Israel as a Rogue State 21

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Israel-trapped-in-a-state-by-Stewart-Wechsler-100606-851.html

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June 6, 2010 Israel, trapped in a state of victimhood, first orders Gaza Peace Flotilla killings, then cleverly abuses Rachel Corrie By Stewart Wechsler I want to offer another perspective on why the Israeli government first ordered the killing of those Gaza Peace Flotilla members, and now are using the second aid ship, the Rachel Corrie, to silence their critics in a pattern of a victim turned abuser, but be patient, it is tied together at the end of this piece.: When I was a kid growing up as a Jew in the New York area, I frequently heard the phrase "Never again!" At the time I originally thought it meant that we should never again be silent and complicit in genocides or even smaller injustices to ANY people. I later realized that to those of my fellow Jews that protested "Never Again!" the loudest, it really meant "Never Again to us Jews!" These Jewish brothers for whom "Never Again!" was all about us Jews, stood in sharp contrast with my Jewish heroes and heroines. My heroes and heroines were the Civil Rights Movement activists that risked or gave their lives fighting for the freedom of Blacks in Mississippi in 1964. They were the Jews that made up a disproportionate number of those that fought General Franco's fascism in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 - 1939. They have been the Jewish journalists that have spoken truth to power, from Amy Goodman to Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn (whose New York accent sounded just like my socialist uncle Ed Hoffman, another one of my Jewish heroes who, as an African American History professor in the South devoted much of his life fighting for Civil Rights in his own way.). My Jewish heroes and heroines have always been my brothers and sisters that were leaders in movements for social justice for all peoples. More recently Jewish heroines have included those such as Heddy Epstein, the 85 year-old Holocaust survivor that has been devoting her life to fight the abuse of the Palestinian people, and the Jewish writers, Naomi Klein and Naomi Wolf that have exposed the abusers of power in their books "The Shock Doctrine" and "The End of America". In my analysis, those who were only thinking of the Jews when they proclaimed "Never Again!, were my emotionally scarred Jewish brothers who never healed from the post traumatic stress of the Holocaust and the other abuses passed through generations of victim-hood. Both in New York and in Israel the worst victims of abuse have ended up becoming those with the greatest emotional need to gain power and possessing the greatest willingness to abuse others to get the power they feel they need to feel emotionally invulnerable and not "less than". In Israel the greatest victims of these emotionally scarred Jews have been the indigenous people of pre-WWII Palestine / Israel, especially the Arab - Muslim Semites, but also the Sephardic Semites that had been living for so long in peace with their Semitic brothers. These Sephardics were then also treated as second class citizens by the more urbane Ashkenazi (my tribe) immigrants from Europe. In America and the rest of the world, some of the most emotionally abused Jews went on to misuse the skills and strengths that we should be most proud of as a people. These Jewish brothers went on to misuse their great intelligence and strong business skills. Instead of being the greatest business people that provide valued products and services that maximally benefit both buyers and sellers, employees and their communities as many of us Jews do so well, the Bernie Madoffs, Jack Abramoffs, and Goldmans and Sachses among us used their business skills to get the most for themselves at the expense of their customers, employees and communities. When we get in this abusive mode, due to the shame of our circumstances we cannot see what we are doing and we end up in an endless vicious cycle of trying to get more for ourselves at the expense of others and our earth, to try to make ourselves feel better because we don't feel we have enough. In reality these brothers and sisters are trying to compensate for not having enough love, but they try to make up for their lack of love with more power over others, with this power often being in the form of money. Consequently, they then end up digging themselves deeper and deeper into a hole of being hated and despoiling the earth that sustains us all. When others do anything to expose our abuses, our insecurity makes us defensive and we are likely to attack them viciously. And when such attacks are pointed out, it only further confirms our feeling of being unfairly persecuted, and hardens us even more. This is what the Gaza Peace Flotilla members were guilty of. They were guilty of exposing the abuse, by the weak-egoed people that have come to dominate Israel, of their Semitic brothers in Gaza. For this, at least 9 or 10 of the Gaza Peace Flotilla members paid with their lives. I expect that with the treatment of the subsequent aid ship, the Rachel Corrie, the abuse victim - turned abuser - state of Israel will try to whitewash its earlier abuse of Gaza Peace Flotilla members by showing that they did not kill any of them. With this they will try to show the world, or maybe fool enough of them into believing, that they really are not abusers. I expect they will examine all of the ship's contents and let them go into Gaza after showing that they don't have any supplies that would help so-called "terrorists". After showing that the second ship had no supplies that would aid "terrorists" they will imply that the earlier Gaza Peace Flotilla did. While the wise among us pleaded that the world should "Never Forget!", in this case the killings on the Gaza Peace Flotilla, the Israeli decision makers cleverly (foolishly?) believe that they can get us to forget. With defenders of the Israeli government having near monopoly control of the the voice of the people in the US media and substantial global media control also, they believe they can silence their victims. This is another well known pattern of abusers, they scare their victims, in this case the media workers of the US and world, into silence. In their abuse of others, these most powerful Jewish Post Traumatic Stress victims are calling out for help and healing, but few of us have the wisdom and strength to heal them. Yet, in failing to do so we let these sickest of our brothers go on to destroy our peace and our earth like a child on a temper tantrum. These sickest among our brothers will up the ante by calling out for help louder and louder until they are heard and healed or until we and our beloved earth are almost all dead. Even if some survive this temper tantrum of titans of industry an enormous amount of God's ancient art in the form of species, ecosystems and cultures will be destroyed. As a Jews I do believe we should be proud of our intelligence, business skills and media savvy, but sadly, a minority of us have used those erstwhile strengths in a sick way. Though our sickest brothers have become prominent among a top predator/abuser/controller group that dominates the money, the corporations, the media establishments and the governments of the world (especially in America and Israel), we have no monopoly on this disease. I don't know whether or not any of the top players in British Petroleum are Jewish, but they are now certainly among the world's sickest abusers and it has nothing to do with being Jewish or not. As far as I can tell, all of the people in this top predator/abuser/controller class suffer from this same addiction to power over others to try to compensate for the love they can't buy or have. But in trying to control everyone, they only become more hated or more distant from others, and those that might appear to love them are, more often than not, just sucking up to their money. Thus, the fundamental solution to most of the world's man-made problems caused by these emotionally unhealthy people, is to end the cycle of victim becomes abuser who victimizes others who in turn again become abusers. We may not all be ready to love our enemies among the greatest power abusers as a clever Jewish guy named Jesus might have suggested, but we should at least understand that the abusers are a product of an abusive society. I would contend that they are also usually products of sick personal circumstances. We now have an opener with a better than ever connected world to recreate a sort of world community where it is no longer acceptable anywhere in the world to prey on others anywhere on earth. Author's Bio: I've been an activist to one degree or another since I was 11 years old. This started with attending rallies against the Vietnam War with my family. At that age I also remember attending a grape boycott picket with my older brother and attempting to win people to my side. I now have 2 focuses. One focus is on the war against the truth by the media now controlled by the most powerful few. The second focus is on the war on the ecosystem by both the corporations and the lifestyles of most Americans and others. These people are either oblivious to or insensitive to the effects our life styles have on ecosystems and all of the other species on earth that make up those ecosystems.

