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September 11, 2001: Zionist shock therapy and the birth of the lie

By Martin Iqbal | empirestrikesblack | September 20, 2011

New York City, New York – Shock is a curious thing. The human mind is at its most susceptible when the proverbial rug has been pulled from under its feet. When a momentous, shocking event occurs we are thrust into an uncomfortable, unfamiliar, frightening place. We look for explanations, try to make sense of chaos whilst we are at our most vulnerable. Our malleable minds accept and subconsciously cling to the first narrative our ‘protectors’ offer, whether real or imagined, whether plausible or nonsensical.

The events of 9/11 were not only faithful to this rule, but they represented a paradigmatic example of this concept in play. The ‘shock therapy’ that has been unleashed on nations by means of bombs, bullets, and economic warfare, equally applies to the human psyche. It is not only nations but also people, that can be remade. While a shell-shocked America reeled over the most shocking, heinous, and dramatic terrorist attack the United States has ever suffered, the very architects of this attack moved to cement their ‘new world order’ narrative – ushering in the ‘War on Terror’. Before the toxic dust had even settled on Manhattan, the afraid, angry masses would be given their enemy and they would be given their saviours, as an equally toxic cloud of delusion descended on the American consciousness.

Ehud Barak, the BBC, and the birth of a pre-packaged lie

As the largest broadcaster in the world with over 20,000 employees, the Zionist-controlled BBC was the chosen outlet for the birth of the myth that is the ‘War on Terror’. As the attacks were unfolding, the BBC already had its pre-prepared propaganda agenda in hand. Later in the day the BBC would unwittingly expose this fact most obviously when they reported, ticker and all, the fall of WTC-7 over 20 minutes before it even happened. Former Prime Minister of Israel and former commander of the elite IDF intelligence unit ‘Sayeret Matkal’, Ehud Barak, would narrate the macabre theatre.

It is important to remember at this point, this is precisely how such events work; ‘false flag’ terrorism is a form of psychological warfare. In order for the operation to be successful, the perpetrator must be able to establish the intended narrative at the very outset – as soon as the minds of the subjects have been traumatised, dazed, and ‘blank-slated’. This is the fertile ground needed for the lie to take root, and the lie must be planted as soon as possible.

Relinquishing his post as Israeli PM to genocidal war criminal Ariel Sharon in March 2001, Barak was to travel to the United States and spend the months preceding 9/11 consulting for Electronic Data Systems and SCP Partners, which is a Mossad-run company specialising in security-related work. Within SCP Partners’ business portfolio are a number of firms which specialise in the creation of advanced niche specialty metals and complex metals products for industries such as energy, aerospace, infrastructure, and specialty metals and chemical industries.

Of course on the morning of the 9/11 plot’s gruesome conclusion, he would be miraculously present at the offices of the largest broadcaster on the planet. Literally as American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 hurtled towards the twin towers, Ehud Barak (born Ehud Brog) was backstage at the BBC World offices in London, preparing to forge the War on Terror’s Zionist narrative in the vulnerable shell-shocked minds of his global audience.

“We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.”

Within the BBC’s pre-prepared news report – immediately before Barak is given the stage – a peculiar thing happened. Yasser Arafat, proudly clad with his Keffiyeh – the ultimate symbol of resistance to oppression – is interviewed in what was on the face of it a bizarre display of the utmost irrelevance. What on god’s green earth did the Palestinians have to do with an ongoing terror attack halfway across the globe, the perpetrators of which were at the time a complete mystery? As the BBC report would indicate with increasing clarity, the purpose of this was very simple: the Zionist narrative of the ‘War on Terror’ was being pulled out of its box and the Cellophane removed. Palestine – the righteous resistance at the very epicentre of Israel’s expansionist, hegemonic, genocidal ambitions – was the threat. Israel, the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ was the solution and here was its former Prime Minister with the answer.

As if presiding over a court case with a defendant and a plaintiff, the BBC reporter proceeds with his script, “That’s the view from the Palestinian side,” and Ehud Barak takes to the screen.

