at least to my knowledge and to
that of all my colleagues, we would have been open to sharing with them
anyway.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">In another incident of either poor “tradecraft” as journalist or
commitment to position sans facts Burton again demonstrates ignorance of the
facts of the Pollard Affair. Pollard was neither recruited (he volunteered) nor
was he accepted by Mossad. Any unbiased observer with even a nominal knowledge
of the Affair had to know that the Pollard operation was handled by Lakam,
Israel’s <span style="background: white;">Bureau of Scientific Relations headed
by </span>Rafi Eitan. <o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">As to: “we would have been open to sharing [intelligence] with them
anyway…” this only raises further questions regarding its author’s
qualifications in his profession; how limited his knowledge of, or interest in
the actual </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">facts</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> surrounding Israel’s decision to accept Pollard’s
offer. As Burton should know, Pollard was an analyst for Naval Intelligence, an
office under the umbrella of the Department of Defense. DOD was headed by
Caspar Weinberger widely knon to be both antisemitic and anti-Israel.
Weinberger was instrumental, for example, in the decision to provide the Saudis
AWACS battlefield control aircraft which compromised Israeli security while
having opposed the sale of advanced fighter planes to Israel.<span style="color: #333333;"> </span></span><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=trU7nY-T-4EC&pg=PA431&lpg=PA431&dq=seemed+to+go+out+of+his+way+to+oppose+Israel+on+any+issue+and+to+blame+the+Israelis+for+every+problem+in+the+Middle+East.&source=bl&ots=sEEn0_u2wF&sig=zUR-9yEzG9I5RZ9eZdLuKbl1d6E&hl=en&sa"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">According to Ollie North</span></a></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">, a close adviser to Vice
President Bush (the elder) during the years of Irangate, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<h1 align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">“[Weinberger] seemed to go out of his way to oppose Israel on
any issue and to blame the Israelis for every problem in the Middle East. In
our planning for counterterrorist operations, he apparently feared that if we
went after Palestinian terrorists, we would offend and alienate Arab
governments – particularly if we acted in cooperation with the Israelis… </span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">Weinberger’s
anti-Israel tilt was an underlying current in almost every Mideast issue.” </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">As Burton describes there </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">was</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> an agreement in force at the time between President
Reagan and Israel, a Memorandum of Agreement regarding close intelligence
sharing between Israel and the United States. Even Burton should be
hard-pressed to explain why Israel, in a trusting relationship with Reagan Administration
would risk the MOU by engaging an American Jew to spy on the US if, as Burton
assures, the MOU was working? Which beggars the question how it was that a young
and boastful Zionist, <i>employed by Naval
Intelligence,</i> would have found himself among the negotiating team tasked with
providing Israel intelligence due her under the MOU: Whatever the state of
compliance of other US intelligence agencies, there was a state of
non-compliance in Weinberger’s Defense Department. And “conveniently” Zionist
Jonathan Pollard was well-placed to observe the non-compliance. It was his
participation in the team, as Pollard explains to Blitzer in <i>Territory of Lies</i>, that led him to
approach Israel as a volunteer. <span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></h1>
<h1 align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
</h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">I responded to the Burton article when it first appeared and hoped that his
severely flawed <i>Broken Trust: The Pollard
Affair</i> would have achieved its just desserts, oblivion. Embarrassing that Stratfor,
an otherwise respected source for intelligence, would resuscitate so poorly
researched and fact-checked an article as this. At best the explanation for
Burton writing it was a deep-seated prejudice from his exposure to the Pollard Affair
as a new, naïve and impressionable “special agent” for DSS. At worst it is just
a poorly written polemic. In neither case should it have passed editorial
oversight to appear in Stratfor.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-63000822640963461812012-01-26T18:50:00.000-08:002012-01-26T18:50:09.379-08:00Antisemitism as national policy: The US Congress shuts the borders, 1923-4<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #898989; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Wednesday Jan 25, 2012</span><span style="font-size: 8.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> “Upon signing the Act, President Calvin Coolidge commented,</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">‘<a href="http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay9text.html"><span style="color: #557fa0; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">America must remain American</span></a>.’</span><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">This phrase would become the rallying cry of anti-immigration sentiment until after World War II.”</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Over the next months the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> will become the focus of my writing. This is not because I believe this country more antisemitic, is historically more aggressive in persecuting its Jewish citizens. The contrary. While the level of popular and institutional antisemitism in the U.S. roughly paralleled Europe before and during the years of National Socialism; and while the United States failed to live up to tradition as refuge when it came to Jews fleeing Auschwitz, neither did it actively participate in the systematic bloodletting that was Europe’s effort to achieve a Final Solution to the West’s enduring Jewish Problem. No, I discuss antisemitism in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region> because I happen by birth to be far more familiar with this country’s history: as I discuss the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> over the months it should not be seen as an example, but as a</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">metaphor</span><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">for western antisemitism. I firmly believe, and try to demonstrate in my writings, that the risk to Jews represented by the Diaspora has not diminished over the centuries: the Holocaust demonstrates that its mortal threat has exponentially increased.</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Introduction:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> It is a matter of historical fact and common knowledge that in the years before and during the Holocaust the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region> first limited, then barred entry to Jewish refugees, targets of <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>’s persecution and eventual murder campaign. According to the president American immigration law tied his hands. And while there were other options available had the will to rescue been present, technically <st1:place w:st="on">Roosevelt</st1:place> was correct. In the 1920’s Congress passed legislation widely understood as targeting the Jews that would only be lifted forty years later; twenty years after <st1:place w:st="on">Auschwitz</st1:place> gassed its last victims.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Jews had </span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">lived in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> since earliest colonial times. And while they faced discrimination in the past it was not until the early 1920’s, influenced by growing antisemitism and American eugenics, that discrimination took a more ominous and, for European Jewry, fateful turn.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nF0EeYzKfsk/TyIQnmvhzcI/AAAAAAAABXI/cavZbqWqkck/s1600/120124+-+reduced,+Dearborn+Independent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nF0EeYzKfsk/TyIQnmvhzcI/AAAAAAAABXI/cavZbqWqkck/s320/120124+-+reduced,+Dearborn+Independent.jpg" width="206" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Henry Ford distributed the</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span></i><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Protocols</span></i></b><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">at all dealerships across the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> His purchase of <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/19200522_Dearborn_Independent-Intl_Jew.jpg"><span style="color: #557fa0; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">The Dearborn Independent</span></a></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">allowed hit to spread antisemitism beyond the showroom.</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">“The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Restriction_League" title="Immigration Restriction League"><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Immigration Restriction League</span></a>was the first American entity associated officially with eugenics. Founded in 1894 by three recent <st1:placename w:st="on">Harvard</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> graduates, the League sought to bar what it considered inferior races from entering <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> and diluting what it saw as the superior American racial stock (upper class Northerners of Anglo-Saxon heritage).”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">League membership was a virtual who’s-who of academic luminaries and included, “A. Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard, William DeWitt Hyde, president of Bowdoin College, James T. Young, director of Wharton School and David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Between 1880 and 1923 approximately two and a half million Jews, mostly fleeing Russian pogroms, arrived in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>. In deciding the year to base the demographic profile for its Federal Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 Congress chose the census of 1890, the boundary at which Jews <i>began</i> arriving in greater numbers. The bill, “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924"><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">limited the annual number of immigrants</span></a> who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were <i>already living in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> in 1890</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">If the law sounds as if written by American eugenicists, it was. It was based directly on testimony provided by the Eugenics Record Office (ERO). “Eugenics Record Office Superintendent Harry Laughlin became the anti-immigration movement's most persuasive lobbyist... [He was appointed by the chairman of the committee writing the law their] expert eugenics agent.” By deceptive data and reasoning Laughlin fed Congress what it wanted to hear, that new immigrants were polluting <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s bloodline with “feeblemindedness, insanity, criminality, and dependency.” The resulting bill “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States#Immigration_restrictions"><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">did everything eugenicists had hoped for</span></a>... it restricted immigration from southern and eastern <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> countries to only 9% of the total. Northern and western European countries got 86% of the quota, <i>even though they made up the minority of immigrants in 1923</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">“<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924"><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Though the law's quota system</span></a> targeted immigrants based on their nation of origin rather than ethnicity or religion, Jewish immigration was a central concern… The law sharply curtailed immigration from those countries that were the homelands of the vast majority of the Jews in America, almost 75% of whom came from Russia alone.Because Eastern European immigration only became substantial in the final decades of the nineteenth century, the law's use of the population of the U.S. in 1890 as the basis for calculating quotas effectively made mass migration from Eastern Europe, the home of the vast majority of the world's Jews, impossible.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4dxOTjW74js/TyIQdIQV6cI/AAAAAAAABXA/9gwqcuoa9A0/s1600/120124+-+President+Coolidge+signs+the+immigration+act+on+the+White+House+South+Lawn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4dxOTjW74js/TyIQdIQV6cI/AAAAAAAABXA/9gwqcuoa9A0/s320/120124+-+President+Coolidge+signs+the+immigration+act+on+the+White+House+South+Lawn.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span><i style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">President Coolidge Signs the immigration act on the south lawn of the White House</span></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">(<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/CalvinCoolidgeimmigration3.jpg"><span style="color: #557fa0; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Wikipedia</span></a>)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">“<a href="http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay9text.html"><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Upon signing the Act</span></a>, President Calvin Coolidge commented, ‘<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> must remain American.’ This phrase would become the rallying cry of anti-immigration sentiment until after World War II.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">“When Hitler published Mein Kampf in 1924, he held up a foreign law as a model for his program of racial purification: <a href="http://thecounterpunch.hubpages.com/hub/The_Nazi_Connection_Eugenics__American_Racism__and_German_National_Socialism"><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">The U.S. Immigration Restriction Act of 1924</span></a>… When the Nazis took power in 1933, they installed a program of eugenics--the attempted "improvement" of the population through forced sterilization and marriage controls--that consciously drew on the U.S. example... Small wonder that the Nazi laws led one eugenics activist in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Virginia</st1:place></st1:state> to complain, "The Germans are beating us at our own game."”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">We will return in more detail to the impact of this restrictive immigration law on European Jewry when the topic turns to the Holocaust. One result not often discussed was that, beyond providing a fig leaf for the administration to hide behind as justifying inaction, the fact that the leading democracy in the west, representative of the humanistic and liberal ideals, the fact that the one country that might have provided a model of moral and ethical behavior instead set an example for other potential countries of refuge (tiny Bolivia was the exception having admitted some 30,000 Jews between 1938 and 1941) to also close their borders.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Such theatrical gestures by the administration as the Bermuda Conference and that “too little-too late” afterthought the War Refugee Board were mere window dressing intended to placate critics at home, and particularly America’s mostly impotent Jewish community themselves fearful of antisemitism sweeping the United States, even as Europe’s Jews were being murdered.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="color: maroon; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Recent writings in this Series:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: 0pt;">1. <a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/hitler-america-sought-racial-improvement-its-aryan-master-race"><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Before Hitler the Aryan Master Race was America’s ideal</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: 0pt;">2. <a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/america-redefines-zionism-diaspora-jewish-homeland"><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">America redefines Zionism: The Diaspora as Jewish homeland</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: 0pt;">3. <a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/zionism-antisemitism-holocaust"><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Zionism , from antisemitism to Holocaust</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: 0pt;">4. <a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/american-lynching-leo-max-frank-affair"><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">An American lynching: the Leo Max Frank Affair</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-57849848583845559692012-01-24T20:13:00.000-08:002012-01-24T20:13:33.610-08:00Before Hitler the Aryan Master Race was America’s ideal<div class="byline1" style="background: white;"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;">18 January, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="byline1" style="background: white;"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><cite><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">“[T]he concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. </span></cite></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><cite><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">The idea was <a href="http://articles.sfgate.com/2003-11-09/opinion/17517477_1_eugenics-ethnic-cleansing-master-race"><span style="font-style: normal;">created in the United States</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GaUd_jnDnaE/Tx-BBlWa_7I/AAAAAAAABWw/-pzJzlsfGF4/s1600/111226+-+reduced%252C+Eugenics_congress_logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GaUd_jnDnaE/Tx-BBlWa_7I/AAAAAAAABWw/-pzJzlsfGF4/s1600/111226+-+reduced%252C+Eugenics_congress_logo.jpg" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 10pt;">"Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution": Logo from the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i><i><span style="background: #F9F9F9; font-size: 10.0pt;">Second International Eugenics Conference, 1921, depicting Eugenics as a tree which unites a variety of different fields </span></i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 10pt;">(<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Eugenics_congress_logo.png">Wikipedia</a>)</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Introduction: While I will be drawing on multiple sources for this article, I recommend Edwin Black’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/War-Against-Weak-Eugenics-Americas/dp/0914153056">War Against the Weak</a> to the reader interested in a single source for the topic of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s pursuit of it’s own Aryan racial population. I will allow Mr. Black to provide the introduction: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">“<a href="http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/">Eugenics was the racist pseudoscience</a> determined to wipe away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in twenty-seven states. In 1909, <st1:state w:st="on">California</st1:state> became the third state to adopt such laws [the first was <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Indiana</st1:place></st1:state>, 1907]. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:state>, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Eugenics was not an “invention” of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region>, but it was enthusiastically embraced by <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Politicians, educators, social scientists of all stripes saw in genetic engineering and the resulting American racial ideal a strategic national imperative, a goal of the highest order. The following are drawn from the book, <a href="http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryWorld/CentralAmerican/?view=usa&ci=9780195149784"><b>The Nazi Connection</b></a>, by Stefan Kuhl: In his inaugural address, Woodrow Wilson said: “[T]he whole nation has awakened to and recognizes the extraordinary importance of the science of human heredity [eugenics], as well as its application to the ennoblement of the human family… Theodore Roosevelt expressed the fear that “inferior” segments of the population were gaining power.” Steps taken to control the danger to humanity’s “ennoblement,” to ensure that the “inferior” would not “gain power”, at least in the early years included legalization of the involuntary sterilization of the “unfit,” and laws “that prohibited marriage and sexual intercourse between blacks and whites... The Commission of the American Genetic Association… proposed that the lowest 10% of the population be sterilized. [The measure] was intended to “eradicate” the “inferior” members of the society over a time period spanning two generations.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Without American leadership, training and support, German National Socialism would likely have still pursued the Final Solution to the West’s Jewish Problem, but the effort would have lacked the credibility of a “scientific” justification, the enthusiastic moral support of <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region>’s elite, the funds provided by <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s wealthy. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">“<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#United_States">The Immigration Restriction League</a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(founded in 1894) was the first American entity associated officially with eugenics. The League sought to bar what it considered dysgenic members of certain races from entering <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> and diluting what it saw as the superior American racial stock through procreation.”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Although “eugenic ideas” were already “in the air” among America’s elite in the 19<sup>th</sup> century (<a href="http://www.conservapedia.com/Eugenics#Eugenics_and_the_state.2C_1890s.E2.80.931963">Alexander Graham Bell</a>, married to a deaf woman, proposed sterilization as a way to eliminate “deafness” from America’s gene pool around 1881) America’s movement to genetically engineer an ideal racial stock gained general popularity only in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i4Gzu7unpmo/Tx-BJoCsM8I/AAAAAAAABW4/-jF75PtUfp8/s1600/111226+-+reduced%252C+Better_Baby_Contest_-_1931_Indiana_State_Fair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="259" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i4Gzu7unpmo/Tx-BJoCsM8I/AAAAAAAABW4/-jF75PtUfp8/s320/111226+-+reduced%252C+Better_Baby_Contest_-_1931_Indiana_State_Fair.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
<!--[endif]--></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 10pt;">Contestants get ready for the Better Baby Contest at the 1931 <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Indiana</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">State</st1:placetype></st1:place> Fair </span></i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;">(<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/92/Better_Baby_Contest_-_1931_Indiana_State_Fair.jpg">Wikipedia</a>)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">In 1904 the Carnegie Institution created a laboratory complex on <st1:place w:st="on">Long Island</st1:place> dedicated to eugenics research. Carnegie generosity was soon matched by other far-sighted philanthropies such as the Harriman railroad fortune and the Rockefeller Foundation. “<a href="http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/">The Rockefeller Foundation</a> helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to <st1:place w:st="on">Auschwitz</st1:place>.” But this is getting ahead of our story.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Before describing how American eugenics was applied as social engineering in the years before Nazism it is instructive to acknowledge some of its more prominent supporters. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">A short list of the founders of the American Eugenics Society (established in 1922) includes: <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">J. P. Morgan, Jr. of U. S. Steel; Miss E. B. Scripps of Scripps-Howard and United Press International; </span><span style="background: white;">John H. Kellogg of cereal fame; Margaret Sanger of Planned Parenthood.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Prominent politicians and others included: President Theodore Roosevelt; President Woodrow Wilson; Alexander Graham Bell; the Rockefellers, Harrimans, and Carnegies; Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, to name a few. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Nearly all educational institutions from Ivy League to local collages promoted eugenics as a positive model to improve the national </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">gene pool. Positive change, according to the model, would be achieved through <i>encouraging, “<a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/humanities/philosophy/applied-ethics/eugenics-and-progressives">the higher classes</a> of society to reproduce offspring.”</i> Those outside that model, the “unfit,<span style="background: white;">” would be eliminated “humanely” by forced sterilization. Euthanasia, or “negative eugenics,” was proposed as a national project, was in fact utilized by some physicians and hospital administrators, but never became, as in Germany, a national program of race improvement. One reason advanced was that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region>’s public and overuse of euthanasia made it unattractive outside of <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">The “Unfit” defined:</span></b><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Among the so-called genetic traits to be eliminated from the national Aryan gene pool was deafness, blindness, insanity, criminal tendencies and laziness. Schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and depression: mental illness in general was also slated for elimination. Some races would be allowed to survive in segregated reservations, but sexual intercourse or intermarriage, called <i>miscegenation</i>, would be illegal and carry severe penalties. But restrictions on racial intercourse was not unique to eugenics; its history as practiced by many states went back to the American colonies. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">“In 1907<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Indiana</span></st1:place></st1:state><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">became the first of more than thirty states to adopt legislation aimed at </span><b><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">compulsory sterilization</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">of certain individuals.<sup> </sup>Although the law was overturned by the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Indiana Supreme Court<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>in 1921,<sup> </sup>the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>U.S. Supreme Court<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>upheld the constitutionality of a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Virginia</st1:place></st1:state> law allowing for the compulsory sterilization of patients of state mental institutions in 1927.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Eventually thirty-three states would adopt laws, backed by the U.S. Supreme Court, providing for involuntary sterilization resulting in more that 60,000 by mid-century. The last legal forced sterilization in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region> was performed thirty-six years after WWII, in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Oregon</st1:place></st1:state> in <a href="http://civilliberty.about.com/od/gendersexuality/tp/Forced-Sterilization-History.htm">1981</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">The American model of race improvement by means of sterilizing the “unfit” would be replicated by the Third Reich. “<a href="http://thecounterpunch.hubpages.com/hub/The_Nazi_Connection_Eugenics__American_Racism__and_German_National_Socialism">[T]he Germans</a> enacted compulsory sterilization laws partly based on the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> experience, and American eugenicists took pride in their influence on Nazi policies.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Miscegenation</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> laws forbade sexual relations, including marriage, between white and non-whites in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">United states</st1:country-region></st1:place> from earliest colonial days until as recently as the year 2000. Penalties varied from state to state and could involve a fine, “<a href="http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/static/themes/16.html">up to $2,000</a> and/or prison terms of up to 10 years.” But often offenders did not face justice in court, but at the end of a rope, or worse. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">At mid-20<sup>th</sup> century approximately 30 states still had laws regarding miscegenation. One example was t</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">he <a href="http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/encounter/projects/monacans/Contemporary_Monacans/racial.html">Virginia Integrity Act of 1924</a>. It prohibited marriage between a white person and anyone with <i>a trace of blood</i> other than Caucasian. <a href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/engl_258/Lecture%20Notes/american_antimiscegenation.htm">The 1967 Supreme Court decision</a> on Loving v. <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Virginia</st1:place></st1:state> <span class="mw-headline">made American anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.” At the time of the Court’s decision Barack Obama was six years old.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="mw-headline"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">But <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Virginia</st1:place></st1:state> was not the last state to surrender its miscegenation laws. <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Alabama</st1:place></st1:state> was the last hold-out and only rescinded the law in November, 2000. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: maroon; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Recent writings in this Series:</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 8.5pt;"><br />