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Israel-Accidentally-Dist-by-Daily-kos--Trout-100605-120.html

June 5, 2010

Israel "Accidentally" Distributes Video Mocking Flotilla Dead

By Daily kos

Reprinted from Daily Kos

[you can vote this story up on reddit.com. Thanks for your support.]

Think of it - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office "accidentally" promoting a video, made by a former adviser of his, that mocks the Gaza aid flotilla dead. Inconceivable ? Think again !

Casting some doubt on the claim the video promotion was an "accident," according to the BNO News service, the Israeli Government Press Office (which is part of Netanyahu's Prime Minister Office) waited three hours before contacting the journalists who had received an email from the office promoting the video, to issue a retraction.

• Troutfishing's diary :: ::

As Al Jazeera reported yesterday,

the most recent video distributed on Friday by the Israeli government press office (which belongs to the Israeli prime minister's office and is responsible for accrediting foreign journalists) is distasteful and insulting to those killed and injured on the Freedom Flotilla, and quite frankly disturbing - especially since it was made by the Jerusalem Post's deputy managing editor, Caroline Glick, who also moonlights for the American Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC.

Benjamin Netanyahu has a bad habit of thumbing his nose at his political opponents. On Friday, amidst the outcry against the killing of at least nine civilians on the Turkish Gaza aid ship Mavi Marmara, Israel's government press office "accidentally" promoted a satirical video, "We Con the World," made by a former adviser to Netanyahu, that appeared to mock the dead Mavi Marmara activists [here's one excellent and nuanced take on this from Lobelog / Foreign Policy]

The timing could not have been uglier.

Also on Friday, results from an official Turkish government conducted autopsy on the Mavi Marmara dead were released that showed that "a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Two other men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back."