“This is an attack on our whole civilisation.” Who did it? “I believe we will know in twelve hours.” But that’s not important. What we need is a “globally concerted effort, led by the United States, the UK, Europe, and Russia.” Notice that Israel is conspicuously absent from the list; Israel doesn’t get its hands dirty unless it needs to.

“Bin Laden sits in Afghanistan,” the oracle tells us, but he’s not saying bin Laden did it. Yet. Ask him again in 11 hours, 59 minutes. “Within six or ten years,” Barak insists, Iran, Iraq, and Libya, the ‘rogue states’ must be taken down. Six or ten years on, and it’s two down, one to go.

Dehumanise the enemy: the ‘celebrating Palestinians’ propaganda

At four minutes and fifty-nine seconds through the video you see a Reuters feed flash up during the BBC’s live report. The dispatch alludes to: “Palestian [sic] celebrations” in Jerusalem. The next act of the script is being played out as Palestinians, and by extension Muslims, are dehumanised and portrayed as heartless, bloodthirsty animals.

Scenes of ‘Palestinians celebrating’ in occupied al-Quds (Jerusalem), filmed by Reuters and AP, were later broadcast on TV on the BBC, Fox, CNN, and several other corporate-Zionist controlled media outlets:

Ten days after the event, in a piece titled Die Macht der TV-Bilder (‘The power of TV images’), well-respected German paper Der Spiegel utterly exposed this pernicious anti-Palestinian propaganda as being staged and manipulated.

It transpired that the lady who can be seen cheering and celebrating in front of the camera was told to do so, and offered cake in return. She later told German reporters of this, and was absolutely horrified to learn of the fraudulent context in which the footage was broadcast to an information-hungry world in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Further to this, you can clearly see in the video that there is only a very small number of children and people celebrating. In the background, one can see several people standing around nonchalantly, or simply walking from one place to the next.

Also, notice that the footage consists of only close, narrow shots. Long, wide shots would have shown the entire scene on the street: small groups of children and a handful of people celebrating, who were being urged and provoked to do so by those filming.

This footage, consisting of no more than a few seconds and a few people, was repeatedly broadcast to global audiences, alongside the chilling footage of Flight 175 slamming into the South Tower. By the time the hoax was exposed (albeit only by a German-language paper), the damage had already been done.

The big lie: peppered with Israeli fingerprints from preparation to orchestration and narration

The ‘mainstream’ 9/11 truth movement exhibits an acute case of selective vision. Whether through fear of the dreaded ‘anti-Semite’ epithet, or through aversion to the ubiquitous (but not entirely unfounded) ‘Jewish power & conspiracy’ stereotypes, the obvious and central Israeli connections to 9/11 are ignored.

The 9/11 false flag, and the torrent of Israeli-prescribed propaganda that followed as the towers fell, was engineered to instigate the War on Terror. Without a doubt, the axis consisting of the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, and the myriad of ‘disaster capitalism’ multinationals, benefited greatly from and colluded to differing degrees in 9/11. However, attributing the central role of planning and orchestration of 9/11 to these actors is born of short-sightedness. The BBC’s evidently pre-planned Zionist propaganda set-piece provided a clue to this, but this was merely the tip of the iceberg.

Not only did Israel benefit economically, politically, and militarily from 9/11 more so than any other nation on the planet, but ardent Zionists with close links to Israel, US-Israeli dual nationals, and even Israelis, are found at every pivotal nook and cranny of the plot.

The clues are abundant, and lay at the very core of the 9/11 conspiracy (how absurd it now seems to use that long-abused word in its proper context).

From the unprecedented privatisation of the WTC six weeks prior to the events, to the sophisticated hardware used to fly the remotely-controlled jets; from the missing trillions at the Pentagon, to the Israeli spies caught with explosives and subsequently released in New York, to the man who let them go – the same man who co-authored the Patriot Act and headed up the Department of Homeland Security; from the advance warnings received by Israeli communications company Odigo and part Israeli state-owned company ZIM (which terminated its WTC tenure one week before the event incurring a $50,000 bill), to the Israeli company that ran security at the 9/11 airports. This company, ICTS International, even ran security for the ‘shoe bomber’ airport, the ‘underpants bomber’ airport, as well as the 7/7 London bus service that was bombed in 2005. Yet another Israeli company, Verint Systems, ran the camera system in the London Tube network when it told the world that its cameras ‘weren’t working’, in an attempt to explain why there was no footage of any of the alleged bombers entering their respective tube trains. But I digress. The blue and white six-pointed star can be uncovered in all of the most obvious central aspects of the 9/11 game plan.