</span><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial;">1.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/america-redefines-zionism-diaspora-jewish-homeland"><span style="background: white; color: navy; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">America redefines Zionism: The Diaspora as Jewish homeland</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial;">2. <a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/zionism-antisemitism-holocaust"><span style="background: white; color: navy; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Zionism , from antisemitism to Holocaust</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial;">3.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/american-lynching-leo-max-frank-affair"><span style="color: navy; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">An American lynching: the Leo Max Frank Affair</span></a></span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial;">4.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/blood-libel-treason-despoiler-girls-jew-western-stereotype"><span style="color: navy; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Blood libel, treason, despoiler of girls: the Jew as Western stereotype</span></a></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-61929307257737142682012-01-04T19:22:00.001-08:002012-01-04T19:22:20.411-08:00Zionism , from antisemitism to Holocaust<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="color: #3c6b8c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;"><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/zionism-antisemitism-holocaust">Zionism , from antisemitism to Holocaust</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><br />
“Eliminate the diaspora or the diaspora will eliminate you!”</span></i><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">(<a href="http://www.saveisrael.com/jabo/jabowarsaw.htm"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Ze’ev Jabotinsky</span></a>, Poland, 1937)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Had antisemitism remained social and political very likely most Jews, conditioned by centuries of religion-inspired discrimination, would have patiently waited for the most recent storm to pass. But following 1500 years of persecution and the dawn of political-religious reform, having tasted the promise of emancipation and acceptance represented by the Enlightenment, for some at least hope turned quickly to despair. Awareness grew that Christendom’s religion-based Jewish Problem was too deeply embedded in the in the West’s history and culture to vanish because secularism replaced religion-based society.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Jewish responses to Emancipation and continuing discrimination predated Zionism by decades. Two very different such efforts, are represented by Moses Mendelssohn, descended from a line of orthodox rabbis, and Karl Marx, the son of a Lutheran convert himself the son of a rabbinical family. Mendelssohn would ensure Jewish survival by “modernizing” religious practice while Marx’s was far more radical: Jewish identity along with Judaism would fall away, as would distinctions for all based on class, religion and nationality in proletarian revolution (pardon the obvious oversimplification). He wrote<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/"><span style="color: #557fa0;">On the Jewish Question</span></a></b><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>in 1843 in part in opposition to an opponent of Jewish emancipation. But the work was also a first attempt at his theory of dialectical materialism, and in it he identified the Jews symbolically with money, the West’s universally recognized stereotype. This symbolic representation of the Jews would provide a rationale for already existing antisemitism, provided a political ploy for both the left and the right, before and after the Holocaust and, when a state of the Jews appeared, included <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> and the movement whose creation it was, Zionism.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">The first sparks of what would become a Zionist movement came out of Russia-Poland in the late nineteenth century. In 1882 <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Leon</st1:place></st1:country-region> Pinsker, an assimilated Russian physician wrote<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><a href="http://www.mideastweb.org/autoemancipation.htm"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Autoemancipation</span></a></b>, a prescient work that anticipated the risk to Jewry in the twentieth century. That work, written fifty years<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>before</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region></st1:place> voted the National Socialists into power, may even today represent the most accurate diagnosis of the condition of Jews in Christendom; of the West’s Jewish problem and its cure<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype
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height:326.25pt'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\David\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.jpg"
o:href="http://blogs.jpost.com/sites/default/files/111219%20-%20Leon%20Pinsker.jpg"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><img border="0" height="435" src="file:///C:/DOCUME~1/David/LOCALS~1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1025" width="288" /><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Leon Pinsker (<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Pinsker.jpg"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Wikipedia</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Pinsker’s preface</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">is an impassioned Zionist challenge: Take responsibility for the fact that antisemitism is a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>permanent</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>feature of the Western Diaspora; accept that the obvious Jewish response to “the terror of bloody atrocities” is<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>self-emancipation</i>, the creation of a Jewish national homeland.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">“<a href="http://www.mideastweb.org/autoemancipation.htm"><span style="color: #557fa0;">After the terror</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>of the bloody atrocities [the pogroms] a moment of calm… the Western Jews have again learned to suffer the cry, "hep! hep!" [by anti-Jewish rioters, typically students, in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region></st1:place>]… Shut your eyes and hide your head like an ostrich -- there is to be no lasting peace unless … you apply a remedy more thoroughgoing than those palliatives to which our hapless people have been turning for 2000 years.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">“But,” Pinsker continues, “the greatest impediment in the path of the Jews to an independent national existence is that [we] do not feel its need… deny its authenticity (see Jabotinsky, below).”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Pinsker was not a Marxist but a Zionist and his solution to the Jewish problem lay not in a larger social revolution but in the removal of the Jews from that danger: “This change cannot be brought about by the civil emancipation of the Jews in this or that state, but only by… the foundation of … our inalienable home, our country.” Pinsker the physician diagnosed Judeophobia a, “psychic aberration… [an incurable] disease transmitted for two thousand years… Prejudice or instinctive ill-will is not moved by rational argument (so much for educating society away from persecution), however forceful and clear.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">For several decades after the appearance of Autoemancipation young and idealistic Jews, inspired by Pinsker and prodded by pogrom, made their way to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Palestine</st1:place></st1:city> as individuals and in groups. Among the first were the Hoveivei Zion, the Lovers of Zion, who founded Rishon l’Zion, one of the first Jewish towns in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Palestine</st1:place></st1:city>. But enthusiasm alone was not enough to inspire immigration sufficient to create in a state, and another decade would pass before another, more charismatic and politically-savvy leader would appear.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
id="_x0000_i1026" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="" style='width:162pt;height:211.5pt'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\David\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image002.jpg"
o:href="http://blogs.jpost.com/sites/default/files/111219%20-%203%20in,Theodor%20Herzl%20in%20Basel,%201897.jpg"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><img border="0" height="282" src="file:///C:/DOCUME~1/David/LOCALS~1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image002.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1026" width="216" /><!--[endif]--></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Theodor Herzl in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Basel</st1:place></st1:city>, 1897</span></i><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">(<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Herzl-balcony.jpg"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Wikipedia</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Theodore Herzl</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">, another assimilated Jew, was a Viennese playwright and journalist. In 1894 he was sent to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Paris</st1:place></st1:city> to cover the treason trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. “<a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Herzl.html"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Herzl witnessed</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>mobs shouting “Death to the Jews” in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region>, the home of the French Revolution, and resolved that there was only one solution: the mass immigration of Jews to a land that they could call their own.” Apparently unaware of Pinsker or Autoemancipation, Herzl came to the same conclusion regarding the risk to Jewish survival in the West. Antisemitism, he concluded, “was a stable and immutable factor in human [well, Western] society, which assimilation did not solve.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Recall that the events described above took place before the First World War, before National Socialism was voted into power in Germany and half a century<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>before</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>the West embarked on its final solution to it’s Jewish problem. For the Jews, at least, the Holocaust was still unimaginable. But some among the younger generation were already sensing the coming, if indefinable, disaster. Among them was Ze’ev Jabotinsky.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Following Hitler’s electoral victory Jabotinsky crisscrossed <st1:country-region w:st="on">Poland</st1:country-region> and <st1:place w:st="on">Eastern Europe</st1:place> warning of the impending Final Solution. While few took the warning seriously, who beyond visionaries could imagine the unimanageable and unprecedented fate awaiting the Jews, Jabotinsky knew. On Tisha B’ Av of 1937, a traditional day of mourning on the Jewish calendar a leader accepting defeat Jabotinsky exhorted the Jewish people to expunge themselves of the Diaspora or perish:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">“<a href="http://www.saveisrael.com/jabo/jabowarsaw.htm"><span style="color: #557fa0;">It is already three years</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that I am calling upon you, Polish Jewry… warn you incessantly that a catastrophe is coming closer… [you] do not see the volcano which will soon begin to spit all-consuming lava… In the name of G-d! Let anyone of you save himself, as long as there is time, and there is very little… whoever of you will escape from the catastrophe, he of she will live to see the… the rise of a Jewish state.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">“Eliminate the Diaspora or the Diaspora will eliminate you!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Recent writings in this Series:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">1.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/american-lynching-leo-max-frank-affair"><span style="color: #557fa0;">An American lynching: the Leo Max Frank Affair</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">2.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/blood-libel-treason-despoiler-girls-jew-western-stereotype"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Blood libel, treason, despoiler of girls: the Jew as Western stereotype</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">3.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/political-antisemitism-united-states-1873-1932"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Political antisemitism in the United States, 1873-1932</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">4.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/political-antisemitism-austria-germany-1919-1932"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Political antisemitism in Austria-Germany, 1919-1932</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-84369924219684553552012-01-04T19:21:00.000-08:002012-01-04T19:21:36.759-08:00An American lynching: the Leo Max Frank Affair<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="color: #3c6b8c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;"><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/american-lynching-leo-max-frank-affair">An American lynching: the Leo Max Frank Affair</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><br />
“<a href="http://hnn.us/node/14208"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Ninety years ago</span></a>, some of <st1:city w:st="on">Marietta</st1:city>'s leading citizens gathered to hang a man, Leo Frank, a Jewish superintendent of an <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Atlanta</st1:place></st1:city> pencil factory… [He was] murdered on a farm belonging to former <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Cobb</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">County</st1:placetype></st1:place> sheriff William Frey.”</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Introduction:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">The trial and murder of Leo Frank stands in stark contrast to the outcomes of those other contemporaneous antisemitic outrages, the “trials” of Menahem Beilis and Alfred Dreyfus. In the end <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region>, however reluctantly, recanted and their victims survived. Not so the American Jew. This incident illustrates the depth of antisemitism present in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> for decades preceding the First World War, a level that only intensified<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>after</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that war, and continued to do so through the Second World War and beyond. It was this same antipathy towards Jews, endemic to Western culture, that resulted in America violating its long tradition of refuge as last resort, at least when it came to Europe’s Jews fleeing the Holocaust.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Leo Max Frank<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">was manager of the National Pencil Factory in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Atlanta</st1:city>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Georgia</st1:country-region></st1:place>. On the night of 27 April, 1913 the body of a thirteen year old employee was discovered in the factory basement. She had been raped and strangled.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">“<a href="http://hnn.us/node/14208"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Frank was accused</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>of the 1913 murder of Mary Phagan, a former Mariettan who worked at the National Pencil Factory in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Atlanta</st1:place></st1:city>. Historians [and some police investigators at the time] believe that the state's main witness, Jim Conley, a janitor at the factory, murdered the 13-year-old girl.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">As it turned out John Conley, “who was arrested when he was seen washing red [described as “<a href="http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/leofrank.htm"><span style="color: #557fa0;">blood</span></a>”] stains from a shirt,” became the state’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-906"><span style="color: #557fa0;">main witness</span></a>. Conley, who had an arrest record involving alcohol and violence, “later gave at least four contradictory affidavits explaining how he had helped Frank dispose of the body. ”At one point he testified to being illiterate, a claim later contradicted when he asserted that Leo Frank had ordered him to write two notes, as if by the girl, as she lay dying. Conley also claimed that Frank paid him $200 for helping move the body but, but when asked by the police where the money was he claimed Frank had taken it back.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype
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height:222pt'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\David\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.jpg"
o:href="http://blogs.jpost.com/sites/default/files/111215%20-%20very%20reduced,%20Mary-phagan-murder-note.jpg"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><img border="0" height="296" src="file:///C:/DOCUME~1/David/LOCALS~1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1025" width="200" /><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">One of the two murder notes found near the body.</span></i><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">(<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/98/Mary-phagan-murder-note.jpg"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Wikipedia</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Tom Watson, publisher of the Jeffersonian newspaper, [see earlier<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/political-antisemitism-united-states-1873-1932"><span style="color: #557fa0;">submission</span></a>] was instrumental in creating the atmosphere of antisemitism that would shape public outrage against Frank. He made cash payment to the police for access to police evidence, was accused of having<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>removed<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>evidence he felt favored Frank.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">The grand jury investigating the case indicted Frank in the death of Mary Phagan on 24 May, 1913. On 28 May the pencil factory foreman was reported by the newspaper<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Georgian<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>to have said that he believed Conley "strangled Mary Phagan while about half drunk.” Two other witnesses against Conley were also not called to testify.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Why the grand jury chose not to pursue Conley, is not known. What is known is that following the indictment several members of the panel expressed doubts regarding Frank’s guilt, felt Conley should have been the one indicted.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leo-frank-at-trial.jpg" title="Lucille and Leo Frank at Frank's trial."><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape id="_x0000_i1026"
type="#_x0000_t75" alt="" title=""Lucille and Leo Frank at Frank's trial.""
style='width:180pt;height:239.25pt' o:button="t"> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\David\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image002.jpg"
o:href="http://blogs.jpost.com/sites/default/files/111130%20-%202p5%20-%20Lucille%20and%20Leo%20Frank%20at%20Frank's%20trial(1).jpg"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><img border="0" height="319" src="file:///C:/DOCUME~1/David/LOCALS~1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image002.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1026" width="240" /><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Lucille and Leo Frank at Frank's trial.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">(<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Leo-frank-at-trial.jpg"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Wikipedia</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Amidst controversy surrounding the police investigation, the manipulation and even disappearance of evidence; with accusations of witness badgering and even coaching by the police and prosecution, the trial ended on 26 August, 1913. Frank was convicted in the murder. Presenting evidence of jury tampering and intimidation a mistrial was demanded. And denied. Frank’s conviction was greeted with jubilation in the street.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">“<a href="http://marietta.patch.com/articles/the-battle-for-leo-frank"><span style="color: #557fa0;">William Manning Smith</span></a>, the attorney who initially defended Conley, reversed his position in 1914 after concluding that his own client was the guilty party.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Appeals to both the Georgia and US Supreme Courts were unsuccessful.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Tom Watson,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">who in 1920 would represent <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Georgia</st1:place></st1:country-region> in the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=w000205"><span style="color: #557fa0;">US Senate</span></a>, had little patience for the “legal wrangling” following Frank’s conviction. “If Frank's rich connections [a not subtle reference to the Jews] keep on lying about this case,<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=gQBsXMX74BwC&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=If+Frank's+rich+connections+keep+on+lying+about+this+case,+SOMETHING+BAD+WILL+HAPPEN!%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=ujdtCI9h2g&sig=gFe04SPbEuUTz2osdKvxWXtLMRA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=apDqTq6REIP10gGn88TtCQ"><span style="color: #557fa0;">SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN!</span></a>” But out of public view, “<a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/frank/frankaccount.html"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Watson</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>let it be known to [Governor] Slaton that he would throw his support behind a Senate bid if only the governor would let Frank hang.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Days before leaving office the governor, citing inconsistencies in evidence, commuted Frank's sentence to life in prison. Forty years later the governor would recall that he was convinced following the trial of Frank’s innocence and assumed “[it] would eventually be fully established and he would be set free”.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Responding to the governor’s decision Watson led a group of Georgia’s finest citizens to the prison, drove Frank 240 miles to , “A site at Frey's Gin, two miles east of Marietta [Mary Phagan’s home], had been prepared, complete with a rope and table supplied by former Sheriff William Frey. The following morning the self-styled “Knights of Mary Phagan” lynched Leo Frank<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FrankLynchedLarge.jpg" title="The lynching of Leo Frank."><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape id="_x0000_i1027" type="#_x0000_t75"
alt="" title=""The lynching of Leo Frank."" style='width:186.75pt;
height:199.5pt' o:button="t"> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\David\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image003.jpg"