On Friday afternoon, as news of the "We Con the World" video spread, the Israeli government then issued the following statement:

Due to a misunderstanding on our part, earlier today we inadvertently issued a video link that had been sent for our perusal. It was not intended for general release. The contents of the video in no way represent the official policy of either the Government Press Office or of the State of Israel.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Thank you for your patients and understanding.
Efraim Roseman

But there's reason to doubt the sincerity of the official statement. For one thing, Caroline Glick, the Deputy Managing Editor at the Jerusalem Post, served as assistant foreign policy adviser to Prime Benjamin Netanyahu in 1997 and 1998. For a former adviser to Netanyahu to create such a timely video which then gets "accidentally" released by a Netanyahu-led Israeli government seems more than a bit suspicious.

Additionally the video was rapidly picked up and promoted by a multitude of American right wing and right wing evangelical media outlets including Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. The evangelical Christian zionist connection is especially telling - Benjamin Netanyahu has an extremely close relationship with American evangelicals, especially through Christians United For Israel founder John Hagee, which helps explain the following recent news, via Charisma Magazine:

On a call with more than 3,000 participants affiliated with Christians United for Israel (CUFI), Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon (pictured) said the flotilla's sponsor, a Turkey-based charity known as IHH, has ties to al-Qaida and is an ally of Hamas, a militant Palestinian organization that controls the Gaza Strip. Rather than delivering humanitarian supplies, Ayalon said the activists wanted to end the blockade, which Israel insists is needed to prevent groups from smuggling weapons to Hamas.

Netanyahu and Hagee vs. Peace

Benjamin Netanyahu has been courting American evangelicals for, quite literally, decades and he has repeatedly collaborated with them to undermine peace initiatives. Consider:

In 1998, en route to meet with Yasser Aarafat and President Bill Clinton concerning a US-backed Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first stopped off to attend a Christian Zionist rally at which pastor John Hagee led a crowd in frenzied chants of "Not one inch!" - referring to land-for-peace proposals at the heart of the peace talks. Jerry Falwell, who staged the event, described it as an intentional attempt to undermine the peace initiative.

2010 saw a replay of the stunt. On the eve of Vice President Joe Biden's arrival in Israel to jumpstart peace talks, Netanyahu and top members of the Israeli government attended one of John Hagee's Christians United For Israel rallies in Jerusalem. Hagee, who represents the opinion of tens of millions of American evangelicals, has for decades consistently maintained that any peace plan requiring Israeli to cede land to the Palestinians is against the will of God.

Benjamin Netanyahu's and Likud's carefully cultivated alliance with the American Christian Zionist right goes back all the way to the late 1970, when Israel Prime Minister Menachem Begin gifted Jerry Falwell a Learjet. Falwell was the first leader Begin called, even before calling Ronald Reagan, after Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. That's how important the political alliance is.

This is why news of pastor John Hagee's worldwide distribution of anti-Jewish slurs, memes, and conspiracy theories matters.

It would not be easy for Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud to work so very closely with John Hagee and his Christian Zionists were news to get out to Jews worldwide that Hagee claims Rothschild bankers rule the world and are scheming to bankrupt America (Hitler espoused an extremely similar theory). Hagee also claims Hitler was a "half breed Jew" and says the AntiChrist figure Hagee predicts to soon arrive on the world stage will also be "at least partially Jewish" and gay.

In May 2008 I posted a video with an audio clip from a late 2005 Hagee sermon in which pastor Hagee claimed God sent Hitler, a "hunter" claimed Hagee divinely tasked with persecuting Europe's Jews towards Palestine, the ancient land of Israel that is, according to Hagee, the only home God ever intended for the Jews.

The clip went viral and helped force presidential candidate John McCain to renounce his long-sought endorsement from Hagee. That's the power of the material I study, and presumably that's why John Hagee's Christians United For Israel lawyers and PR operatives managed to strongarm the New York-based Jewish Daily Forward to shut down, several weeks ago, a series I had been co-writing for Zeek magazine, a co-production of the Forward.

That series (1, 2) investigated the nature of John Hagee's "pro-Israel" evangelical tendency and its alliance with the Israeli right, especially the Likud Party. Israeli blogger Richard Silverstein has covered the Hagee pressure initiative, which managed to even win John Hagee an op-ed on the front page of the Forward, in depth (1, 2).

[below: my post, from yesterday, Friday June 4th, detailing the Glick video]

"Israel does not need enemies: it has itself. Or more precisely: it has its government" writes The New Republic's Leon Wieseltier in a bitingly titled column, Operation Make the World Hate Us: The assault on the 'Mavi Marmara' was wrong, and a gift to Israel's enemies.