Six weeks before 9/11 the WTC ownership was transferred into private hands for the first time in history. Ronald Lauder lobbied for this to happen. Lewis Eisenberg, head of the Port Authority, presided over the deal. It was awarded to Larry Silverstein and Frank Lowy. All of these men are staunch Zionists with close links to Israel; Silverstein – former IDF soldier – even speaks to Benjamin Netanyahu on a weekly basis. Billionaire Lauder is closely involved with several pro-Israel Jewish organisations including the JNF (which appropriates Palestinian land for the exclusive use of Jewish settlers). He even accompanied President Bush on his 2008 delegation to Israel, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Nakba.

Lowy fought in the Nakba as a member of the Golani brigade and, like Silverstein, miraculously steered clear of the WTC on that fateful Tuesday morning. All four men are intimately involved in the abhorrent Anti-Defamation League.

On September 10, 2001, the very day before 9/11, Donald Rumsfeld announced $2.3 trillion in missing funds at the Pentagon. The Bush-appointed man responsible for the Pentagon’s finances at that time was staunch Zionist and Rabbi Dov Zakheim – a man who had been the Chief Executive of Systems Planning Corporation for the previous fourteen years – since 1987. SPC manufactures advanced aviation technology used for the remote piloting of large jet aircraft.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, residents of Bergen, New Jersey, saw five men stood atop a white van. These men had set up a camera to record the twin towers before the first plane had hit. Upon the impact of Flight 11 and the instantaneous, hellish death of hundreds of innocent people, these men celebrated and cheered together. The horrified residents reported the men, who were later apprehended by police. The Israeli men tested positive for explosives, but were not charged with anything and were later released.

A second van was found later that day in even more suspicious circumstances. By the George Washington bridge, which connects New York City to New Jersey, two Israeli men were caught driving the van containing a truckload of explosives. Dan Rather, news anchor for CBS, would report:

“Two suspects are in FBI custody after a truckload of explosives were discovered around the George Washington Bridge. That bridge links New York to New Jersey over the Hudson River. Whether the discovery of those explosives had anything to do with other events today is unclear, but the FBI, has two suspects in hand, said the truckload of explosives, enough explosives were in the truck to do great damage to the George Washington Bridge.”

All of these Israelis were subsequently released ultimately by Michael Chertoff – ardent Zionist and son of a Talmudic Rabbi and the first hostess for El Al Airlines, a suspected Mossad front. Chertoff also co-authored the Patriot Act – legislation used to spy on Americans and stifle dissent in the name of ‘national security’.

It cannot be denied that politically and militarily, Israel benefited from 9/11 more than any other nation on the face of the earth. The false flag terror attacks afforded the Zionist entity endless political capital to pursue and accelerate its genocidal ambitions against Muslims in Palestine, and its goals of regional hegemony in coaxing the U.S. to invade Iraq.

In addition to this there is the important element of economic benefits; even the Israeli government admits that its economy is centred around the homeland security and weapons industry.

As a direct result of 9/11, the homeland security industry has boomed to astronomical proportions, eclipsing Hollywood and the music industry. Unprecedented security paranoia, war, and conflict are racking the planet. An ever-growing number of U.S. and Israeli-made drones (and Israel is considered the leading player whilst five NATO countries are using Israeli drones in Afghanistan) are patrolling the skies of the Middle East and Central Asia. Is it any wonder that Israel is one of the few nations on the planet that has largely avoided the post-9/11 economic slump?