o:href="http://blogs.jpost.com/sites/default/files/111123%20-%20Lynching_of_Leo_Frank,%20The%20man%20on%20the%20far%20right%20in%20the%20straw%20hat%20is%20Newton%20A_%20Morris,%20a%20superior%20court%20judge.jpg"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><img border="0" height="266" src="file:///C:/DOCUME~1/David/LOCALS~1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image003.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1027" width="249" /><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">The lynching of Leo Frank. The man on the far right in the straw hat is <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Newton</st1:place></st1:city> A. Morris,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b>a superior court judge</b>.</span></i><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">(<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/FrankLynchedLarge.jpg"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Wikipedia</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">The lynch party</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">was not a drunken polyglot of street hooligans in a rage. Frank’s murders consisted of 26 cool and calculating members of the professions, the cream of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Atlanta</st1:place></st1:city>’s elite. Among these luminaries were: former governor<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mackey_Brown" title="Joseph Mackey Brown"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Joseph Mackey Brown</span></a>; Superior Court Judge Newton Morris (standing near the hanging body of Leo Frank, above);<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Herbert_Clay" title="Eugene Herbert Clay"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Eugene Herbert Clay</span></a>, son of U.S. senator Alexander S. Clay, and himself the former mayor of Marietta; John Tucker Dorsey, a lawyer and state legislator (and solicitor general for the Blue Ridge Circuit who would have been responsible for prosecuting the lynchers, had any been indicted!).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">“<a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/frank/frankaccount.html"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Following the lynching</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>a festive atmosphere prevailed, and crowds searched the site for souvenirs… A short time after the lynching of Leo Frank, thirty-three members of the group that called itself the Knights of Mary Phagan gathered on a mountaintop near <st1:city w:st="on">Atlanta</st1:city> and formed the new Ku Klux Klan of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Georgia</st1:place></st1:country-region>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">“On March 11, 1986,</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles granted Frank a pardon, citing the state's failure to protect him or prosecute his killers. But neither did they exonerate him:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">“<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Frank#.281982.E2.80.931986.29_Alonzo_Mann.27s_affidavit.2C_pardon"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Without attempting</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to address the question of guilt or innocence, and in recognition of the State's failure to protect the person of Leo M. Frank and thereby preserve his opportunity for continued legal appeal of his conviction, and in recognition of the State's failure to bring his killers to justice, and as an effort to heal old wounds, the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_State_Board_of_Pardons_and_Paroles" title="Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles"><span style="color: #557fa0;">State Board of Pardons and Paroles</span></a>, in compliance with its Constitutional and statutory authority, hereby grants to Leo M. Frank a Pardon.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Georgia</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"> has yet to admit to Frank’s wrongful conviction, responsibility for its miscarriage of justice.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">“<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Frank"><span style="color: #557fa0;">The names of Frank's murderers were well-known</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>locally but were not made public until January 7, 2000, when Stephen Goldfarb, an <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Atlanta</st1:place></st1:city> librarian and former history professor, published a list on his website. <i>The Washington Post</i> writes that it includes several prominent citizens—a former governor, the son of a senator, a Methodist minister, a state legislator, and a former state Superior Court judge—their names matching those on Marietta's street signs, office buildings, shopping centers, and law offices today.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Recent writings in this Series:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">1.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/blood-libel-treason-despoiler-girls-jew-western-stereotype"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Blood libel, treason, despoiler of girls: the Jew as Western stereotype</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">2.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/political-antisemitism-united-states-1873-1932"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Political antisemitism in the United States, 1873-1932</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">3.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/political-antisemitism-austria-germany-1919-1932"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Political antisemitism in Austria-Germany, 1919-1932</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">4.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/emancipationreaction-antisemitism-turns-political"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Emancipation/Reaction: Antisemitism turns political</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-90216670651794937062011-12-14T18:17:00.000-08:002011-12-14T18:17:22.506-08:00Political antisemitism in the United States, 1873-1932<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">You know this is a Protestant country, and the Catholics and Jews are here under sufferance."</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"><a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2002/10/13/fdr-s-auschwitz-secret.html"><span style="color: #557fa0; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">President Franklin Delano Roosevelt</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Introduction:</b> Over the past months I have described the development of anti-Judaism in Christian theology and its transformation into secular antisemitism with the 18<sup>th</sup> century Enlightenment. In the 19<sup>th</sup> century secular antisemitism quickly evolved into a political movement with an agenda aimed at excluding Jews from civil society and antisemitic parties appeared throughout the West. In Germany-Austria the political agenda changed from social exclusion to physical extermination with the goal of achieving a <i>final</i> solution to the West’s Jewish Problem. This week we turn to the evolution of political antisemitism in the country with the largest surviving post-Holocaust Jewish Diaspora population, the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As in Europe, organized political antisemitism also appeared in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> in the 19<sup>th</sup> century. And, as in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>, a movement to deny Jews legal and social rights did not just appear: it emerged from an already present antisemitic culture. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>The first Jews</b> to set foot in the <st1:place w:st="on">New World</st1:place> arrived with Christopher Columbus in <a href="http://www.aish.com/jl/h/cc/48955806.html">1492</a>. In 1584 Joachim Gaunse, a Jewish metallurgist who accompanied Sir Walter Raleigh to the <st1:state w:st="on">Virginia</st1:state> territory, was threatened with <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Gaunse.html">blasphemy</a> and forced to return to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region>. “<a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Brazil.html">In 1647</a><span class="apple-style-span">, the Portuguese authorities arrested Isaac de Castro for teaching Jewish rites and customs in Portuguese controlled <st1:country-region w:st="on">Brazil</st1:country-region> and sent him back to</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Portugal</st1:place></st1:country-region> <span class="apple-style-span">where the Inquisition sentenced him to death and burned him at the stake.” Seven years later</span> twenty-three Jewish refugees fled Portuguese Brazil for the more tolerant Dutch New Amsterdam (later renamed <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state> under the British) where they were barred entry by the colony’s Director General, Peter Stuyvesant. “The Jews who have arrived,” <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/heritage/episode7/documents/documents_1.html">he wrote</a> the directors of the Dutch West India Company, “would nearly all like to remain here, but learning that they (with their customary usury and deceitful trading with Christians)… [we ask that] that the deceitful race -- such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ -- be not allowed to further <i>infect</i> and trouble this new colony…” The Company apparently felt the Jew’s “customary usury and deceitful trading” would be of value and ordered Stuyvesant to let them stay. As for French colonial areas, the Jews were barred until 1759; and the Spanish, like the Portuguese, planted the Inquisition in the <st1:place w:st="on">New World</st1:place> and <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/amsterdam.html">persecuted and executed</a> their “suspect” <a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/purity-blood-and-spanish-inquisition-1492">Conversos</a>, Catholics of Jewish descent.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">While the 1789 US Constitution, following Enlightenment principles, protected citizen rights regardless of religion, the first acts of “political” antisemitism came in the form of “states rights,” which allowed states to make local laws, including a state’s relations with Jews. Anti-Jewish legislation would only be rescinded in <st1:state w:st="on">North Carolina</st1:state> in 1869, while <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New Hampshire</st1:place></st1:state> finally relented and allowed “non-Protestants” to hold state office in 1887. Sabbath laws, forbidding commerce on Sunday, was another form of legal antisemitism. Such discriminatory laws remained on the books well into the twentieth century. Their antisemitic intent was clearly described when, “<a href="http://www.newvilnareview.com/homepage/anti-semitism-in-the-american-civil-war.html">in the 1855 California assembly debate</a> on the topic, the speaker of the house argued that Jews ‘ought to respect the laws and opinions of the majority.’”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As for “popular antisemitism,” attitudes held by individuals: “<a href="http://immigration-online.org/350-anti-semitism.html#Colonial_Era_and_Early_Independence">when a Jew rose to national prominence</a>, he would always be open to attacks based upon his Judaism.” Mordecai Noah, a diplomat to <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Tunis</st1:place></st1:state> from 1813-15, was recalled from his post having been denounced as an “enemy of Christ.” And, “Uriah Phillips Levy, then the only Jewish officer in the U. S. Navy, was dropped from the officer list in 1855… after six courts martial, two dismissals, and the killing of one opponent in a duel, all over slurs against his Judaism.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Political antisemitism: </b>Social stress is generally associated with a rise in antisemitism. This was also true during the Long Depression of 1873 to 1896. The period gave rise to the emergence of populist political parties, most of which were short-lived. With the appearance of the Populist, or Peoples Party, things changed and antisemitism entered American party politics. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">During the presidential election of 1896 no “<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/antisemitism.html">political party</a> was above using anti-Semitism, especially to appeal to Christian constituents, but it was the Populist Party who used anti-Semitism most distinctively.</span>” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mXnuiz6i5oI/TulYWFbHZ_I/AAAAAAAABWg/JyyXK86SuZE/s1600/111209+-+reduced%252C+Watson+for+president%252C+Populist_Party_campaign_poster_1904.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mXnuiz6i5oI/TulYWFbHZ_I/AAAAAAAABWg/JyyXK86SuZE/s1600/111209+-+reduced%252C+Watson+for+president%252C+Populist_Party_campaign_poster_1904.jpg" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="apple-style-span"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 10pt;">Watson on a 1904 People's Party campaign poster.</span></i></span> (<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1f/Populist_Party_campaign_poster_1904.jpg">Wikipedia</a>)</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Tom Watson, who will reappear when we discuss the lynching of Leo Frank, was named vice presidential choice on the 1896 Populist Party presidential ticket and, in 1904, the party’s choice for president. The <span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">"Populists strengthened their cause by using religious metaphors to link money with a Jewish conspiracy [giving license to mainline parties to do the same]. Thus in 1896 Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, speaking in an idiom Protestant Fundamentalists were fully conversant with, could easily intersperse biblical imagery with economic necessity when he thundered, `You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.' The antisemitism evoked by the metaphor of the crucifixion was powerful and appealed to rural Protestants who possessed a similar religious and cultural heritage with other Americans in the South and the West," (Leonard Dinnerstein, </span></span><b><span style="background: white;"><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=mJLHrb-o5E0C&pg=PA373&lpg=PA373&dq=Antisemitism+in+America+by+Dinnerstein&source=bl&ots=fn7L1drVZ0&sig=vTeY8Mnao5otOY0jtiFUS0_yd04&hl=en&ei=KKvoTpjkIOqH0QGH6rCZCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CEYQ6AEwAw#v=one">Antisemitism in America</a></span></b><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">, </span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">p.49-50). But when standing before a Jewish audience Bryan temporized, </span></span>"We are not attacking a race, we are attacking greed and avarice, which know neither race nor religion. I do not know of any class of our people who, by reason of their history, can better sympathize with the struggling masses in this campaign than can the Hebrew race," from<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><a href="http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/bibliography.html">The First Battle</a></b><span class="apple-converted-space">, </span>(p.581).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">By the twentieth century racist antisemitism was even more open and popular, appearing in vaudeville, on the stage and even in the movies. In 1913, amidst a heated antisemitic atmosphere, an innocent Leo Frank was convicted of murder and, when the governor commuted his sentence, was dragged from his cell and lynched. One result of the lynching was the decision by B’nai Brith, of which Frank was regional director, to form the Anti-defamation League. Another was the re-emergence of the Ku Klux Klan. By the 1920’s Henry Ford was distributing his Dearborn Independent by mail and in Ford Motor dealerships across the country. Its main contribution to the spread of antisemitism was publication, under the banner of the International Jew, the <b><a href="http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007244">Protocols of the Elders of Zion</a></b>. American antisemitism was equal to that taking hold in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>, with Jews discriminated against in housing, employment and recreation.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vha5l9kQsTo/TulYd6J4zQI/AAAAAAAABWo/JKQxuPjcWaY/s1600/111214+-+reduced%252C+A+1934+edition+by+the+Patriotic+Publishing+Company+of+Chicago.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vha5l9kQsTo/TulYd6J4zQI/AAAAAAAABWo/JKQxuPjcWaY/s320/111214+-+reduced%252C+A+1934+edition+by+the+Patriotic+Publishing+Company+of+Chicago.jpg" width="206" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="apple-style-span"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 8.5pt;">A 1934 edition by the Patriotic Publishing Company of Chicago</span></i></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.5pt;"> (<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/1934_Protocols_Patriotic_Pub.jpg">Wikipedia</a>)</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Parties specifically targeting Jews proliferated in the years leading up to the Second World War. “<a href="http://www.axt.org.uk/antisem/archive/archive2/usa/usa.htm">The era gave rise</a> to domestic anti-Jewish bigots, such as Father Charles Coughlin, Gerald L. K. Smith and William Dudley Pelley, the leader of the Silver Shirts. It also witnessed the rise of the German-American Bund, led by Fritz Kuhn, and the notorious anti-Jewish speech by the aviator and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> hero Charles A. Lindbergh to an America First Committee rally. Especially influential in the 1930s was Father Coughlin, a Catholic priest whose weekly radio broadcasts containing an openly antisemitic message reached millions. Coughlin's campaign paved the way for isolationist organizations, such as the America First Committee, to attract antisemites to their banners.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="background: white; color: maroon; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt;">Other writings in this Series:</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial;">1. <a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/political-antisemitism-austria-germany-1919-1932"><span style="color: navy; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Political antisemitism in Austria-Germany, 1919-1932</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial;">2. <a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/emancipationreaction-antisemitism-turns-political"><span style="background: white; color: navy; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Emancipation/Reaction: Antisemitism turns political</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial;">3. <a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/antisemitism-1806-west-reacts-jewish-emancipation"><span style="background: white; color: navy; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">On antisemitism: 1806, The West reacts to Jewish emancipation</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial;">4. <a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/anti-judaism-antisemitism-age-reason"><span style="background: white; color: navy; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">From anti-Judaism to antisemitism: The Age of Reason</span></a> </span></b></div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-78121431149484332862011-12-06T18:30:00.000-08:002011-12-06T18:31:29.913-08:00Is the Diaspora Doomed, Israel abandoned? An open Response to an email responder<h3 class="post-title entry-title" style="color: #cc6600; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.25em; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/diaspora-doomed-israel-abandoned-open-response-email-responder" style="color: #cc6600; display: block; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">Thank you for your email, Larry. I well remember our earlier discussion and, it appears, neither of us has much shifted in the interim! While I accept your position regarding the history of antisemitism reflected in Church/Christian policy; while I continue to accept also your distinction between us and them regarding slavery: still, beyond educating our youth to the reason we are hated, I don’t see the Zionist mission of providing for our physical salvation being advanced. My concern as I hope is reflected in all my writings is to demonstrate to the best of my abilities to my admittedly tiny audience the danger to our physical survival represented by Christendom (religion and secular); in other words, to our Diaspora.</span></a></h3><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-33632055099668812" style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.75em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Although not identical the threat to the state of the Jews is similar, as reflected in Bush and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> and, more blatantly, under the present administration. I am entirely non-(American) partisan in my comments, simply reflecting the facts as objectively as I can interpret them.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">I am not so quixotic as to expect our Diaspora to rise up and leave; where to? The only other Jewish “homeland” was created under Stalin, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in <st1:place w:st="on">Siberia</st1:place>. And I hardly expect that to be open to mass Jewish immigration today even if we would all choose to move! Neither do I expect <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> to immediately abandon her quixotic “special relationship” with the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region>; after all, we are still tiny and vulnerable and dependent on the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>, whatever the cost. What I am hoping to achieve is to raise doubt in the denial-prone consciousnesses of both communities as to the need to respond realistically to a very real environment. For me the enemy is not our lack of knowledge of the past, but our failure to accept its meaning for the future.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">For our Diaspora “Never Again!” is an inappropriate and inadequate response to the Holocaust. The Shoah is a clear shot across our bow, the promise of things to come unless we take its implications seriously, and act. And for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>, while our dependence on the West is real, it is long past time to begin looking outside Christendom for our next strategic alliance. <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region> has few Christians and no culture or history of antisemitism; <st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region>, with its Moslem population, would still represent a problem so long as the state of the Jews remains in the<st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place>. <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> simply must grow beyond her neediness, our emotional dependence on a false special relationship that in reality is special for the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region>, and that only so long as <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> fulfills <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s interests. And under the present <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> administration that bottom-line should, by now, be crystal clear.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Obama’s mouthpiece Panetta said as much,</span><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">“<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>, too, has a responsibility to pursue these shared goals – to build regional support for Israeli and</span><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">United States’ security objectives</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">.”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">For the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> the bottom line is the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>. That was how it was in 1940 when the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> chose to ignore its “special relationship” with <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> under attack from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region>. If <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region> is expendable, where does</span><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span><i><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">our</span></i><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">faith come to play?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">While I understand and substantially agree with your position, Larry, short of Divine Intervention (which failed to materialize in the Roman war) I fail to see how it will affect our</span><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span><i><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">physical</span></i><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> </span><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">survival in the real world, comes the real Final Solution to the West’s Jewish Problem?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Sounds harsh. But I know no other way to say that which I consider obvious.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Regards,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">David</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><br />
</span></div></div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-82583061612246239792011-12-05T07:23:00.000-08:002011-12-05T07:23:31.328-08:00America's Deconstruction of the Middle East: from Bush’s Iraq to Obama’s Egypt<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
“<a href="http://www.debka.com/article/21538/"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Neither Israel, nor any of the mainstream Arab governments</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>accept the Obama-Panetta proposition that time will magically temper the extremism of the Islamist regimes.”</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;">Whenever US Middle East policy fails the administration in power turns on <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region></st1:place> as ready scapegoat. This occurred in the 1980’s when<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/reagan-iran/"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Irangate</span></a>, the Reagan administration criminal involvement in drug trafficking, gun-running and money laundering began appearing in the press. And if the president eventually apologized to the Jewish state, in the end his administration deftly redirected attention away from their criminality to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> and her spy Jonathan Pollard. And when Bush’s confident victory proclamation proved premature administration insiders sought to shift blame for the war onto <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> (actually<a href="http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39051"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span></span><span style="color: #557fa0;">Israel, Egypt and the Saudis strongly advised</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span></span><i><span style="color: #557fa0;">against</span></i><span style="color: #557fa0;">the war!</span></a>).</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;">Enter my vote for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s alternative to dirty and confused politics, Barak Obama. In style and apparent philosophy Obama appeared and may well be the opposite of his predecessor. But if the recent resignations of his two key <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place> advisers George Mitchell and Dennis Ross are an indication such qualities can also produce ideological rigidity, an inability to recognize and respond to situations that may not fit preconceptions. And that certainly seems to explain President Obama’s inability to grasp the complexities of the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place> over the past two-plus years in office. And Obama, like earlier administrations: when failure looms, blame <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>.</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;">Although Obama cannot be personally blamed for the regional disaster represented by the invasion and withdrawal from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> (Bush decisions set both in motion) Obama has followed Bush in shying away from directly confronting the consequences of the invasion. Having deposed the Sunni Baath regime and replaced it with one headed by <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s Shiites Bush redefined the balance of power in the region from the Arabs to the Persians. Shiite Iraq was transformed from bitter enemy to potential ally and satellite of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xVER_jabC6M/TtzhPqHimEI/AAAAAAAABWQ/tctlz_LZVWk/s1600/111205+-+Saddam+Hussein+being+pulled+from+his+hideaway+in+Operation+Red+Dawn%252C+13+December+2003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xVER_jabC6M/TtzhPqHimEI/AAAAAAAABWQ/tctlz_LZVWk/s1600/111205+-+Saddam+Hussein+being+pulled+from+his+hideaway+in+Operation+Red+Dawn%252C+13+December+2003.jpg" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><i>Saddam Hussein being pulled from his hideaway in Operation Red Dawn, 13 December 2003</i>, (Wikipedia).</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;">Bush replaced Donald Rumsfeld with Robert Gates as secretary of defense. An outspoken opponent of even the threat of force against <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>, if Bush wanted to avoid confronting <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region> he could have chosen no better replacement. When Obama succeeded Bush he retained Gates at defense, a clear statement of his own intentions regarding the Islamic Republic. And when Gates retired Obama replaced him with his apparent clone, Leon Panetta. Both defense secretaries and their chairmen of the US Joint Chiefs strongly supported the Bush/Obama policy of Appeasement (what better descriptive of Obama’s carrot-stick-retreat approach to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s nuclear weapons program?). Obama became Ahmadinejad’s unwitting “straight-man,” something of a joke on the Arab street, and the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> was losing face and credibility at an accelerating pace with regional friend and foe alike.</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;">While Obama inherited the chronic failure of an elusive and unlikely Arab-Israel peace from a long line of predecessors; while he inherited Iraq and even the policy of Iranian Appeasement from George W. Bush, when it comes to Egypt and Libya and the much Obama-vaunted “Arab Spring” it takes little special insight or knowledge to appreciate that these are Obama’s contribution to an ongoing American retreat not only from Iraq, but as regional hegemon and protector of Middle Eastern oil.</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;">Obama’s commitment to peace between <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> and the Palestinians was laudable, but even here his rigid “idealism” resulted only in an even deeper chasm between the sides. Obama’s idealistic commitment to regional “democracy” is again worth as an ideal, but as policy a disaster. His decision to back the <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Tahrir Square</st1:address></st1:street> demonstrators and force Mubarak from office is, as a regional misstep, on par with Bush’s invasion of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> in terms of impact on <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s credibility in the region. And when, days before Egyptian elections and the expected landslide victory of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s Islamists<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/11/19/egypt_s_tarir_square_explodes_in_violence.html"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Obama told the military</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>the time arrived to turn over governance to “civilian rule.”</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-noTYPkipLb0/TtzhVWOM8II/AAAAAAAABWY/hhAYhdZ6F7A/s1600/111205+-+Mubarak+on+trial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-noTYPkipLb0/TtzhVWOM8II/AAAAAAAABWY/hhAYhdZ6F7A/s320/111205+-+Mubarak+on+trial.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
id="_x0000_i1026" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="" style='width:299.25pt;height:225pt'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\David\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image002.jpg"