It's not just an Israeli government initiative. Operation Make The World Hate Us has another valuable asset - the Deputy Managing Editor of the Jerusalem Post Caroline Glick, who under the auspices of the US-based Center For Security Policy has just released one of the most gratuitously offensive (and on so many levels, it's quite remarkable) video creations to afflict the year 2010, "We Con the World", which appears to mock the nine dead (or more - six are still reported as missing) activists killed on the Turkish Mavi Marmara when Israeli Defense Force commandos stormed the boat. According to a British eyewitness interviewed by UK-based The Press Association, 48 people aboard the ship received gunshot wounds.

Two notable organizational patrons of Glick's video are the Center For Security Policy and Christians United For Israel. Glick's industrial-strength polemics include claims that there is a "totalitarian jihadist ideology which is ascendant throughout the Islamic world." According to the Jewish organization Jews on First, Glick has advocated the unilateral bombing of Iran.

The Center For Security Policy is so proud of Glick's video it's up on the organization's web site front page. Christians United For Israel website also has a front page link to Glick's inadvertent anti-hasbara masterpiece. The video features, among other lyric elements, the line "Itbach el Yahud !" (slaughter the Jews!) and claims that children in the Gaza Strip lack "cheese and missiles" (according to a 2009 UN survey 65% of babies 9-12 months old in Gaza suffer from anemia.)

It's not especially surprising that Caroline Glick was inclined to produce "We Con the World" given that in 1997 and 1998 she served as assistant foreign policy adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu's. What's astounding is Glick's obvious pride in associating herself with the video, which features shaky production values, procession of anti-Islamic stereotypes, bad singing, and mockery of the dead. Not only has Glick posted it on her personal website but she acted in the video, which at the end identifies her as Deputy Managing Editor of the Jerusalem Post.

As Caroline Glick Wrote on her blog post concerning her video,

This week at Latma - the Hebrew-language media satire website I edit, we decided to do something new. We produced a clip in English. There we feature the Turkish-Hamas "love boat" captain, crew and passengers in a musical explanation of how they con the world.

We think this is an important Israeli contribution to the discussion of recent events and we hope you distribute it far and wide.

All the best,
Caroline

As described in her Wikipedia bio, Glick's "writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the National Review, The Boston Globe, the Chicago Sun-Times, The Washington Times, Maariv and major Jewish newspapers worldwide" and she's been on "MSNBC, Fox News Channel, Sky News, the Christian Broadcasting Network, and all of Israel's major television networks. She also makes frequent radio appearances both in the US and Israel."

And in her spare time, Glicks's a video auteur.

lyrics to "We Con The World"

There comes a time
when we need to make a show
for the world, the web and CNN

There's no people dying
so the best that we can do
is create the greatest bluff of all

We must go on, pretending day by day
that in Gaza there's crisis hunger and plague
coz the billion bucks in aid won't buy their basic needs
like some cheese and missiles for the kids.

We'll make the world abandon reason
we'll make them all believe that the Hamas is Momma Theresa

We are peaceful travelers
with guns and our own knives
the truth will never find its way to your TV

Ooooh we'll stab them at heart
they are soldiers no one cares
we are small and we took some pictures with doves

As Allah has shown us
for facts there no demand
so we will always gain the upper hand

We'll make the world abandon reason
we'll make them all believe that the Hamas is Momma Theresa

We are peaceful travelers
we're waving our own knives
the truth will never find its way to your TV

If Islam and terror brighten up your mood
but you worry that it may not look so good

Well don't you realize you just gotta call yourself
an activist for peace and human aid

We'll make the world abandon reason
we'll make them all believe that the Hamas is Momma Theresa

We are peaceful travelers
we're waving our own knives
the truth will never find its way to your TV

We con the world
yallah, let me hear you!
we con the people
We'll make them all believe the IDF is Jack the Ripper
We are peaceful travelers
we're waving our own knives
the truth will never find its way to your TV

Itbach el Yahud ! (slaughter the Jews)

We con the world
we con the people
We'll make them all believe the IDF is Jack the Ripper

All together now!
We are peaceful travelers
we're waving our own knives
the truth will never find its way to your TV

We con the world
yallah, let me hear you!
we con the people
We'll make them all believe the IDF is Jack the Ripper

We are peaceful travelers
we're waving our own knives
the truth will never find its way to your TV

Author's Bio: articles reprinted from Dailykos.com