The Zionist-controlled BBC’s pre-prepared ‘kick-off’ propaganda set-piece ‘hosted’ by Israeli Zionist heavyweight Ehud Barak, erected the ‘War on Terror’ before the events of 9/11 had even come to pass. The former Israeli Prime Minister’s appearance in what was a uniquely Zionist and anti-Palestinian news report as Manhattan burned provided a telling clue as to the perpetrators of the 9/11 psychological warfare operation. While real Israelis cheered in Manhattan, the world’s TV screens showed manipulated footage of Palestinians ‘celebrating’ 9/11.

Not only are Israel’s fingerprints all over 9/11 (something which is apparent even from the incomplete break-down above), but the new global paradigm that was forged on that day, empowered and benefited Israel in every conceivable way.

Your cause may be the Palestinian struggle, waged in the occupied holy lands of the Middle East. Your cause may be the fight against the unstoppable, destructive free-market neoliberal economic doctrine. Your cause may be the battle against fear, struck into our hearts by the ‘al Qaeda’ ghost – kept alive by psychological warfare outfits such as the Zionist-run SITE group. Your struggle may be against the decade of wars now expanding into Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Perhaps your cause is all of the above. In any case, what cannot be denied is that 9/11 is the seminal event, inextricably and intimately linked to almost every major problem the world faces today. Only through establishing the whole truth about this Zionist deception can we even begin to glimpse peace.

April 19, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a Comment

WAR CRIMINAL BECOMES ISRAELI DEFENCE MINISTER

By Damian Lataan | March 15, 2013

Moshe Ya’alon, an ex-Israeli Chief of Staff and now Member of the Knesset, has been appointed Israel’s Minister of Defence in Netanyahu’s latest government coalition. Ya’alon replaces Ehud Barak.

Ya’alon was Chief of Staff of the IDF in July 2002 when Palestinian activist Salah Shehade was murdered in the Gaza Strip by a one tonne bomb dropped by an Israeli Air Force F-15 jet. Fourteen Palestinian civilians were also killed in the attack.

In 2005 a group of relatives of victims of the 1996 Israeli shelling of the Lebanese town of Qana, where some 106 civilians died, filed a suit demanding a jury trial against Ya’alon in Washington DC. Predictably, the case went no further. A year later in 2006 Ya’alon was visiting New Zealand on a fund-raising trip when an Auckland court issued a warrant for his arrest on charges relating to the Gaza Strip deaths. The warrant was over-ruled by New Zealand’s Attorney-General and Ya’alon was able to return to Israel. Then in October 2009 Ya’alon was forced to cancel a trip to the UK for fear of being arrested on war crime charges, again relating to the 2002 killings in the Gaza.

This man, who is pro-settlement, stridently anti-Iran, and fervently against the existence of any kind of Palestinian state, will be Israel’s next Defence Minister. This war criminal will probably be shaking President Obama’s hand when the President visits Israel next week.

No doubt more crimes will be planned when they meet.

March 15, 2013 Posted by | "Hope and Change", Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Israel greenlights construction of hundreds of settlement homes

Al-Akhbar | February 11, 2013

Israel has given final approval for 90 new homes in Beit El settlement near Ramallah and greenlighted the construction of 346 settlement homes in the southern West Bank, officials and an NGO said Monday.

Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now settlement watchdog said the plans had been published for validation in an Israeli newspaper in what was the “final stage of approval”, meaning construction of the new homes could begin “within a few days.”

The plans were signed off by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in August but received the final rubber stamp on Sunday by the Civil Administration’s planning committee, she said.

The Beit El construction plans were hurriedly put together as a compensatory measure for settlers who were evicted last year from Ulpana, an unauthorized settlement outpost on the outskirts of Beit El which was evacuated following a High Court ruling.

A civil administration spokesman confirmed the approval for the 90 units, saying they had been signed off by the political establishment.

Ofran said it meant the bulldozers could now get to work immediately.

“They can start building within a few days,” she said.

The Yesha Council – an umbrella organization of settlement councils – said that they welcomed any development in the West Bank, the Jerusalem Post reported. The group led the 2005 movement against Israel’s disengagement plan.

On Sunday, the defense ministry confirmed it had given the green light for the construction of 346 new settler homes in two settlements in the southern West Bank: 200 housing units in Tekoa and 146 in Nokdim.