o:href="http://blogs.jpost.com/sites/default/files/111205%20-%20Mubarak%20on%20trial.jpg"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Mubarak on trial, </i>(Reuters).</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><st1:country-region w:st="on"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;">Iran</span></st1:country-region><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;">has always represented the primary threat to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s regional interests. The Iranian threat also represents a rare common concern uniting <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> and the Arab states. Following Obama’s actions in deposing Mubarak the Saudis were so incensed as to refuse even to take Obama’s phone calls. The refused even to allow visits from high level US diplomats. So mistrustful of their previous protector they entered into a secret agreement to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2649457/posts"><span style="color: #557fa0;">purchase and house nuclear weapons in Pakistan</span></a>, announced their intention to build their own atom bomb. None of these outcomes would have resulted had <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> policy makers been objective in viewing events on the ground, of setting ideology aside as determinant of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s foreign policy objectives.</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;">Three days ago, and for the second time in just over a week, Obama’s military spokesman Panetta, disowning the devastation of a US policy gone wild and following a well-established precedent laid responsibility for American failure on its always available patsy, Israel.</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">“Unfortunately,” said Panetta, “over the past year, we’ve seen <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>’s isolation from its traditional security partners in the region grow, and the pursuit of a comprehensive <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place> peace has effectively been put on hold.” The “traditional partners” referred to are <st1:country-region w:st="on">Turkey</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region>, but <st1:country-region w:st="on">Turkey</st1:country-region>’s regional realignment was itself a much earlier result of <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> weakness regarding <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>, and began long before the provocation of Mavi Marmara. And as for <st1:country-region w:st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region>, the current state of relations between the two countries is again the direct outcome of misguided <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> policy, in this instance Obama’s decision to promote Egyptian Islamists over <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s reliable and long-time ally, President Mubarak. <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> policy towards <st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Yemen</st1:country-region>, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Bahrain</st1:country-region></st1:place>…, all consistent with an ideology of Democracy. In an ironic twist of “the War against Islamist Terrorism” <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> now promotes Islamist rule from the Maghreb to the <st1:place w:st="on">Arabian Peninsula</st1:place>. In fact American aid to the Islamists has a long history, the Mujahedeen of Afghanistan, including Osama bin Laden, and the 1979 Khomeini revolution in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">“<a href="http://www.debka.com/article/21538/"><span style="color: #557fa0;">Neither Israel, nor any of the mainstream Arab governments</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>accept the Obama-Panetta proposition that time will magically temper the extremism of the Islamist regimes [those beneficiaries of America’s dedication to “democracy”] They have before them the example of a former Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, who made the same argument 32 years ago for the West to dump the shah and welcome Khomeini's ayatollah regime.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Had America, starting with Bush in 2003, dedicated a fraction of its military expenditure on wars in Iraq and Libya on America’s principal adversary, Russia-sponsored Iran, had Bush taken seriously the combined advice of Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the Saudis regarding Iran the region might be less “democratic today. But hundreds of thousands of Arabs who died in those adventures would be alive today; tens of thousands of US servicemen would not have lost life or limb lives in a failed Iraqi vanity conflict; more than a trillion dollars (the actual cost of borrowed money needed to fund the Iraq war) would not today be hanging over the US economy as debt and interest. And certainly the price of oil would be a fraction of its present cost, and if the global recession were not averted at least it would have been minimized. But most importantly for the future of the region and a West threatened by Islamist terrorism, had the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> taken on <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region> before the costs of such an operation spiraled out of control the threat of a nuclear arms race in one of the most volatile places on the planet would have been averted.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">And <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> today would not find herself threatened both by America-created instability in Arab states near and far, and by her policy-challenged senior partner in their “special relationship,” the true creator of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s isolation. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-2494191344766652632011-11-21T18:06:00.000-08:002011-11-21T19:12:36.923-08:00The Republican Debate: Why the Missing Middle East?<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #898989; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Saturday Nov 19, 2011</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Beyond pledging “support” for <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>, and pledging to end the Iranian bomb project by force, the Republican aspirants to replace Obama avoided discussing the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place>. Not a particularly strong suit for the Democrat. Why the hesitation?</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">In his 13 November column on Jerusalem Post <a href="http://blogs.jpost.com/content/so-republicans-are-going-attack-iran">Shmuel Rosner</a> observed that, minus a few desultory comments the Republican contenders for their party’s nomination paid almost no attention to the region in their recent “foreign policy” debate. On the surface this might be surprising considering the vulnerability of the president in this area, at least among the Jewish community. So how explain the avoidance of the issue by the Republicans who, by tradition, consider themselves the party of an activist foreign policy? Perhaps the reason is less to be found in the vulnerability of the Democrat incumbent than in the record of his predecessor George W. Bush. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--ig2lQgLsW0/TssSwumXKpI/AAAAAAAABWI/ekGcWOtQTew/s1600/800px-WhiteHouseSouthFacade.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--ig2lQgLsW0/TssSwumXKpI/AAAAAAAABWI/ekGcWOtQTew/s320/800px-WhiteHouseSouthFacade.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Oval Office</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WJCovaloff.jpg">Wikipedia</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">On 20 March, 2003, Bush committed the full power of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United <st1:personname w:st="on">S</st1:personname>tates</st1:country-region> military to the invasion of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region></st1:place>. Whatever motivated the invasion, whether "oil" or those absent weapons of mass destruction (WMD), whether it was his desire to promote “democracy” in the Arab world as he later claimed; whatever History eventually defines as the actual motive what Bush did achieve was an “unintended” and unanticipated outcome by fulfilling Iran’s wildest dream. In the 1980’s Iran-Iraq war <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> suffered more than a million casualties, and failed to defeat <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region></st1:place>. By his invasion Bush transformed <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region></st1:place> from a barrier to Iranian ambitions across the Gulf to a potential satellite of the Islamic Republic. He replaced <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region>’s <i>Sunni</i> regime with one dominated by <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region>’s <i>Shi’ites,</i> closely related by religion and culture to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s neighbor to the east. No longer a barrier, Bush provided the Islamic Republic with a superhighway into the heart of those coveted Saudi oil fields. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Prior to the invasion</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region></st1:place> had been an important source of “intelligence” to the Bush administration regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Ahmadinejad even provided the White House a paid agent to substantiate the disinformation. <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120535,00.html">Ahmed Chalabi</a> was a close and trusted advisor to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the darling of Bush neocons. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Boots on the ground our forces found themselves targeted by Iran-financed, trained and Revolutionary Guards-led insurgents. To date nearly 5,000 troops died, victim to progressively more sophisticated Iranian roadside bombs. That the Iranians were behind the insurgency was known to our generals from the start. But due to, “<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/81143/looming-threat/?utm_source=Tablet+Magazine+List&utm_campaign=aaaafd43e5-10_19_2011&utm_medium=email">fears that taking too active a role against Iran</a> and its assets will put U.S. military personnel at risk of Iranian retaliation in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the administration </span></span>chose to remain silent in word and deed. This policy of appeasement would extend also to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s nuclear arms program. In effect, Bush encouraged by neglect the development of the Iranian bomb. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">But the disaster represented by Bush’s <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place> foray extends farther than the region itself. Invading <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> also created threat and uncertainty to <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place> oil resulting in a dramatic rise in the cost of oil. Bush chose to fund the war “off the books: “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302200.html">This was the first time in American history</a> that the government <i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">cut taxes as it went to war </span></i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">(the same tax cuts for the wealthy the center of controversy today)<i>.</i></span> The result: a war completely funded by borrowing. <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region></st1:place> debt soared… As a result of two costly wars funded by debt, our fiscal house was in dismal shape <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">even<i> before</i></span> the financial crisis.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">On assuming office President Obama asked the chief architects of Bush’s hand’s off <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region></st1:place> policy to remain on the job. So avoiding the confrontation is at least a bi-partisan policy. But the fact remains that the Republicans are not only in bed with Democrats regarding <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region></st1:place>, but are the actual architects of the policy. That nearly all debaters were on board regarding a new and “tough” Iran policy, implying a change from Obama, Rosner offers the following caution: “</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">As reassuring as this might sound, I should remind the readers that <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2007/02/the_tehran_option.html/"><span style="color: #557fa0; text-decoration: none;">Democratic candidates made similar – and in some cases even more forceful – statements</span></a> before the 2008 elections. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">With this as background it is perhaps more understandable why the Republicans all but avoided discussing the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place>. The chaos of the region was initiated by a <i>Republican</i> president. Under Obama things have gotten a lot worse, but it was the Bush who created the conditions for the disaster. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A7jnrz4O09o/TssSq_g09bI/AAAAAAAABWA/T89xHZnJ6KI/s1600/111119+-+Israel+F15I+refueling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A7jnrz4O09o/TssSq_g09bI/AAAAAAAABWA/T89xHZnJ6KI/s320/111119+-+Israel+F15I+refueling.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">111119 - <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region></st1:place> F15I’s refueling,</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;"> (photo by Reuters)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">As regards Israel’s role in this faintness-of-heart US approach to Iran, the last time I was in Israel shop after shop displayed the same tee-shirt inscription, “Don’t worry, America, Israel has your back!” In this instance the United States, beyond administration protests to the opposite, has set Israel up as its patsy, to initiate the attack and take the fall for those consequences our latest SecDef advocate-of-hesitation, Leon Panetta, parroting his predecessor: <b>1</b>. “<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">it could have a <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2060304/Leon-Panetta-Military-strike-Iran-unintended-consequences.html">serious impact on U.S. forces</a> in the region,” and; <b>2</b>. </span></span>“there are going to be <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/149881#.TsgU67KBqU8">economic consequences</a> to that, that could impact not just on our economy but the world economy.” And if <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> initiates the attack <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> and not its “ally,’ the American regional hegemon, then <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>, rather than the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region></st1:place>, will alone face the repercussions of a world sunk even deeper into economic misery. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">But implicit in these warnings by Panetta/Gates is that somehow, <b>1</b>. American forces in the region have been relegated to the role of passive reassurance to our friends and allies, not combatants, and; <b>2.</b> that those “economic consequences,” grown only more severe by administration neglect and the passage of time, outweigh the consequences of a nuclear <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region></st1:place> and the likelihood of a regional nuclear arms race. And the more states in this unstable region possessing that weapon, the more likely Islamist terrorists will also go nuclear. And while <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> is at the forefront of counter-terrorism, the most likely targets for nuclear terror are <st1:city w:st="on">Rome</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Madrid</st1:state>, <st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city> and, yes, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">New York</st1:state></st1:place>. And this is the ultimate, to borrow that over-worn Gates/Mullen dictum, the real “unintended consequence” of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s policy of avoidance initiated by President Bush. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="color: maroon; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Topical writings from 2007 on the Bush Administration:</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">1.</span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><a href="http://israelzionismdiaspora.blogspot.com/2008/05/george-w-bush-friend-or-foe-to-israel.html"><span style="color: navy; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Is Israel’s trust in Bush warranted?</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">2.</span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><a href="http://israelzionismdiaspora.blogspot.com/2008/07/nuclear-iran-and-us-israel-special.html"><span style="color: navy; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Nuclear Iran and the US-Israel “special relationship”</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">3.</span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><a href="http://israelzionismdiaspora.blogspot.com/2008/07/bush-condi-and-decline-of-us-diplomacy.html"><span style="color: navy; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Bush, Condi and the Decline of US Diplomacy: Annapolis, 2007</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;">4.</span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></b><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><a href="http://israelzionismdiaspora.blogspot.com/2008/07/george-bush-and-diplomacy-of.html"><span style="color: navy; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">George Bush and the Diplomacy of Inadvertence</span></a></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">5.</span><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> </span><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://israelzionismdiaspora.blogspot.com/2008/11/israels-special-relationship-reality-or.html"><span style="color: navy; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Israel’s “special relationship,” Reality or Myth?</span></a></span></b></div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-29776711170848206402011-11-21T18:04:00.000-08:002011-11-21T18:04:59.813-08:00<div class="title-post" id="title-post" style="background-color: white; color: #3c6b8c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Israel’s America Trap, Part 4: Palestinian Statehood?</div><div class="content clear-block" id="artTxtBlock" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.6em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.6em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
“The United States has provided both a sense of direction and a mechanism. That, at its best, is what the peace process has been about. At worst, it has been little more than a slogan used to mask the marking of time.”</span></i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;"> <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=2SIja_jatV0C&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=%E2%80%9CThe+United+States+has+provided+both+a+sense+of+direction+and+a+mechanism.+That,+at+its+best,+is+what+the+peace+process+has+been+about.+At+worst,+it+has+been+little+more+than+a+slogan+" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">William B. Quandt</a></span></div><div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"> </b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The United States has, for decades, been actively involved in an elusive because illusive peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The tenacity of our leaders deserves recognition, but what lies behind their serial failures? Between Israel and the Arabs there have been some notable successes, and the following is a partial chronology adapted from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_process_in_the_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">Wikipedia</a>:</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Camp David</span></b><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"> Accords (1978):</span></b> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">signed by</span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Egyptian President</span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Anwar El Sadat</span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">and</span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Israeli Prime Minister</span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Menachem Begin</span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">on September 17, 1978, the Accords produced two agreements. One succeeded in laying the groundwork for Anwar Sadat’s historic appearance before the Israeli Knesset followed by a treaty of peace between the two states. The second accord between the governments was intended to lead to the same result between Israel and the Palestinians. After 33 years that has yet to occur.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gkrrxveELi8/TssCfhZcXbI/AAAAAAAABVg/vBd496ij-wo/s1600/300px-Bill_Clinton%252C_Yitzhak_Rabin%252C_Yasser_Arafat_at_the_White_House_1993-09-13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gkrrxveELi8/TssCfhZcXbI/AAAAAAAABVg/vBd496ij-wo/s1600/300px-Bill_Clinton%252C_Yitzhak_Rabin%252C_Yasser_Arafat_at_the_White_House_1993-09-13.jpg" /></a></div><div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;">“We who have fought against you, the Palestinians, we say to you today, in a loud and a clear voice, enough of blood and tears ... enough!” </span></i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;">Yitzhak Rabin</span><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 9pt;">(Reuters)</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">The Oslo Accords</span></b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"> <b style="font-weight: bold;">(1993)</b> produced the </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (DOP), which provided for Arafat returning to the West Bank, the establishment of the Palestinian Authority and self-rule, and made Rabin, Arafat and Peres Nobel laureates. Some sources suggest that with Rabin’s assassination peace, almost achieved, was also victim. But this optimism towards peace neglects both what preceded and followed the assassination, issues that will be discussed below.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JnXgHSPFvrY/TssC8QbRdLI/AAAAAAAABVo/NCBsbfAutcs/s1600/11_July__2000_Israeli+Prime+Minister+Ehud+Barak+%2528R%2529+jokingly+pushes+Palestinian+President+Yasser+Arafat+%2528C%2529+into+the+Laurel+cabin+on+the+grounds+of+Camp+David%252C+3in.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JnXgHSPFvrY/TssC8QbRdLI/AAAAAAAABVo/NCBsbfAutcs/s1600/11_July__2000_Israeli+Prime+Minister+Ehud+Barak+%2528R%2529+jokingly+pushes+Palestinian+President+Yasser+Arafat+%2528C%2529+into+the+Laurel+cabin+on+the+grounds+of+Camp+David%252C+3in.jpg" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><i style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 9pt;"> A light moment at Camp David: Barak playfully pushes Arafat into the Laurel cabin, 11 July, 2000 (Reuters)</span></i></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Camp David</span></b><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"> (2000) </span></b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">was, judged by the purpose of the summit, a failure. Yet it laid out a ground plan for eventual success between willing parties.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">According to news reports prior to the summit Yasser Arafat agreed to attend only reluctantly. Although the agreements mediated by President Clinton were described as the most both sides could realistically expect, Arafat walked away saying, according to a Saudi journalist, that to sign would result in his assassination.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">It is notable,</span></b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"> and a lesson to would be “intermediaries,” that in the end the only two successful treaties, those between Egypt (1979) and Israel and Jordan and Israel (1994) resulted from <i>direct</i> and <i>secret</i> negotiations between the principles. In both cases, according to reports, discussions were kept secret even from the Americans. The Sadat visit, for example, resulted from Egyptian and Israeli emissaries meeting secretly in Morocco to avoid President Carter’s insistence on a Geneva Conference targeting a comprehensive regional peace which Sadat and Begin both knew would end in failure (Eisenberg and Caplan, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Negotiating-Arab-Israeli-Peace-Second-Possibilities/dp/0253222125/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320356406&sr=1-1" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace</a>, p. 42).</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">Basic Positions: Arab, Israel, Palestinian:</b> In its simplest terms peace is unlikely because it means different things to the parties involved. For Israel, surrounded by hostile and threatening neighbors peace means firstly, “security.” In terms of geography that means the indefinite stationing of troops along the Rift Valley border with Jordan, and control of the airspace above any future Palestinian state. Both conditions have been repeatedly rejected out of hand by the Palestinians. For the Palestinians the single issue they seem unwilling to compromise on is the right of return of all Palestinians to their abandoned homes within Israel. At Camp David 2000, for example, Yasser Arafat reportedly told President Clinton that, “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">he would<i>never</i> relinquish the </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Palestinian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Arafat" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">right of return</a>.”</span> And Mahmoud Abbas recently confirmed that, “the Palestinians will never renounce the <a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/05/14/Abbas-stands-by-Arab-right-of-return/UPI-30901305386845/" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">right of return to their former homes in Israel</a>.” Since such a condition would mean not just a potential fifth column, but a demographic time bomb eventually resulting in a “one-state solution,” the demand is a non-starter for Israel.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">But the more fundamental issue is that Israel is viewed by most Arab states as an alien interloper, an extension of European imperialism, a 20<sup>th</sup> century crusader outpost. Hamas and its patron Iran make no bones about this; but so do the Saudis and, occasionally, the Egyptian press also. And while Abbas’ Palestinian Authority maintains its posture as a “partner in peace,” maps in Palestinian school textbooks represent the territory between the river and the sea as “Palestine,” while representing Israelis in anti-Jewish terms. Not a training ground for mutual respect, acceptance of a future sovereign neighbor.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">America</b><b style="font-weight: bold;">’s Position: </b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">American efforts to bring the Palestinians and the Israelis together have been significant in number. Significant also is the regularity of their failure. All began with the optimistic and erroneous assumption that there is a rational core to the conflict which, if addressed with good will and determined mediation will result in peace and mutual trust. I suggest that the explanation for the failure of presidents since Eisenhower, despite their best efforts, is the direct result of overestimating the words of the adversaries without appreciating the evidence of their behavior. Abbas recently complained that the Arabs made a tragic mistake by rejecting the 1947 UN Partition Plan, yet he perpetuates the tragedy by almost identical demands, “Palestinian rights.” In 1947 the reference meant all the land for the Palestinians. In 2011the demand is the “right of return” of all “refugees” to their abandoned homes in Israel. Arafat had maintained this position since Oslo. Abbas repeated it recently. In practice the right of return would eventually result in a Palestinian one-state solution.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">In terms of Arab thinking this is a reasonable and fair basis for “peace;” for Israel it represents national suicide. And so long as American foreign policy thinking persists in denying this fact it will continue to throw prestige, time and money at the wrong problem. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-23IjpzJ4w6k/TssBiThVvjI/AAAAAAAABVY/OEk9cqA14Yw/s1600/111108+-+Obama+and+Netanyahu+grimace" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-23IjpzJ4w6k/TssBiThVvjI/AAAAAAAABVY/OEk9cqA14Yw/s1600/111108+-+Obama+and+Netanyahu+grimace" /></a></div><div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;">Obama and Netanyahu at White House, 20 May, 2011 (Reuters)</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">Obama and the “settlements precondition”:</b> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">At their first meeting in the White House in May, 2009 Obama proposed that Netanyahu cease building in settlements as a way to encourage Abbas back to the negotiations he abandoned the year before in response to Israel’s brief war in Gaza (encouraged and assisted with intelligence by Abbas!). The Israeli government acceded to the presidential request in November, 2009 with a 10-month moratorium. <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/netanyahu-declares-10-month-settlement-freeze-to-restart-peace-talks-1.3435" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: windowtext;">In announcing the moratorium</span></a> Netanyahu added wistfully, </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">"We have been told by many of our friends that once Israel takes the first meaningful steps toward peace, the Palestinians and Arab states would respond."</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Nine months and one week later, under intense pressure from Washington Abbas agreed to face-to-face talks on condition that Israel continue the moratorium indefinitely. The talks ended on that demand. But the principle of the American<i>precondition</i> remained in place until December, 2010.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/1/04/why_isnt_obama_pressuring_the_palestinians" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">Abbas reminds</a> that it was not he, but Obama who created the precondition: "At first, President Obama stated in Cairo that Israel must stop all construction activities in the settlements. Could we demand less than that?"</span> <span style="letter-spacing: 0pt;">In fact Abbas had previously negotiated with seven Israeli prime minister without such a precondition.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">“<a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/1/04/why_isnt_obama_pressuring_the_palestinians" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton </a></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">acknowledges</span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">that <i>the Palestinians are creating a new precondition for talks</i> to begin. Settlements, she says, have "always been an issue within the negotiations.… There's never been a precondition." In other words the secretary is saying that the administration accepts no responsibility in the matter. But a</span>ccording, to <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/7/obama-ends-push-for-israeli-settlements-halt/?page=all" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: windowtext;">Elliott Abrams</span></a>, a Middle East adviser to Bush, “One has to remember <i>the Arabs had not ever insisted on such a precondition</i>. This was something that was added by the administration and it proved to be disastrous.” How a disaster? Clearly the “precondition” failed to result in Abbas return to negotiations. But according to Palestinian officials, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/world/obama-rebuffed-as-palestinians-pursue-un-seat.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0pt;">Abbas has lost faith in Mr. Obama</span></a>… and after <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">four face-to-face meetings and many regular telephone calls there is now little contact between them.”</span>It also created tension between the administration and Israel. Tension with Israel, Abbas, almost entirely dependent on American good will and largesse <i>ignoring</i>Obama: certainly the lesson was learned?</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">“<a href="http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/05/22/3087798/palestinians-israel-must-accept-1967-border-as-basis-for-negotiations" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: windowtext;">On May 19</span></a>, in a speech at the State Department on his Middle East policy, Obama called for peace negotiations <i>on the basis of the 1967 borders</i> with mutually agreed upon land swaps.” Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the Palestinians lost no time adopting this new Obama condition as another precondition for negotiations: "If Netanyahu agrees, we shall turn over a new leaf. If he doesn't, then there is no point talking about a peace process. We're saying it loud and clear."</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">In the meantime the newly independent Palestinian leader, proclaiming Obama’s “deadline” of September, 2011 for a Palestinian state, is taking his case directly to the United Nations. And Obama, having lost credibility and authority to persuade or coerce, can do little but try to persuade the Europeans not to vote in favor of Palestinian statehood.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">A rational Middle East policy</b> based on American interests would begin with the only reliable ally of the superpower in a region adrift, much the result of American missteps in Iraq (Bush), Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and throughout the region (Obama). Yet Israel has, over the past two years, been subjected to accusation and abuse by the White House resulting in an Israeli public highly mistrustful of Obama. And should the Palestinians achieve their UN recognition with little to show for the victory on the street; or should the Palestinian bid fail due to US-Israeli opposition, the conditions for yet another intifada may be ripe.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div>Last week, on 1 November, the media announced that Palestine was accepted as a member state in UNESCO, “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/palestinians-gain-unesco-membership-20111101-1msrj.html" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">scoring a symbolic victory</a> in their battle for full membership of the United Nations.” </span> </div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-91527405632491867862011-11-21T17:50:00.000-08:002011-11-21T17:50:49.718-08:00Israel’s America Trap, Part 3: When “Democracy” trumps Realpolitik<div class="title-post" id="title-post" style="background-color: white; color: #3c6b8c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #898989; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;">Thursday Oct 27, 2011</span></div><div class="content clear-block" id="artTxtBlock" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0.6em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.6em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat; font-size: 10pt;">American predictability is based on anticipated irrationality... a danger to her increasingly skeptical regional allies.</span></i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">If the alternative to a repressive regime allied with and supportive of the US War on Terror is an Islamist regime likely more repressive and supportive of the enemy, why the enthusiasm in Washington for regime change?</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">American foreign policy has an evangelical soul. Nor is it content merely to evangelize, to bring the “good news” to those deemed less fortunate; it can also be activist in imposing regime change. It is within this context that American actions in Iraq, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya should be viewed.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Arab Middle East typically divides between monarchies and “republics,” all to some degree authoritarian. Since there is no tradition of a “democratic” opposition the only replacement parties are either military or Islamist. In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) was forced underground by Mubarak following the assassination of Anwar Sadat. And today the Brotherhood’s most visible offspring are al-Qaeda and Hamas. Earlier this week an MB-inspired Islamist party in Tunisia, described by the New York Times as “moderate” although boasting a militant history, won the preliminary election in Tunisia; another MB-inspired party is likely to form the next government in Libya.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Although the Bush administration floated several rationales (sidestepping “oil”) to justify its invasion of Iraq the theme that always resurfaced was its desire to free the Iraqi people from the tyrant and bestow upon them democratic governance. Similarly when Obama identified with Cairo’s Tahrir protesters and ordered Mubarak out the intention was to replace the Egyptian tyrant with a liberal democracy. And how many Libyans died the result of the US-led allied intervention to protect them from their tyrant? And to what end, the likely successor regime a branch of the same Muslim Brotherhood?</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The day following its grisly murder of Qadafi the leader of the National Transitional Council (NTC) Mustafa Jalil announced, <span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;">"As a Muslim country, we have adopted the<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/26/world/africa/libya-sharia/" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">Islamic Sharia as the main source of law</a>.” </span>Does Obama really believe that Libya’s likely Brotherhood or al-Quaida successor regime will provide a more humane and liberal replacement Qadafi, that it will provide liberty and justice for all, for women? How will an Islamist Libya better confront Islamist terrorism than the deposed Qadafi regime, partner in America’s war against terror?</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">If America’s intervention in Egypt</b> was motivated by “power to the people,” are the Egyptians and the US happy with the continuation of the military regime for which Mubarak was, after all, only the public face; would the Egyptian protesters have been better off with that other likely successor, the MB and Sharia law? In 1979 the US ousted its long-time ally the Shah of Iran in support of the student protesters of Tehran. Within four months the student leaders were murdered or imprisoned or, if lucky, had fled Iran. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gxpcDki0HAM/Tsr_jzKrJ3I/AAAAAAAABVQ/Rw9u36Elwy0/s1600/100629+-+Obama+meets+with+King+Abdullah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gxpcDki0HAM/Tsr_jzKrJ3I/AAAAAAAABVQ/Rw9u36Elwy0/s1600/100629+-+Obama+meets+with+King+Abdullah.jpg" /></a></div><div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Reuters </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">June 29, 2010: President Obama meets with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in the Oval Office.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">If Bush chose to ignore regional leaders warning against deposing Sadam, Obama also chose to ignore the same regarding Mubarak: <span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat; letter-spacing: 0pt;">“<a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/158523/saudi-arabias-fear-egypt" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">It was no coincidence</a> that the most outspoken proponents of Mr. Mubarak’s rule were Israel and Saudi Arabia who, with Egypt, <i>formed the backbone of American dominance in the region</i>.” During the crisis, US officials</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0pt;"> <span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/world/middleeast/13diplomacy.html?scp=7&sq=saudi%20egypt&st=cse" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #496a8b;">received</span></a></span> <span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;">“daily calls from Israel, Saudi Arabia and others who feared an Egypt without Mr. Mubarak would destabilize the entire region.” Whenever they got the chance, the Saudis told the United States to</span> <span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/world/middleeast/09diplomacy.html?_r=1&ref=saudiarabia" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #496a8b;">avoid undermining Mubarak</span></a>.</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fafafa; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;">Is it even possible that Obama’s advisors, from Biden and Clinton to his professional Middle East staff, failed to understand that Tahrir Square represented a disorganized and politically inchoate social protest, that the only organized and experienced alternative to the military were the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood? But the military, in power since Nasser overthrew the monarchy in 1952, was not likely to voluntarily leave the scene, as confirmed on 15 October, 2011: <span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;">“<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/middleeast/egypts-military-expands-power-raising-alarms.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">Two members of the military council</a>that took power after the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak said for the first time in interviews this week that they planned to retain full control of the Egyptian government even after the election of a new Parliament begins in November. The legislature will remain in a subordinate role<i> similar to Mr. Mubarak’s former Parliament</i>, they said, with the military council appointing the prime minister and cabinet.”</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;">S</span></b><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;">audi Arabia</span></b><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;">:</span></b><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;"> “</span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/high-stakes-over-bahrain/2011/03/15/AB7ykyZ.html" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">The Obama administration</a> and its support for democratic change in the Middle East<u> </u>has been on a collision course with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other traditional monarchies of the Persian Gulf. The crunch finally came this week with a sharp break over how to deal with protest in Bahrain.” <span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;">The Saudis share a border with Yemen to the south, a causeway to Bahrain off their coast to the east. Any Iranian involvement in these countries would be a concern to the Saudis, and an issue they would look to the United States to back them on. But </span>“t<span style="letter-spacing: 0pt;">he administration of President Barack Obama has <a href="http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2011/me_gulf0189_02_23.asp" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">dismissed any link between the Shi'ite revolt in Bahrain and Iran</a>…</span>U.S. officials have been arguing that Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy must make political compromises to give more power to the Shiite majority there… This American enthusiasm for change has been anathema to the conservative regimes of the Gulf, and on Monday they backed Bahrain’s ruling Khalifa family with military force, marching about 2,000 troops up the causeway that links Bahrain to Saudi Arabia.”</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Is the principal of yet another Iran-inspired, Shiite-dominated “democracy” on the doorstep of the Saudis worth the threat to the production and transport of oil, to America’s home port to the Fifth Fleet tasked with protecting the waterway and the Straights of Hormuz through which the oil must transit? Where is American proportionality, a sense of American priorities, material national interests over ideology?<br />
<b style="font-weight: bold;"> </b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;">Implications for the region and for Israel:</span></b><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;"> Relations between states, and particularly within alliances, are based on known and predictable interests. American foreign policy since 2002 has been anything but predictable. A rational assessment by the Bush administration should have concluded that, as Israel, the Saudis and virtually all Arab regimes warned, the principle regional threat lay not in Iraq, but Iran. Who could have predicted that the US would defy its own self-interest and replace Sadam with an Iran-friendly Shi’ite government in Iraq? Similarly in Egypt eight years later: what rationale assessment of American regional interests could justify Obama deposing Mubarak, the lynchpin of American influence in the Arab world?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;">Was it rational policy that informed Obama’s decision to go nose-to-nose with the Saudis over Iranian interference in Bahrain, thereby alienating even further the region’s largest and most influential oil producer; that the president would lead an allied war against Qadafi, another supporter of US policy regarding al-Qaeda? American policy may, by now, be predictable, but that predictability is based on anticipated <i>irrationality</i>. America has become a danger to her increasingly more skeptical regional allies.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat;">A decade of confused US policy has greatly emboldened Iran in its challenge to America and its regional allies. Minus a hesitant United States the only other state capable of confronting Iran is Israel. And while American abrogation of responsibility for the security of the region may, in the end, force Israel to act in its own interest, whatever the military outcome of the conflict Israel would face new existential challenges. Regardless whether the decision to attack originates in Washington or Jerusalem Iran would retaliate against US bases forcing an American response. And blame for “forcing” the US into the war would likely have very significant consequences for the so-called “special relationship.”</span></div></div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-63974569699258540552011-11-21T17:47:00.000-08:002011-11-21T17:47:50.096-08:00Israel’s America Trap, Part 2: Appeasing Iran<div id="artFontButtons" style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #898989; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;">Friday Oct 21, 2011</span></div></div><div class="title-post" id="title-post" style="background-color: white; color: #3c6b8c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="content clear-block" id="artTxtBlock" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; margin-bottom: 0.6em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.6em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><div align="center" style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">Attacking Iran would be costly… so appeasement became the default policy of Bush and his successor.</span></i></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"> </b></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Why have two successive administrations avoided confronting multiple Iranian provocations against American interests in the Middle East? Why has the US refused to deal directly with Iranian funded and sometimes officered attacks on American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, against Iran-supported terrorism, its nuclear weapons program. Surely America’s leaders recognize that even the <i>appearance</i> of weakness emboldens Iran and erodes Arab confidence in America’s ability and resolve to stand behind its defense commitments, to defend its regional interests and allies? </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Last week I discussed the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq, its growing “alliance” with Ahmadinejad to limit American casualties by limiting the scope of the war. This week I turn to Obama and how the Bush policy of dependence and appeasement continues to evolve under the new administration. </div><div align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"> </b></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0pt;">Whoever ordered the <b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><a href="http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">2007 National Intelligence Estimate</a></span> (NIE) on Iran</b> its assurances “with confidence” that had Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003 allowed Bush to abandon his cosmetic threats against Iran and “surge” his way into an “honorable” exit and allow his successor to deal with the conseq1uences of his 2011 withdrawal date. In his favor Obama inherited the Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan quagmire from Bush. But his more reasoned and less confrontational approach backed by sanctions would prove as ineffective as his predecessors bluster in dissuading Ahmadinejad from his hegemonic ambitions. </span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0pt;">The problem with sanctions is that there is much evidence indicating they are usually ineffective. Certainly this was true for the North Korea nuclear program. And Iran is both more resourceful and has more wealth and natural resources than her far eastern predecessor. Obama’s failure was not in having tried the more reasoned approach but in not appreciating its failure. Iran and the Arabs and perhaps all other countries expected the president to eventually stop putting off his deadlines and act as promised. With each successive deadline deferred Ahmadinejad’s gravitas grew on the Arab street, and Arab leaders dependent on America’s promise of a defense shield, grew increasingly anxious.</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">“<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/81143/looming-threat/?utm_source=Tablet+Magazine+List&utm_campaign=aaaafd43e5-10_19_2011&utm_medium=email" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">The problem is that Obama’s White House</a>, like George W. Bush’s, fears that taking too active a role against Iran and its assets will put U.S. military personnel at risk of Iranian retaliation in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to some U.S. intelligence estimates, Shiite Iran is responsible for <i>far more American deaths and injuries in America’s two Middle East combat theaters than al-Qaida or other Sunni factions</i>… Washington’s policy of not confronting Iran about its openly aggressive behavior has created a situation in which <i>our troops are now effectively being held hostage</i>.”</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">Unable to disengage from Iraq “with face” Obama followed his predecessor’s policy of spending American lives and treasure in an obviously no-win war.</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PPkBkKcPXw4/Tsr-jYHsmFI/AAAAAAAABUo/KoHBgucUsXk/s1600/090122+-+U.S.+Secretary+of+Defense+Robert+Gates%252C+2p0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PPkBkKcPXw4/Tsr-jYHsmFI/AAAAAAAABUo/KoHBgucUsXk/s1600/090122+-+U.S.+Secretary+of+Defense+Robert+Gates%252C+2p0.jpg" /></a></div><div align="center" style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: 10pt;">U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at the White House meeting planning withdrawal of US forces from Iraq,</span></i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> <i>22 January, 2009. The secretary and his Joint Chiefs chairman had long opposed a military strike against Iran.. </i>Reuters</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">If Iran saw the US as its gladiator against Sadam’s Iraq, it was apparent that the Bush administration needed little encouragement (table talk to that effect preceded his election to the presidency). The administration must have been eager regarding Iranian supplied intelligence, particularly as it was supported by that second source, Iran’s man in the White House Ahmed Chalabi. Doubts regarding Chalabi’s loyalties surfaced not long after the invasion began. But by then the Bush was confronting Iran-backed militias, Iraq teetering on civil war. Under the circumstance the White House apparently saw its best option as cutting a deal with the devil, the backer of the militias, Iran: if Bush could not retreat at least he could limit American losses by limiting the scope of the war. </span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">For Iran, America was the perfect foil. Bush had eliminated their feared adversary at little cost to Iran. And the longer the Americans could be bogged down in Iraq the more freedom Iran would have to pursue its ambitions in the Arab world, and the nuclear weapons that would provide teeth to their ambitions. As for America, boots were on the Iraqi ground, it was not possible to just leave. Attacking Iran would be costly, so Bush chose to cut his losses and pay the price of reducing the loss of American lives by limiting the scope of the war. Appeasement became the default policy of Bush and his successor. </span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">“If the only country able and willing to go after Iran’s nuclear program is Israel, the only one who is capable of stopping the Israelis, Tehran realizes, is the United States. And so Iran and the United States now find themselves in one of the Middle East’s oddest alliances, with the United States unwittingly [?] aiding Iran in its effort to get the bomb.”</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">The United States attacked Iraq for reasons known only to the Bush administration. Certainly the excuses advanced at the time, WMD; democracy for the Iraqis; protection of the Arab oil monarchies and Israel, etc. were, as discussed last week, fallacious. As to the war’s achievements:</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">In lives lost: Iraq</span></b><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">, the country the US set out to “save from Sadam,” <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">more than 150,000 dead</a>, civilian and fighters, between 2003-11, and millions more refugees;</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">America</span></b><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">, as of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">28 May, 2010</a>, 4,404 lives lost, and another 32,000 wounded (small compared to Vietnam over a comparable period);</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">Financial costs </span></b><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; letter-spacing: 0pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">of this under-the-table funded war in dollars: according to the Department of Defense, </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">at least <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">$757.8 billion</a>. But this figure does not begin to cover interest accumulating and owed on the borrowed funds, and money spent and anticipated for the care of our wounded, etc. Agreeing with an <a href="http://web.mit.edu/CIS/editorspick_rubin08_audit.html" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">MIT study</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302200.html" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">The Washington Post</a> recently put the real cost the war at around <i>$4 trillion</i>, and described the impact on the US economy:</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; letter-spacing: 0pt;">“This was the first time in American history that the government <i>cut taxes as it went to war.</i> The result: a war completely funded by borrowing. U.S. debt soared… As a result of two costly wars funded by debt, our fiscal house was in dismal shape <i>even before</i> the financial crisis -- and those fiscal woes compounded the downturn… The global financial crisis was due, at least in part, to the war.”</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">And what has the United States achieved by “saving” the Iraqi people from their oppressive Baathist regime, by turning over the reigns of power to the formerly downtrodden Shiite masses? After eight years and four thousand America lives, four trillion dollars already spent or in the pipeline America transformed Iraq from firewall against, to vassal state of America’s principle regional enemy, Iran. And under Iranian influence that American-installed Shiite-ruled Iraqi government is showing their hapless benefactor to the exit.</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">In 2008 Bush signed an agreement with the Iraqi government to withdraw all troops by 2011. But to withdraw means Iraq is easy prey for an Iranian takeover, throwing open the entire region to the Iranian threat. </span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9Px6UuNb4Ro/Tsr---Jmi4I/AAAAAAAABVI/0ShAt0BWCyI/s1600/111019-+Mullen+-+Iraq+must+decide+on+troops+in+weeks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9Px6UuNb4Ro/Tsr---Jmi4I/AAAAAAAABVI/0ShAt0BWCyI/s320/111019-+Mullen+-+Iraq+must+decide+on+troops+in+weeks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div align="center" style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 10pt;">JCS chairman Mike Mullen delivers a “deadline” for Iraq to permit a residual American force after withdrawal. </span></i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 10pt;">Reuters</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">“<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/world/middleeast/united-states-cuts-back-proposed-size-of-force-in-iraq.html?ref=middleeast" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">An Obama administration proposal</a> to keep a few thousand American troops here after the end of the year to train the Iraqi military is being scaled back, as the administration has concluded that the Iraqi Parliament would not give the troops legal protection.”</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">And if, as likely, the proposal fails the Times article continues, “they could still return next year [sic] to negotiations that would allow the <i>return</i> of some American personnel.” That is, after Iran is even more entrenched in the running of the “democratic” Republic of Iraq!</span></div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </div><div style="font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Perhaps more than anything else, the Bush-Obama policy of appeasement towards Iran best represents America’s failure at strategic foresight, its declining position in the world, its voluntary or not withdrawal into isolationism.</span></div></div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-25253665549334865232011-11-21T17:34:00.000-08:002011-11-21T17:39:48.218-08:00Israel’s America Trap: Collateral Damage, part 1<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px;">Wednesday Oct 12, 2011</span><br />