The approval was pushed through despite the fact that Israel is currently between governments following last month’s general elections, with coalition talks likely to continue for several more weeks.

“Even though there is not yet a new government in place they are still allowing settlement procedures to continue instead of putting them on hold which is a telling sign about this new government,” Ofran said.

The move comes just days after the White House announced that Obama would make his first-ever visit to Israel as president on a trip expected to take place in late March.

According to Peace Now data for 2012, at least 1,747 new settlement housing units were built in the past year, and plans were approved for the construction of 6,676 more homes.

The international community views all Israeli construction on occupied Palestinian land as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the Palestinians have refused to return to peace talks while Israel builds on land they want for a future state.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

February 11, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Syrian TV shows ‘aftermath’ footage, Israel implicitly admits to airstrike

RT | February 3, 2013

Syrian TV has broadcast images of what it said was the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on a research facility near Damascus. Israel has implicitly admitted it was behind the raid, which allegedly targeted a weapons convoy headed to Lebanon.

The footage broadcast on Saturday by Al-Ikhbariya TV and Syrian state TV showed destroyed cars, trucks and military vehicles, and a damaged building with its windows broken and interior damaged. The video was allegedly shot at Jamraya, northwest of Damascus. The Syrian military earlier said that Israeli jets bombed the area.

Israel has not officially confirmed the allegations. But on Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that “What happened in Syria several days ago… that’s proof that when we said something we mean it. We say that we don’t think it should be allowed to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon.”

“Hezbollah from Lebanon and the Iranians are the only allies that [Syrian President Bashar] Assad has left,” Barak told reporters at a security conference in Munich, adding that the “imminent” fall of the Assad government “will be a major blow to the Iranians and Hezbollah.”

Earlier, it was reported that the Wednesday airstrike targeted a convoy carrying SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles to Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon. The advanced Russian-made missiles would have enabled troops in Lebanon to target Israeli warplanes, which can currently intrude into Lebanese airspace unopposed.

The reports were denied by the Syrian military, which said that no such weapons transfer had been planned.

Damascus vowed to retaliate against the Israeli airstrike, while Syrian rebel forces battling the government criticized President Bashar Assad for not responding to the bombing.

On Sunday, President Assad accused Israel of trying to destabilize Syria through the attack. He warned that Syria will confront “current threats… and aggression” against it during a meeting in Damascus with Iranian national security council secretary Saeed Jalili. The remarks were the Syrian leader’s first public comment on the airstrike since it happened on Wednesday.

Israel maintains the most advanced military of any nation in the region, and has carried out a number of airstrikes against foreign targets over the past few decades. The latest high-profile incident attributed to Israel was the bombing of an arms factory in Khartoum, Sudan, last October.

Israeli jets also reportedly bombed Syria in 2007, destroying what was alleged to be a nuclear reactor being constructed with the help of North Korea.

Israel and Syria are embroiled in an ongoing land dispute over a portion of the Golan Heights occupied by the Jewish state during the Six-Day War of 1967. The two countries do not maintain formal diplomatic relations, and hostilities between the two have been sparked on several occasions, most recently in the 2006 Lebanon war.

Israel has avoided interfering in Syria’s ongoing 22-month-long armed conflict, but said it would deploy troops if needed to secure Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles and prevent them from being captured by Islamist forces.

VIDEO

February 3, 2013 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a Comment

Israel may rely on US ‘scalpels’ to contain Iran – defense minister

RT | January 27, 2013

Instead of going to a full-scale war with Iran over its nuclear program Israel may be satisfied with a US-led operation, says Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Previously Tel Aviv was determined to resolve the issue on its own, if the US refuses to help.

Apparently after the Knesset election this month left the Netanyahu cabinet weakened, Israeli hawks are toning down their war drumming rhetoric. In an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Barak said the Pentagon had prepared a surgical operation that can be used as a last-ditch measure to slow Iranian progress.