<div class="title-post" id="title-post" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
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<i style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;">“<a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2139055" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">Listen to my advice for once</a>," </span></i><i style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;">[<b style="font-weight: bold;">Mubarak</b>] recalled telling Cheney in English. </span></i><i style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;">"You have </span></i><i style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;">vital interests </span></i><i style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;">i</span></i><i style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;">n the Gulf region, especially oil."</span></i><b style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"> </b><i style="font-size: 12px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></i></div><div class="content clear-block" id="artTxtBlock" style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 0.6em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.6em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">On his recent visit to the Middle East</span></b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"> ex-CIA chief and now Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta posed this question to Israel: “<a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2095998,00.html" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">Is it enough to maintain a military edge if you’re isolating yourself in the diplomatic arena?</a>” An interesting question and, if this is the case, appropriately posed by Israel’s partner in the “special relationship.” </span>In an 5 October response Lee Smith writes, “<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/79953/loner/?utm_source=Tablet+Magazine+List&utm_campaign=fbfbe3aac8-10_5_2011&utm_medium=email" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">it’s the United States</a>—not Israel—that’s losing power in the region.” Nobody would argue that there has been a seismic shift in the Middle East. I will discuss several issues that created the conditions for that change below. But the implication of Panetta’s statement is that Israel, primarily by failing to make peace with the Palestinians, is responsible for what Panetta refers to as her isolation. I will document below that America, and not Israel, is the cause of that “seismic shift” in the region. And while it is self-evidently true that Israel would be far more secure today, if no less despised in the region, had she and the Palestinian leadership been able to negotiate the “two state solution,” in fact Israel is only one party to those discussions, the opposite party divided by two claimants to leadership, one of which opposes negotiations out of hand.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Due to material to be covered, I will divide this article in two parts, the first covering the war in Iraq and the US-Iran dialogue. The second part will look at the “Arab Spring,” and the Israel-Palestine issue.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VgnEvDFYHw8/Tsr6NbDifkI/AAAAAAAABUg/os6ThT0zGVE/s1600/111010+-+Wiki%252C+The+famous+April+2003+toppling+of+Saddam+Hussein%25E2%2580%2599s+statue+in+Firdos+Square+in+Baghdad+shortly+after+the+Iraq+War+invasion..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VgnEvDFYHw8/Tsr6NbDifkI/AAAAAAAABUg/os6ThT0zGVE/s1600/111010+-+Wiki%252C+The+famous+April+2003+toppling+of+Saddam+Hussein%25E2%2580%2599s+statue+in+Firdos+Square+in+Baghdad+shortly+after+the+Iraq+War+invasion..jpg" /></a></div><div align="center" style="font-family: Arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="center" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 7.5pt;">Clockwise, starting at top left: a joint patrol in</span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 7.5pt;">Samarra</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 7.5pt;">; the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in</span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 7.5pt;">Firdos Square</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 7.5pt;">; an Iraqi Army</span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 7.5pt;">soldier readies his rifle during an assault; a roadside bomb</span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #f9f9f9; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 7.5pt;">detonates in South Baghdad. (<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Iraq_header_2.jpg" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">Wikipedia</a>)</span></div><div align="center" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 2.25pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; margin-bottom: 2.25pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #121212; letter-spacing: 0pt;">America invades Iraq:</span></b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #121212; letter-spacing: 0pt;"> Lawrence Wilkerson, in 2002 a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and later chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell recalled in an interview that, "the Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy --<i><a href="http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39051" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">Iran is the enemy</a></i>. If you are going to destabilize the balance of power, do it against the main enemy." Wilkerson recalled that the message “was conveyed to the administration by a wide range of Israeli sources, including political figures, intelligence and private citizens.” </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Nor was Israel the only concerned bystander.<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1860414.stm" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">Turkey’s prime minister</a>, </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; letter-spacing: 0pt;">Bulent Ecevit, </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">at a time when that country was still a strong ally of the United States and Israel and still under secular rule delivered the same message, as did the Saudis, Lebanon and Egypt.</span><br />
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</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Hosni Mubarak prophetically “told the American government that if you strike at the Iraqi people... <a href="http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/Mubarak-warns-against-US-attack.2356458.jp" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">we fear a state of disorder and chaos may prevail in the region</a>." </span><br />
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</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">As Air Force 2 approached Riyadh on the first leg of a mission to convince the Saudis and Gulf Emirates that America invading Iraq was in their interest, Dick Cheney was informed that Crown Prince Abdullah had just told ABC News, ''I do not believe it is in the United States' interests, or the interest of the region, or the world's interest, to do so… And I don't believe it will achieve the desired result.” But neither the advice of the Saudis, the Israelis and the Turks individually or collectively could deter Bush once he made up his mind.</span><br />
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</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">From the beginning the logic of those warnings by America’s allies in the region should also have been obvious to America’s policy-makers. For how could anybody with any background in the region have not foreseen the pivotal role of Iraq as deterrent to Iran? </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #121212; letter-spacing: 0pt;">But the administration was bent on following its own inner voice. Emblematic of administration ignorance, Vice President Cheney told Meet the Press that he and Bush fully expected the American invaders to “</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><a href="http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/cheneymeetthepress.htm" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">be greeted as liberators</a>.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 12pt;"><i>“</i></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 12pt;"><i>It seems like only yesterday we were marching into Baghdad, waiting to be greeted with shouts of gratitude and appreciation for saving you from the evil dictator who ruled your totalitarian state with an iron fist. Well, the surge is over and we're gonna roll pretty soon, so I just wanted to mention that it's not too late to greet us as liberators if you get the chance.”</i><b> </b></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: navy; font-size: 7.5pt; font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/its-still-not-too-late-to-greet-us-as-liberators,11496/" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">GEN. RAY ODIERNO</a> (APT SPOOF IN ONION)</span></span><br />
<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">America</span></b><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">’s informal alliance with Iran:</span></b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"> The Iranians had fought a decade-long war with Iraq and suffered a million casualties. The Islamic Republic was not anxious to try again. They needed a proxy to topple Sadam. America’s first Gulf war stopped at the gates of Baghdad because Bush, Sr. understood Sadam’s role as deterrent. “</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/overdoing_chalabi" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">Iran knew it could not invade</a> Iraq and win by itself.” Iran would have to encourage t</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">he Americans to do the job for them.</span><br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0pt;">“<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3735973.stm" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">Influential people</a> in the White House, the Pentagon and Congress saw [Ahmed Chalabi] as an Iraqi George Washington.” </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">The MIT-educated, secular Shiite Muslim, “was the Pentagon's and Vice President Dick Cheney's <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2005/11/06/v-print/12853/questions-about-chalabi-pose-dilemma.html" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">candidate to lead Iraq</a> after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.” </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0pt;">In fact Chalabi, close confidant and major source of intelligence regarding those phantom Iraqi WMD (weapons of mass destruction and rationale to invade), was an Iranian spy who both kept Teheran informed of US planning, and provided Bush what it wanted to hear in support of its intentions: </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fefefe; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">“<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/20/iraq/main618637.shtml" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">The CIA blames</a> him for some of the bad intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” And, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0pt;">“</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/25/usa.iraq10" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">intelligence officials</a> now believe that <i>Iran</i><i> used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House </i>to get rid of a hostile neighbor, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq.”</span><br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Rather than the welcome as liberators of the oppressed Shia majority of Iraq the “liberators” were met by a well organized community bent on fighting the infidels. While Ahmadinejad had been baiting the American invasion the Iranian Revolutionary Guard had been organizing and training their Shia co-religionists to fight the invasion. Iran funded, provided weapons and training and, as the insurrection progressed, even officers to lead the militias. It turned out that defeating the Iraqi army and deposing Sadam was the easy part.</span><br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 9.75pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Iran</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"> had deftly manipulated the superpower, and would deftly continue to do so with great profit. With the US military bogged down in Iraq the administration had little appetite for yet another Muslim adventure. Although they could never acknowledge it, Bush was now dependent on Iran as a <i>moderating</i> force needed to keep American casualties low. When in 2007 Bush introduced his “successful” Surge, its success was dependent on Iranian cooperation. Ahmadinejad ordered the Shia Mehdi Army, highly successful in fighting the Americans, to withdraw from the streets of Baghdad.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 9.75pt; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">“</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; letter-spacing: 0pt;"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/17/usa.iran" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">The US plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran</a> for the first time in 30 years as part of a remarkable turnaround in policy by President George Bush.” Was it mere coincidence that the Mehdi Army abandoned the streets to the US, and that Bush provided Ahmadinejad </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">that State Department Interest Section in downtown Teheran, reversing a thirty year US policy of diplomatically isolating the Islamic Republic? But if Bush bought Iranian assistance with that Interest Section it was unnecessary. Iran would have gladly provided Bush any assistance desired, no strings attached, to encourage the Americans to leave. That had been Iranian policy from the start. </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">The Iranian Bomb:</span></b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"> On its surface, based on the statements of Bush and Cheney, the US was committed to use force to stop Iran’s nuclear bomb project. But if that were really policy, why appoint a defense secretary who opposed that policy from the start; why appoint a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who saw eye-to-eye with the defense secretary? In fact American policy regarding the Iranian bomb had been bluster and inaction long before the <a href="http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">2007 National Intelligence Estimate</a> on Iran provided cover by concluding, “<i>with high confidence</i> that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.”</span><br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">But Gates and Mullen needed no such fig leaf; they had long been on record opposing war with Iran. “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #282828;"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/5257343/Robert-Gates-bombing-Iran-would-not-stop-nuclear-threat.html" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">In 2007, [Secretary of Defense Gates] told a private meeting of Congressmen</a> that bombing Iran would "create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America… </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; letter-spacing: 0pt;">They will start a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and they will be less secure at the end than they are now." And chairman Mullen: </span><a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/mullen-please-for-the-love-of-god-dont-attack-iran/" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">“Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing.</span></a> Attacking them would also create the same kind of outcome.” What do such statements mean in context of the president who hired them? What does it say about the intentions of Bush’s successor: President Obama asked both to remain?<br />
<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">New York Times, 10 July, 2011:<b style="font-weight: bold;"> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/world/middleeast/11military.html" style="color: #557fa0; outline-color: initial !important; outline-style: none !important; outline-width: initial !important; text-decoration: none;">Panetta Says Iranian Arms in Iraq Are a ‘Concern’</a></b></span><br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: navy;">“</span></b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">…Mr. Panetta is the third top American official to raise an alarm about Iranian influence in Iraq in recent days. The American ambassador to Iraq, James F. Jeffrey, said last week that the United States had “forensic” evidence that weapons and weapons parts from Iran were being used by Shiite militias against American troops. His remarks were echoed two days later in Washington by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff… Iran’s motive, American officials say, is to claim credit for driving American forces out of Iraq at a time when those forces are more than halfway out the door… In April, Robert M. Gates, Mr. Panetta’s predecessor as defense secretary, all but begged the Iraqis to ask for troops to stay… On Sunday, Mr. Panetta echoed Mr. Gates.</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">”</span></div></div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-40465035522606944382011-05-19T09:27:00.000-07:002011-05-19T12:54:29.747-07:00Obama’s Middle East Learning Curve: Any Progress?<h1 style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><h1 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-size: 17px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Almost exactly two years since Obama and Netanyahu first met at the White House the two reunite amid dramatically changed conditions in the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place>, but with an apparently identical agenda. For Netanyahu the pressing strategic issue for the region was and continues the Iranian drive for regional hegemony backed by a nuclear weapon; for the president the issue was and continues <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Palestine</st1:place></st1:city> and the “peace process”. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">According to Reuters, not known as sympathetic or even impartial where Israel is concerned <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">(those <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/08/reuters-fake-photos-ihh-gaza-blockade-commandos/"><span style="color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">doctored photographs</span></a> taken aboard the blockade-running Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara),</span><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span></b>Obama used the 2009 visit to publicly announce a major departure from previous American policy by urging “<span class="apple-style-span">Netanyahu to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/05/18/us-israel-usa-idUSTRE54H0P520090518"><span style="color: windowtext;">freeze Jewish settlement building</span></a>” as a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">precondition</i> to kick-start the stalled “peace talks.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span">Netanyahu was forced to accede to the Obama “pre-condition” and for ten months all settlement building was halted. Abbas failed to take the bait and waited until two weeks before the moratorium was to end to give in to administration pressure and agree to enter talks. But, the Palestinian, insisted, he would only talk so long as the moratorium was extended! The Obama pre-condition represented to the Palestinian that the president was on their side, would present an American plan and save the Palestinians from responsibility for compromise on such issues as borders, settlements, refugees and, ultimately, the existence of a state of the Jews in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Palestine</st1:city></st1:place>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span">Not only did Obama create conditions which painted <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> as obstructionist, thereby losing credibility for the president on the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> street (any mediator must, at the minimum, at least appear impartial), but lost also was faith in the president (who failed to deliver <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>) on the Palestinian street. Even Abbas, whose Ramleh regime is entirely dependent on the continued largesse feeding the <st1:place w:st="on">West Bank</st1:place> “miracle” under the stewardship of the US-trained Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, was dismissive of the president. In a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2011/04/24/the-wrath-of-abbas.html"><span style="color: windowtext;">Newsweek</span></a> interview that appeared on 24 April, 2011 the Palestinian lambasted the president: “It was Obama who suggested a </span>full settlement freeze,” Abbas explained. “I said OK, I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump. Three times he did it.” The rest is recent history. Abbas is hoping the United Nations will provide that which the president could not or, hopefully, would not: statehood on the cheap. On <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/04/2011427152119845721.html"><span style="color: windowtext;">27 April</span></a> Abbas spurned American financial and diplomatic aid by entering into a power-sharing agreement with its Islamist enemy and Iranian proxy, Hamas. And today it was announced that the architect of that Palestinian economic miracle, <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/12398/World/Region/Fayyad-loses-bid-for-head-of-Palestinian-unity-gov.aspx"><span style="color: windowtext;">Salam Fayyad</span></a>, is out as prime minister in the new “coalition.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And American prestige and influence between the parties is at an all-time low.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And as for <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>, at their 2009 meeting, as reported by Reuters, Obama “<span class="apple-style-span">sought to reassure Israelis wary about his overtures to</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><st1:country-region w:st="on"><span class="apple-style-span">Iran</span></st1:country-region><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">that <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/05/18/us-israel-usa-idUSTRE54H0P520090518"><span style="color: windowtext;">he would not wait indefinitely</span></a> for diplomatic progress toward curbing <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Tehran</st1:place></st1:city>'s nuclear ambitions.” Which, in the end, wait the president did, and did, and did. And the result is that Iranian stature in the region grew with each presidential hesitation. And while there is no way to assess whether or not the Stuxnet action against Iran’s nuclear program is an American, an Israeli, or a cooperative effort of the two; while it is impossible to determine whether the apparently successful cyber-attack was a single foray, or the leading edge of an all-out hi-tech offensive; on the Arab street American lack of resolve in the public contest between the Iranian lion and the American eagle, Iran is the unquestioned victor. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span">In 2011 it is impossible for even the most partisan defender of Bush to assert that his war on Sadam Hussein achieved anything beyond providing <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> a front line on the borders of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region> and the Gulf Emirates, with <st1:country-region w:st="on">Syria</st1:country-region> and with <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Jordan</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Bush’s principal adversary in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> was always <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>, and Ahmadinejad won. Obama failed to accept Netanyahu’s 2009 warnings (<st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> and the Saudis had advised Bush in 2002 that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>, not <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> was the principal regional threat!) that the Iranian nuclear threat was the regional strategic imperative. And today, having managed perhaps the impossible by losing the confidence of virtually the entire Arab world by his “well intended” interventions in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Libya</st1:country-region> the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region> is on the verge of losing the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place>, lock, stock and barrel. As a result its regional failures <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s position as “leader of the Free World” is also fast coming to an end. Certainly the wild and apparently thoughtless adventurism of Bush propelled the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> down this path. Unfortunately his successor, the exact opposite of Bush, turned out to be an overly cautious amateur. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span">For the Saudis Obama support for the ouster of Hosni Mubarak of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region> was the final straw. For the Palestinians Obama’s failure to “deliver” <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> for a peace on Palestinian terms achieved the same. For <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region></st1:place>… Well <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> has little choice in today’s world but to remain dedicated to the “special relationship.” So while Netanyahu can depend on the president continuing to apply pressure for yet more concessions towards the new Hamas-Fateh alliance; while Obama can be counted on to continue to provide hollow assurances regarding his resolve to contain the Iranian threat (assurances already long dismissed by the Saudis!) <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> has nowhere else to turn. Certainly not to an increasingly hostile and unsympathetic <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> with its resurgence of antisemitism both among the citizenry and within the governments. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span">For better or worse, as go <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region>’s fortunes, so go <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s. But maybe, just maybe President Obama will surprise all, demonstrate that he does have the capacity to learn, to change. And maybe, just maybe today’s meeting between the two leaders will demonstrate that the president has grown beyond his apparently well-intended, but globally disastrous naïve idealism and achieved a grasp of realpolitik, pragmatism as the path to achieve his, and all our dreams for peace and justice for all.<o:p></o:p></span></div></h1></span></h1>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-23882595367886923152010-12-08T12:42:00.000-08:002010-12-08T12:42:26.962-08:00Conversations with a Holocaust Denier<div class="MsoNormal">Marc Tracy’s <a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-331719">revue</a> of Ruth Franklin’s new novel, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Freedom</b> appeared on Table<cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">t on 2 December. One of the responders was a Holocaust Denier, Michael Santomauro. What follows is the entire stream of a six day exchange between us.</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I only read preceding responses following my first response to the revue and my first response to him followed soon after.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-331587"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dec 2, 2010 at 4:20 PM</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The Holocaust, at least for we Jews, is a very real event in our own personal history. It has meaning and consequences for our lives far more immediate than any fiction could represent. Not even historical scholarship is adequate to the event. For us understanding its lessons within the context of our Diaspora experience represents nothing less than life and death.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Fiction, regardless how effective and dramatic in recreating the events of the Holocaust is still experienced by the reader as artistic expression, a fabrication of events as filtered by the experience and imagination of the artist.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Historical interpretation is also a reflection of the same process of inspiration (in this case ideology or prejudice; sorry historians, but we all come to the Present the product of our own personal history, and this necessarily colors our understanding and biases regarding the selection of data collected to relate the historical story), but at least the historian is making the effort to relate events “factually,” aspires to a degree of objectivity. And for this reason history is understood by the reader as “non-fiction.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I suggest that while fiction and history may serve to reinforce our understanding, that the Holocaust is more than just a tragic event in our recent history, that it is part of an historical process that is centuries-, no millennia-long; that if we are not experiencing it viscerally then we are in denial about its true significance, are thereby perpetuating our own role as victim in this dialogue which Diaspora Jews have involuntarily participated in for nearly two thousand years.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Except that in the past we had not alternative; we were victims without escape. Today there is an alternative, and our choice to remain in Diaspora is a choice to accept whatever the future of this historical process may hold.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p><br />
</o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><b>The stream begins here:</b></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/">Michael Santomauro</a></span> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-331432"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dec 2, 2010 at 3:13 PM</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Folks,<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The bottom line is that the Holocaust is claimed to be a historical event like the Civil War or the New Deal and therefore writing about it should be subject to the same standards of historiography.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">When Franklin says of Primo Levi’s Auschwitz memoir that it ”underwent a process of fictionalization” she should have said that he decided to pack his rather mundane experience in the German concentration camp with a bunch of fantastic lies.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The same can be said about Elie Wiesel, who she says of his book ”Night” that its ”poetic austerity comes at the expense of literal truth”.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Not a single memoir of the Holocaust or as a matter of fact not a single historical study of the Holocaust by establishment historians can withstand the cross examinations of Revisionist historians.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">If you doubt this remember what Wiesel said ”some things that never happened are true and some things that happened are not true ”.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And one more thing:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I wish to express my outrage that the Holocaust, unlike any other historical event, is not subject to critical revisionist investigation. Furthermore, I deplore the fact that many so-called democratic states have laws that criminalize public doubting of the Holocaust. It is my position that the veracity of Holocaust assertions should be determined in the marketplace of scholarly discourse and not in our legislatures bodies and courthouses.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Let’s get rid of Holocaust denial laws in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> and 16 other nations. That have been instituted in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> in 1986 and for the other 16 nations since 1990. Decades after the event. Why?<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">What sort of Truth is it that crushes the freedom to seek the truth?<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">David Turner</span></a> says: <o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-331719"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dec 2, 2010 at 4:56 PM</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In defending the pursuit of historical veracity through what he describes as an unbiased inquiry into the Holocaust, Michael Santomauro fails to distinguish between Holocaust inquiry and Holocaust denial. The first is an effort to marshal available facts in service of creating as “objectively” as possible, a past event. The second is to select from the available facts and, where absent, to extrapolate “facts” in order to present a predetermined ideological outcome.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Holocaust Denial takes many forms, represents various purposes. Some use it as a form of schadenfreude, the joy of creating and seeing others suffer. Some use it as a defense of their religion from the obvious part that millennia of Christian anti-Judaism played as foundation and inspiration to the crime. But such representations are not “history,” are not valid historical enquiry. Their purpose is not to describe factually, but to promote or defend a political or social position. And this is polemic, not history.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">There are many volumes relating the prehistory of the Holocaust, the event itself and its significance for the future with which I am in sharp disagreement. But I do not for that reason deny their authors the right to the study and presentation of their views. Nor are laws criminalizing Holocaust Denial or any other form of incitement against a minority directed at independent scholarship, even when the agenda is ideologically revisionist.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">You reason well, Mike. But you confuse </span>your <span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">facts with </span>the<span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">Facts</span>.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Michael Santomauro</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-333200"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dec 3, 2010 at 3:20 AM</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Dear David Turner,<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The Holocaust narrative reads like a conspiracy not Holocaust Revisionism!<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Preeminent Holocaust expert Raul Hilberg summarized his thesis in 1983 before an audience of nearly 2,700 at Avery Fischer Hall in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York City</st1:place></st1:city>: the entire German policy for the physical destruction of the Jews was to be explained by mind reading! No document attesting to this criminal policy could be found, because no such document existed. For several years, the entire German bureaucratic machinery operated through a kind of telepathy. As Hilberg put it:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“But what began in 1941 was a process of destruction not planned in advance, not organized centrally by any agency. There was no blueprint and there was no budget for destructive measures. They [these measures] were taken step by step, one step at a time. Thus came about not so much a plan being carried out, but an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus — mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Let us note again those final words: “an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus — mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In his 1985 “revised and definitive” edition of his book, in it, the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Vermont</st1:placename></st1:place> professor did not use the expression “consensus” or “mind reading.” And yet he wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“In the final analysis, the destruction of the Jews was not so much a product of laws and commands as it was a matter of spirit, of shared comprehension, of consonance and synchronization.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I refuse to believe that which is not believable. I refuse to believe in the incredible. I refuse to believe in what Hilberg himself calls “an incredible meeting of minds.” I refuse to believe in mind reading or telepathy, just as I refuse to believe in the intervention of the Holy Ghost or in spontaneous generation. I take exception to any historical thesis, any system of historical explanation, based on such hare-brained notions.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">David Turner</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-334240">Dec 3, 2010 at 10:17 AM</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Well, Mike, whether or not there was a plan or blueprint, whether or not the bureaucrats from Himmler on down got the message via telepathy, the evidence of Buchenwald and Auschwitz remains; the roll of Jews previously resident of Germany and France and Holland and Romania and Poland who vanished during the course of the Holocaust is also evidence of the event. Your position is based on ideology, not fact. It’s a form of “wishful thinking,” perhaps not that the Jews whose fate you dismiss as fancy were indeed victims of the West’s “final,” if incomplete solution to their Jewish Problem, but perhaps the adolescent joy of discovery of a flaw, the missing blueprint, that can be exploited to demonstrate to self and other your own superior insight.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In point of fact, Hitler wrote multiple times of his desire to murder the Jews, to erase the entire people (of course he used terms like parasite, vermin and bacillus) from the planet at least as far back as writing Mein Kampf in his jail cell. Interviewed in that cell by Josef Hell he said, “Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews. As soon as I have the power to do so, I will have gallows built in rows – at the Marienplatz in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Munich</st1:place></st1:city>, for example – as many as traffic allows. Then the Jews will be hanged indiscriminately, and they will remain hanging until they stink; they will hang there as long as the principles of hygiene permit. As soon as they have been untied, the next batch will be strung up, and so on down the line, until the last Jew in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Munich</st1:place></st1:city> has been exterminated. Other cities will follow suit, precisely in this fashion, until all <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region> has been completely cleansed of Jews.” Of course this was 1922, before he was elected chancellor, before such primitive and time-consuming instruments of murder as the gallows was replaced by the efficient dispatch of life and remains through the application of Hitler’s idol Henry Ford’s assembly line at <st1:place w:st="on">Auschwitz</st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The evidence, the material evidence remains there, Mike.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The one piece of “evidence” you, and others of your thinking hang on is that we have not yet uncovered the “blueprint.” As if <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region> would have admitted in writing that it was murdering the Jews! And who needed a roadmap or order; the Holocaust was quite content to progress “intuitively,” the blueprint already laid out by the fuehrer decades earlier. Are the battle plans for a war written in advance? The carnage proceeds at its own pace, advantages recognized and exploited or not. There is never a definitive “blueprint,” just the intention expressed by leadership to march. Why should the War Against the Jews by judged differently?<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Speaking before SS officers at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Poznan</st1:city>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Poland</st1:country-region></st1:place> in 1943, Himmler stated that for which no blueprint existed: “…we have never conversed about it amongst ourselves, never spoken about it… I am talking about the “Jewish evacuation”: the extermination of the Jewish people. It is one of those things that is easily said. “The Jewish people is being exterminated,” every Party member will tell you, “perfectly clear, it’s part of our plans, we’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating them, ha!, a small matter.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Michael Santomauro</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-334453"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dec 3, 2010 at 12:01 PM</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Dear David Turner,<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">At the end of the Second World War, the Allies confiscated a tremendous quantity of German documents dealing with Germany’s wartime Jewish policy, which was sometimes referred to as the “final solution.” But not a single German document has ever been found that orders or even refers to an extermination program. To the contrary, the documents clearly show that the German ‘final solution’ policy was one of emigration and deportation, not extermination.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Moreover, there is no documentary evidence that Adolf Hitler ever gave an order to exterminate the Jews, or that he knew of any extermination program. Instead, the record shows that the German leader wanted the Jews to leave <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>, by emigration if possible and by deportation if necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Contrary to the popular propaganda image, the wartime German authorities were concerned about the high death rate in the concentration camps due to disease, and took measures to prevent deaths among the inmates. From a directive dated December 28, 1942, from the head of the SS camp administration office to all the German concentration camps, including <st1:place w:st="on">Auschwitz</st1:place>. It sharply criticized the high death rate of inmates due to disease, and ordered that “camp physicians must use all means at their disposal to significantly reduce the death rate in the various camps.” Furthermore, it ordered: “The camp doctors must supervise more often than in the past the nutrition of the prisoners and, in cooperation with the administration, submit improvement recommendations to the camp commandants …” Finally, the directive stressed, “The Reichsführer SS [Himmler] has ordered that the death rate absolutely must be reduced.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">At one time, it was seriously claimed that the Germans exterminated Jews with electricity and steam, and that they manufactured soap from Jewish corpses. At <st1:city w:st="on">Nuremberg</st1:city>, the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> charged that the Germans killed Jews at Treblinka, not in gas chambers, as is now claimed, but by steaming them to death.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">These bizarre stories have also been quietly abandoned in recent years. <o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In April 1990, Israeli historians conceded that the Germans did not manufacture bars of soap from the bodies of murdered Jews — contrary to what had been alleged for years in countless periodicals and supposedly authoritative history texts. If this story is not true, one might reasonably ask, how then did it ever get started? Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer had a ready answer. He charged that the Nazis invented it. In fact, this particular fable was first widely circulated in 1942 by the World Jewish Congress, and especially by its president, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Peace.<br />
Michael Santomauro<br />
<a href="mailto:ReporterNotebook@gmail.com"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">ReporterNotebook@gmail.com</span></a><br />
Call anytime: 917-974-6367<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">What sort of TRUTH is it that crushes the freedom to seek the truth?<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">David Turner</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-334696">Dec 3, 2010 at 1:33 PM</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I have already suggested, Michael, that I do not read your comments as from the more typical Holocaust Denial lunatic fringe. Indeed, you sound reasonable and well-educated… in the documents that server your pursuit. Nor do I attack your right to pursue your studies as they affirm your beliefs. Nor do I reject most of the facts you marshal in defense of your thesis. The facts are generally correct, if not viewed within the actual process of the Holocaust. While there were beastly atrocities occurring in most ghettos, several were administered by officers whose approach seem out of sync with an outcome such as extermination. In fact the record of these more humane commandants was concerned for the preserving their wards as filling a labor shortage serving German war aims. Not exactly a humanitarian gesture. Von Braun likewise made efforts to keep his Jewish slaves alive as long as possible in pursuit of developing the super weapons that, had the war lasted a bit longer, might have ended differently. And there might not a Jew around today to respond to Deniers and Revisionists.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">A far as the legend of Jews turned into soap goes, again your facts are OK, but context is, again, everything. Rabbi Weiss was an ocean away, subject to rumor no less than any person a continent away. The rumor of people into soap was actually born during the First World War when, if memory serves, the British and French used the lie as a propaganda instrument against the Germans. Considering the barbarism of the Holocaust, it is no stretch to suspect that the Germans were cleaning the stench of burned Jews with soap manufactured from their ashes.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Have you read my earlier quotes by Hitler in 1922, and Himmler in 1943? Himmler openly referred to the “secret” operation to “exterminate” the Jews: “The Jewish people is being exterminated, every Party member will tell you ‘perfectly clear,’ it’s part of our plans, we’re eliminating the Jews, EXTERMINATING THEM, ha!, a small matter.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
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o:href="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/1b6c00c9f259011f01064b22979d88b1?s=32&d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D32&r=G"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/">Michael Santomauro</a> </span></span></cite>says:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-338205"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dec 4, 2010 at 9:07 AM</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Dear David Turner</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">,<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Link for the speech in question:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.codoh.com/incon/inconhh.html"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">http://www.codoh.com/incon/inconhh.html</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Excerpt from intro:</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
Reading Himmler’s speech in its entirety, rather than the usual out-of-context quotations, results in a new level of understanding. Brief, out-of-context quotations have been used to support the orthodox Holocaust story since the end of the Second World War. For example, Lucy Dawidowicz cited the Himmler speech in her book, The War Against the Jews 1933-1945. She reproduced however only 197 of the more than 24,000 words and these with a translation which directly supports her thesis. Dawidowicz is not alone in the misleading use of the Posen speech. Gerald Reitlinger, in his volume, The Final Solution also quotes from the Posen speech. Reitlinger reproduces 205 of the 24,000 words.<br />
<br />
Carlos Porter has also provided interesting insights in his translation of the various controversial terms used by Himmler: ausrotten, ausmerzen, umbringen and totschlagen. Besides his translation of these German terms, Porter shows that all of these terms are used multiple times during the speech and that each is used at least once in a figurative sense. The less suspicious phrases in which these terms are used are never quoted in the traditional literature.<br />
<br />
Many of those who accept the orthodox version of the Holocaust story refuse to accept Porter’s translation of Ausrottung, and the other terms which are typically translated to mean extermination. Porter’s translation shows that there can be a benign interpretation of these words, especially when taken within the context of the entire speech.<br />
<br />
In 1993, Robert Wolfe, supervisory archivist for captured German records at the National Archives admitted that a more precise translation of Ausrottung would be extirpation or tearing up by the roots. Wolfe also pointed out that in Himmler’s handwritten notes for the speech, that Himmler used the term, Judenevakuierung, or evacuation of the Jews, not killing.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">David Turner</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-339767">Dec 4, 2010 at 4:50 PM</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Mike, as I said earlier, I recognize that, for whatever reason, you are a serious student of the mass murder of my people on the European sub-continent. Your observations are useful as a caution to myself regarding accepting one or another translation from a foreign language. I am certainly aware of the problem in discussing Christian scripture, although while the standard of precision we might prefer can never be achieved word for word, still intent can be approximated from context. In the case of Matthew, for example, “his blood on our heads, and those of our children (from memory, not from text)” may or not have translated exactly from the original Greek or Aramaic (we can only rely on multiple rewrites over the first fifteen hundred years even for the present texts, and you know how meaning changes the original from the whisper-circle experiments. But whether or not the words are accurate, the meaning in context is suggestive. And that, and some other “original” texts have resulted in what one scholar estimates is the murder of one of every two Jews born in the past thousand years.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">As regards the Himmler speech, I have read it in entirety and although some words have multiple possible meaning, the context and intent none-the-less refer to the systematic elimination of all Jews whom his soldiers were able to get their hands on. Was this originally the plan, as his words imply, or a progressive elimination of options leading to their disappearance? Does it matter? The fact is that between 1941 and 1945 roughly six million Jews ceased to exist.</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
You and I can quibble back and forth over ideas, something I find not without value. But we are not likely ever to agree. And the reason is that the Holocaust for you is a topic of interest, an intellectual challenge. For me the Holocaust is a stark reminder of how tenuous my existence is in a world that has murdered Jews for millenia.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The Holocaust was only the most recent attempt to solve the West’s Jewish Problem.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Michael Santomauro</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-346810"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dec 6, 2010 at 10:08 AM</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Dear David Turner,<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Thank you for your input. In his 1988 book, Jewish Professor Arno Mayer calls for “excavations at the killing sites and in their immediate environs” to determine more about the gas chambers. In fact, such forensic studies have been made. The first was conducted in 1988 by American execution equipment consultant, Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. He carried out an on-site forensic examination of the alleged gas chambers at <st1:place w:st="on">Auschwitz</st1:place>, Birkenau and Majdanek to determine if they could have been used to kill people as claimed. After a careful study of the alleged killing facilities, Leuchter concluded that the sites were not used, and could not have been used, as homicidal gas chambers. Furthermore, an analysis of samples taken by Leuchter from the walls and floors of the alleged gas chambers showed either no or minuscule traces of cyanide compound, from the active ingredient of Zyklon B, the pesticide allegedly used to murder Jews at Auschwitz. <o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">A confidential forensic examination (and subsequent report) commissioned by the Auschwitz State Museum and conducted by Institute of Forensic Research in Krakow has confirmed Leuchter’s finding that minimal or no traces of cyanide compound can be found in the sites alleged to have been gas chambers. <o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The significance of this is evident when the results of the forensic examination of the alleged homicidal gas chambers are compared with the results of the examination of the <st1:place w:st="on">Auschwitz</st1:place> disinfestation facilities, where Zyklon B was used to delouse mattresses and clothing. Whereas no or only trace amounts of cyanide were found in the alleged homicidal gas chambers, massive traces of cyanide were found in the walls and floor in the camp’s disinfestation gas chambers. <o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p>An aside to another responder: </o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">David Turner</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-346865">Dec 6, 2010 at 10:28 AM</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Thank you, Leucippe. What appears above is a debate between two persons with opposite expressions (I cannot speak for Mr. Santomauro’s motives) of an issue important, perhaps central to Jewish identity and existence. I hope it helped clarify both sides of the issue for others not that familiar with the challenge to the reality of the Holocaust, the denial by some that the event ever occurred; or if it did, was greatly exaggerated, manipulated by the Jews for some purpose or other. Shades of the Protocols!<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This is not the place to challenge Holocaust Denial; it takes many forms and reflects a range of motives from an effort to defend Christianity as inspiration and precedent, to the obvious provocation of the open antisemite. Neither is to be taken seriously as both, whether through subtlety born of self-deception, or willful polemic, fall well outside universally accepted norms of historical discussion. My debate with Santomauro above, his references to a missing “smoking gun,” the absence of a document by Hitler “ordering” or providing a “blueprint” for the Holocaust, while ignoring the existing record of writings, speeches and interviews precisely stating Hitler’s intentions, for example his 1922 jail cell interview, “Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews!”; or Himmler’s 1943 Poznan speech to his SS officers, “every Party member will tell you, we’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating them. Ha, a small matter!”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">As regards the Himmler speech Mr. Santomauro tried blurring its obvious meaning through the subterfuge of mistranslation. Of course the speech was a translation, and of course individual words can be translated slightly differently. But the meaning comes through not by the weight of its individual words, but by its context. And by context Himmler’s meaning is as clear in 1943 as was Hitler’s in 1922.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">David Turner</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-346922"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dec 6, 2010 at 10:55 AM</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Sorry Mike, raising the Zyklon B issue demeans, not promotes your efforts. The means of murder are, at best, a side issue. In fact later studies demonstrated that the results you refer to were, to be generous, in error. But again, this is a bogus issue. You fail to convince based on arguing from texts, and fail also by this detour.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Where previously I reserved judgment on your motives, perhaps a misguided history buff who joyfully “discovered” what he felt a flaw in historical process, you now emerge from the closet fully regaled. What is it about provoking Jews that motivates you? Is it the effort at getting a rise from us, or just the reaching out of the lonely to others also so for common identity and affirmation?<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
<a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Michael Santomauro</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-347081"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dec 6, 2010 at 12:17 PM</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Dear David Turner,<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">As as I stated before:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“I refuse to believe that which is not believable. I refuse to believe in the incredible. I refuse to believe in what Hilberg himself calls “an incredible meeting of minds.” I refuse to believe in mind reading or telepathy, just as I refuse to believe in the intervention of the Holy Ghost or in spontaneous generation. I take exception to any historical thesis, any system of historical explanation, based on such hare-brained notions.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Peace.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Michael Santomauro<br />
<a href="mailto:ReporterNotebook@gmail.com"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">ReporterNotebook@gmail.com</span></a><br />
Call anytime: 917-974-6367<br />
What sort of TRUTH is it that crushes the freedom to seek the truth?<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p><br />
</o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">David Turner</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-348270"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dec 6, 2010 at 7:38 PM</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">So why is the Holocaust the object of your disbelief? Why are we Jews so important in your life?<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
<a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Michael Santomauro</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-352946"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dec 7, 2010 at 8:00 PM</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Dear David Turner,<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Thank you for asking the question.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Most of us are mentally trapped to think Jewish. Actually, it is safe to say that virtually every mainstream publication or or other type of media organ is “nothing more than a screen to present chosen views.” The great battle over the last century has been a battle for the mind of the Western peoples, i.e., non-Jewish Euros. The chosen won it by acquiring control over essentially the complete mainstream news, information, education and entertainment media of every type, and using that control to infuse and disseminate their message, agenda and worldview, their way of thinking, or rather the way they want us to think. Since at least the 1960s this campaign has been effectively complete. Since then they have shaped and controlled the minds of all but a seeming few of us in varying degree with almost no opposition or competition from any alternative worldview. So now most of us are mentally trapped in the box the chosen have made for us, which we have lived in all our lives. Only a few have managed to avoid it or escape it, or to even sometimes see outside of it, and so actually “think outside of the (Jewish) box.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The Holocaust is often treated with reverence, and as a central event of world history. For many Jews, says Rabbi Michael Goldberg, a Jewish author and religious leader, the “veneration” of the Holocaust has become a new religion. “And as with any organized church,” he adds, “this Holocaust cult has its own tenets of faith, rites, and shrines.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Two well-known Jewish writers, Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab, point ed out in their 1995 book, Jews and the New American Scene:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“During the last three decades Jews [in the United States] have made up 50 percent of the top two hundred intellectuals… 20 percent of professors at the leading universities … 40 percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington … 59 percent of the directors, writ ers and producers.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This intimidating power is not a new phenomenon, but has long been an important factor in American life. In 1972, during a private White House meeting, President Richard Nixon and the Rev. Billy Graham spoke frankly about the Jewish grip on the media. “This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain,” said Graham, the nation’s best-known Christian evangelist. “You believe that?,” Nixon responded. “Yes, sir,” said Graham. “Oh, boy,” replied Nixon. “So do I. I can’t ever say that, but I believe it.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In 1978, Jewish American scholar Alfred M. Lilienthal wrote in his detailed study, The Zionist Connection:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“How has the Zionist will been imposed on the American people?… It is the Jewish connection, the tribal solidarity among themselves and the amazing pull on non-Jews, that has molded this unprecedented power … The Jewish connection covers all areas and reaches every level. Most Americans may not even sense this gigantic effort, but there is scarcely a Jew who is not touched by its tentacles.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">To sum up: Jews wield immense power and influence in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>. The “Jewish lobby” is a decisive factor in <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> support for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Jewish-Zionist interests are not identical to American interests. In fact, they often conflict.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">As long as the “very powerful” Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the Jewish-Zionist domination of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> political system and the American media, the Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the Israeli threat to peace, and the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p><br />
</o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">David Turner</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-353756">Dec 7, 2010 at 11:13 PM</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Well, Mike, you’ve redeemed yourself in my mind. For a moment I thought you were quitting with that Zyklon B addendum. I appreciate you coming completely out of the closet, putting aside the non-issue of freedom of speech, since your repeated appearance in this vehicle of the (for real) Jewish media certainly provide even you a forum to air your decidedly from the start anti-Jewish point of view. You quote freely from Jewish sources to “prove” your point but, if you don’t mind my saying, you cherry pick and distort by your selections. Wiesel, who admitted the nightmare too unimaginable to present as anything than in a fictive form certainly was not saying, as you would have it, that the Holocaust was a creation of imagination. Likewise that since no specific order or blueprint has yet been discovered, that the process by which the Holocaust unfolded was as if by telepathy. Again, the closest document I, for one, am aware of was the Himmler Poznan speech, which you choose to nit-pick the translation to suit your purposes but, I suggest, any unbiased reader in the German or English translation, would have little difficult understanding as a full admission that Germany from Hitler on down was fully aware of the program as full and systematic eradication of Jewish existence, if possible.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The one piece of evidence for a “Jewish Conspiracy” that you do point at, relating to Jewish achievement in the United States again, to the eyes of a dispassionate non-Jew might evoke envy but, since the majority of graduates from the universities are non-Jews, and the institutions themselves, and particularly the “ivy leagues” are or were originally Christian in origin; well, I agree, in the 200 years since our “emancipation” Jews have proportionately contributed more artists, scientists, professors, and overall Nobel laureates than the general public, in all lands of the Diaspora. In fact, it has been assumed that had <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region> not destroyed their Jews they would have won the war.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.debatingtheholocaust.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Michael Santomauro</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-355885"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dec 8, 2010 at 11:22 AM</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Dear David Turner,<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Remember the <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state> magazine cover story: “The Jewish Brain: Are Jew’s smarter?”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/culture/features/1478"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/culture/features/1478</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Oct. 19, 2005<br />
Re: Are Jews Smarter?<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Dear Ms. Senior:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Why is it okay for white Jews (Ashkenazim) to sub-divide themselves from the Sephardic lower IQ? (Forty-five percent of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s population has the Sephardic IQ of 88.)<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And it is not okay for other White ethnics to be able to do the same when reporting IQ scores? For example, at the very minimum, it would show Northern and Western Europeans to be comparable if not slightly higher than the Jewish-white IQ, when you eliminate the Eastern European IQ. In some categories the European-White IQ is way higher, such as in spatial reasoning, even for all White ethnics including the Eastern European. This is rarely reported in the mass media. I wonder why? It reminds me of a joke from the Jewish comedian David Steinberg, who is married to an Italian-Catholic: “Whenever I go to family gatherings, the Jewish side breaks things, and the Italian side fixes them!”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In folk psychology and folk sociology, when it comes to E. Q., even my Jewish supremacist acquaintances and friends will think they have been culturally short changed, thinking of themselves as an unhappy lot.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In aesthetics Jews “seem” to have an inferiority complex when it comes to physical aptitude, which I have argued with my Jewish friends, is absolutely uncalled for! For instance, in “folk talk,” my Jewish girlfriends believe what is often said (even by Bobby Fischer) about Jewish men in the “below the belt” department, that they have been short changed from all that inbreeding.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And what about Jewish women? Again, referring to David Steinberg’s promulgation of the joke: “What moves more Jell-O or Jewish women in bed”. The rate of Jewish men running away to marry “shiksa’s” for the under 35 age category is as high as 35-50%, depending on which data you want to embrace.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Are we to make a correlation from any of this?<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The point being, it is hard to define what is a “Jewish brain” in the secular world. You mention the high percentage of Jewish Nobel Prize winners since its inception in 1901, yet about two-thirds of the Jewish winners come from inter-faith/inter-ethnic backgrounds. For centuries before 1901, the portion of Jewish contributions to the high sciences is almost void.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">To refer to chess master Bobby Fischer (another one of those 1/2 Jews), is slanderous to Jews. Your readers should be aware that he hates Jews with a fervent passion, and blames virtually any bad that is happening in the world on organized Jewry.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">You wrote: “Of course, there’s another side to this shining coin. Jewish cleverness has also been an enduring feature of anti-Semitic paranoia.”<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The implication here for your readers misunderstanding is that anti-Semitism is the result of Jewish intellect. Historically it has been as a result of resource competition, belief in a moral and intellectual superiority and a fierce policy of non assimilation with the host countries which initially offered you admittance with friendliness. Anti-Semitism is not in any way a mental illness.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Western Civilization is a European-white accomplishment and Judaism has always been an appendage. Not the other way around.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">We are a better world today because Western Civilization took the road to <st1:city w:st="on">Athens</st1:city> over the road to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Jerusalem</st1:place></st1:city>.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">If we had a proper scientific study involving IQ tests that are not skewed to fit one group in particular (by, for example, including musical intelligence tests that are currently excluded because some people “don’t believe in” musical intelligence) then all this Jewish intellectual narcissism would disappear up its own arsehole. Which is precisely why we will never see such a thing, for it would be truly “anti-Semitic”.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">As long as we’re playing with racism and stereotypes, where do Jews rank in the greed and power scale? Or the bad landlord scale? Or the cause of social inequality, war and exploitation of lesser people scale?<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">One last thing, it’s too much of a reach to think that Charlemagne “lured” Jews there to lend money. Give me a break!<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Peace.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Michael Santomauro<br />
Editorial Director<br />
<a href="mailto:ReporterNotebook@gmail.com"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">ReporterNotebook@gmail.com</span></a><br />
917-974-6367<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://jewishdenial.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">David Turner</span></a> says:<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/51978/higher-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-357091">Dec 8, 2010 at 3:10 PM</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Apparently you sent me this latest in response to my observation regarding the contribution of Jews to Western society over the past century or so. I did not mean to offend or threaten; in fact mine was only an observation in response to your earlier comments. But again your facts appear, as earlier, strongly colored by your ideology. I am not aware that the skew towards Jewish recipients of the Nobel were progeny of mixed marriages. And what if they were, that still would not explain why the far superior Aryan genes contributing to their talents would not be even more powerfully expressed in marriages between two Aryans?<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">You ask, “Why is it okay for white Jews (Ashkenazim) to sub-divide themselves from the Sephardic lower IQ? (Forty-five percent of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s population has the Sephardic IQ of 88.)” </span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">While I agree that among the ultraorthodox in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> there is a tendency for the two groups to maintain separate communities, this is a cultural artifact reflecting their unique histories, not the superiority or bigotry you assert. And as to that reference to “the Sephardic IQ of 88,” once again, Mike, either you, or your source, is confabulating. And don’t take this wrong, I don’t mean to provoke yet another response regarding Aryan intellectual superiority, but Israelis are a world leader in techonological innovation from health care to computers. And I suspect that does not result from a population where “Forty-five percent of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s population has the Sephardic IQ of 88.´Unless, of course, you mean that the other 55% of Israelis are so intelligent as to… But I suspect that is not your conclusion.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And finally, Mike, you truly achieved a new low in referring to Jewish women. “What moves more Jell-O or Jewish women in bed”. Of course, as always, you are quoting a Jew, this time a comedian. And, as usual, out of context (we Jews are known to use ourselves as the butt of our jokes). But even here your biases confuse your conclusions. If Jewish women are such active partners, why would “[the] rate of Jewish men running away to marry “shiksa’s” for the under 35 age category [be] as high as 35-50%”? Again, I question your statistics. But your conclusions…<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><cite><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Mike, this all began as you protesting that somehow the “Jewish press” controls the freedom of you and others to explore and express your beliefs. That <b>Tablet</b>, a Jewish journal, has provided you a forum to express yourself from your historical opinions on such anti-Jewish issues as Holocaust Denial, Aryan superiority, and defamation of Jewish womanhood is clear evidence that paranoia, while sometimes justified, fails this particular test.<o:p></o:p></span></cite></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721468657535345813.post-62967648018208799142010-08-20T08:00:00.000-07:002010-08-20T12:34:04.383-07:00The non-pacifist case against attacking Iran<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><strong><em>Israel should sit back and allow the Iranian threat to continue to build. In the end, faced with the prospect of losing control of the strategic Middle East and its oil the United States will be forced to act. The alternative would be to lose credibility as the last remaining global superpower. And the cost of that failure would be incalculable and irreversible for the United States.</em></strong></span><br />
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</strong><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">George W. Bush launched the war to topple Sadam Hussein on 20 March, 2003. Three months later he famously and prematurely declared victory aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln positioned off the coast of Iraq. According to the president, “our mission is clear, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.” In the end there were no Iraqi WMD and the administration was also forced to admit that Sadam had no connection to either September 11 or al-Qaeda.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Shortly before his execution Sadam was asked about the missing WMD. His interviewer reports, "The threat from Iran was the major factor as to why he did not allow the return of UN inspectors. Hussein stated he was more concerned about Iran discovering Iraq's weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions of the United States for his refusal to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq." </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">With the withdrawal of US fighting forces on 19 August, 2010 the only observable American achievement following eight years of war that cost more than four thousand American lives, untold Iraqi deaths and more that $1 trillion in treasure is regime change for Iraq; and superpower America dependent on the restraint of the Iranian mouse that roared.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Iraq went to the polls on 7 March 2010 and the result was deadlock. Five months later, as the dust of the last withdrawing US combat vehicle settled on the Kuwaiti border Iraq still had no functioning government. And by all accounts the country is today closer to a bloodier civil war than it experienced in 2003 - 2007. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">In an analysis of US options in post-withdrawal Iraq George Friedman, director of Stratfor writes, “There are many who are baffled by Iranian confidence and defiance in the face of American pressure on the nuclear issue. This is the reason for that confidence: Should the United States attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, or even if the United States does not attack, Iran holds the key to the success of the American strategy in Iraq.” In fact Dr. Friedman understates the problem for the US. American troops stationed in Iraq, the Gulf Arab states and Afghanistan are all at risk from Iranian supported proxies throughout the region. In Iraq the Islamic Republic arms, trains and provides guidance and leadership to anti-American Shiite militias. In Afghanistan Iran has the same relationship with the Taliban. The US is a virtual hostage to Iranian influence. And the United States is solely responsible for this situation, having toppled the Sunni Ba’ath regime of Sadam Hussein in Iraq. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The 1980- 1988 Iran-Iraq War cost Iran more than one million lives. The lesson was clear: Iraq under Sadam Hussein was to be avoided. When George Bush replaced the minority Sunni Baath regime with one controlled by the Shiite majority he threw wide the invitation to Iranian influence. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">A Sh’ia (Iran)-controlled Iraq allowed Ahmadinejad to not only threaten US forces in Iraq, but to project Iranian influence and threat throughout the region. Iraq was the military buffer protecting the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Another consequence of invading Iraq was that Bush gave the fundamentalist Iranian regime the appearance of equality with the United States in regional affairs, directly in Iraq, through its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas in the Levant and Egypt. Even in Saudi Arabia Iranian-influenced Sh’ia are the majority in the kingdom’s richest oil fields. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">To return to the Friedman analysis: “The United States cannot withdraw completely without some arrangement… Iran would dominate the Persian Gulf region after the withdrawal. Thus, the United States… can stay in perpetuity and remain vulnerable to violence. It can withdraw and hand the region over to Iran. It can go to war with yet another Islamic country. Or it can negotiate with a government that it despises — and which despises it right back.”</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Debka, Israel’s equivalent of Stratfor, viewing American policy from a regional perspective, draws a much bleaker vision for Iraq’s future. “According to US intelligence, [the Shiites] are preparing to capture large parts of Baghdad as well as Habaniya, Ramadi, Tikrit, Falluja and sections of Anbar Province, in order to … [force the Sunnis] to accept their loss of political influence and… the loss of more territory in the cities…The second [goal] is to crush the power bases the Saudis are building in [Sunni sectors of] Iraq at great expense. While the Saudis and the Syrians are spending money to buy off Maliki's supporters, he plans to physically destroy the Sunni power centers in which they are investing.”</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">And while the Sunnis and Shiites fight their own civil war, Debka continues, “the Kurds of the north… plan to exploit the anticipated armed Sunni-Shiite feud to drive south and grab parts of central Iraq up to a line some 250 kilometers north of Baghdad.” </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">And where does Debka see Iran in all of this? “Tehran is also eyeing rich spoils in Iraq's post-American era… the southern oilfields centering on the city of Basra, which account for about 60 percent of the country's oil output.” </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">So here we are, 19 August, 2010, witness to the last of American combat forces having left Iraq. What are America’s options? Having destroyed Iraqi deterrence to Iran; having allowed Iran to project threat and influence from Saudi Arabia to Egypt; having allowed through accommodation Iranian progress towards nuclear status; how will the current president respond? </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">To date the signs are that the US will continue the Bush-Obama diplomacy-over-war effort at accommodation. But nothing is more likely to lead to a regional loss of confidence in the United States as regional defender than the kind of indecision and avoidance that has characterized American policy towards Iran for the past eight years. And this is the reason for the rapid deterioration of American influence in the oil-rich and strategic Middle East. Absent American willingness to eliminate the Iranian threat, the Arabs feel they have no choice but to seek accommodation with the new American-created, soon to be nuclear hegemon.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">During his 6 July, 2010 interview with Jeff Goldberg of The Atlantic, United Arab Emirates’ Ambassador to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba said, 'We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.' [Goldberg] asked him, Do you want the U.S. to stop the Iranian nuclear program by force? And he answered: ‘Absolutely, absolutely.’" According to reliable sources both the Saudis and the Egyptians delivered the same message to the administration, “Absolutely, absolutely.” </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Turkey, of course, has already made it clear that it not only views America as irresolute and undependable, it has confidently defied its erstwhile ally and protector by not only voting against America’s UN sanctions resolution, but violates those sanctions by supplying Iran with gasoline and other petroleum distillates. And to further make the point of independence and defiance, the Turks now openly support Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran’s proxies in the Levant. And of course there was also that Turkish blockade-busting flotilla to which the United States, characteristically, stood quietly by as observer. Only afterwards, the damage done, did the administration once again realize the mistake after the fact and try to minimize the damage. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Saudis recently warned that, absent decisive action by the United States to eliminate the Iranian threat, that they, like Turkey, would see no choice but to also reach an accommodation with Ahmadinejad. Should that happen American influence in the region would plummet, and her only remaining island of support in the region would be Israel.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The September 11, 2001 attacks set the stage for emotion to override common sense among US decision makers. One year later and six months before the invasion, in September of 2002 CIA Director George Tenet came to Bush with reliable information provided by Iraq’s foreign minister Naji Sabri, that Iraq had no WMD. According to Sabri it was all a bluff by Sadam to keep the Iranians at bay. But, according to Tenet, the president was not interested. Tenet writes that, “the administration was already committed to invade.” Whatever his true motives, Bush invaded and set the US on a course destined to place itself in a relationship of dependence on Iran for the security of its forces, its pursuit of the war, even its ability to end the war. It is no less dependent on Iran today. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The United States has little choice but to either confront directly what all states of the region consider a mortal threat, or to fall back on the wishful possibility that maybe just one more round of diplomacy might finally convince the Iranians to abandon the bomb and become good neighbors. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Of course the US always knows it has another option. Aware that war with Iran will, as occurred in 2003, result in hyper-inflation in the price of oil, and that this would likely tilt the world into a deeper recession, or worse; knowing that attacking Iran will result in an escalation of American casualties at the hands of Iran and her proxies in Iraq and Afghanistan; does it not make better sense to avoid direct conflict, to protest loudly but leave the deed, and the fallout, to Israel? If America waits long enough then Israel is likely to attack.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">And this is the point. Israel would be justified, failing American resolve to protect its own regional interests, to pre-emptively attack Iran in its own defense. But can Israel sustain the fallout from the action? If, compared to attacking Iran, such relatively minor incidents as Operation Cast Lead or the boarding of the Mavi Marmara brought such intense international ire and isolation, can Israel afford, even survive the international isolation attacking Iran would bring? Israel justifiably sees a nuclear Iran as an existential threat. Would not the fallout resulting from the attack also constitute an existential threat? </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Israel has other options. The Iranian threat is regional and not just to Israel. The Iranians have to be stopped, but not by a single member of the threatened regional community. The Saudis agree to “quietly” open their airspace to Israeli fighters, great; Egypt allows Israeli warships to transit Suez, wonderful. But is that the limit of their responsibility for containing the Iranian threat? Since the threat is regional the response must likewise be regional. Absent American leadership Israel should not heroically go it alone, should insist on Arab participation, a second “Coalition of the Willing.” </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The result of this coalition would be that Israel is but one of several, including the oil producers, and so not alone responsible for the global economic fallout. The coalition would also serve to create a new reality in the Middle East, an alliance consisting of Israel and the Arab states. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Absent the participation of the Saudis, the Gulf Arabs and Egypt as part of the armada Israel should sit back and allow the Iranian threat to continue to build. In the end, faced with the prospect of losing control of the strategic Middle East and its oil the United States will be forced to act. The alternative would be to lose credibility as the last remaining global superpower. And the cost of that failure would be incalculable and irreversible for the United States.</span></div></div>David Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04951006480984188591noreply@blogger.com0