“I used to tell them [American friends], you know, when we are talking about surgical operations we think of a scalpel, you think of a chisel with a 10-pound hammer,” Barak joked as cited by The Daily Beast. But that’s not the case with the plan, he noted. “The Pentagon prepared quite sophisticated, fine, extremely fine, scalpels. So it is not an issue of a major war or a failure to block Iran. You could under a certain situation, if worse comes to worst, end up with a surgical operation.”

Such an operation “will delay [the Iranians] by a significant time frame and probably convince them that it won’t work because the world is determined to block them,” Barak said.

“We of course prefer that some morning we wake up and see that the Arab Spring was translated into Farsi and jumped over the Gulf to the streets of Tehran, but you cannot build a plan on it,” he added.

Israel’s right-wing government under PM Benjamin Netanyahu has been trumpeting war drums for months, saying it is prepared to do anything to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon and would launch an attack before its own window of opportunity closes. It called on its American allies to draw a red line after which a military action should follow. The pressure antagonized the Barack Obama administration, which refused to sign up for a new major conflict and called for non-military effort.

Tel-Aviv, Washington and some other countries believe that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon under the guise of its nuclear program. They want Tehran to shut down uranium enrichment facilities. Iran insists that it pursues strictly civilian goals with its nuclear industry, including production of fuel for nuclear reactors and radioactive isotopes for medical and research applications.

In a move aimed at dispersing international fears Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a religious decree banning nuclear weapons last year. The decree is binding for the Iranian government, Tehran stressed earlier this month ahead of a new round of international talks on the issue.

Earlier the US and Israel reportedly launched several clandestine operations against the Iranian nuclear program. Those include infecting Iranian industrial computer networks at enrichment facilities with a sophisticated virus, which damaged the sensitive equipment. There have also been several assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, which Tehran says were orchestrated by Israel.

The US also championed a set of strict economic sanctions against Iran, which crippled its oil exports.

January 27, 2013 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , | 2 Comments

Obama regime pledges more support for Israel’s Iron Dome

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Press TV – November 30, 2012

The US defense chief has vowed to continue enhancing the Israeli regime’s so-called Iron Dome missile shield which proved ineffective in face of Palestinians’ retaliatory rocket in the recent war on the Gaza Strip.

In a Pentagon press conference with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak on Thursday, American Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, however, praised the system, adding, “Today, I assured the minister (Barak) that our strong commitment to Iron Dome will continue into the future.”

Despite Panetta’s repeated insistence during the press event about Iron Dome’s “success rate,” some American experts have questioned such claims by top US and Israeli officials, pointing to many Hamas-launched missiles that made it through the system, mounting intense pressure on the regime’s authorities to quickly agree to a ceasefire.

“We will obviously continue to work together to seek additional funding to enable Israel to boost Iron Dome’s capacity further and to help prevent the kind of escalation and violence that we’ve seen,” Panetta emphasized.

He added, according to the report, that the US granted USD70 million in fiscal year 2012 to fund the system, in addition to another USD205 million previously given to the Tel Aviv regime to develop the shield.

Barak, meanwhile, expressed his gratitude over the American pledge of total support while further insisting that “the needs are much larger than what we have right now, and we are determined to complete the system, besides the operational offensive capacities of the Israeli armed forces.”

Also at the event, Panetta pinned the Defense Department’s Medal for Distinguished Public Service on Barak, who declared on Monday that he plans to quit politics following national elections planned by the Israeli regime in January 2013.

November 30, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Has David Miliband Changed His Spots?

By Stuart Littlewood | Palestine Chronicle | September 19, 2012

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has been providing vital help to vulnerable Palestinian communities ever since the Sabra and Shatila massacre 30 years ago.

Eyebrows therefore shot up when MAP announced that former foreign secretary David Miliband will be speaking at its Annual Gala Fundraising Dinner tomorrow (Thursday) held in the posh Sheraton Park Lane Hotel.

It seems he’ll be talking about his visit to the West Bank and Gaza.

Miliband will be forever remembered as the British foreign secretary who shamelessly groveled to Israel’s gangsters for forgiveness for their running the risk of arrest if they set foot in London.

And he’ll be remembered for not having the guts to go visit Gaza, or even Iran while in office.

Back in 2009 Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni and retired general Doron Almog, cancelled engagements in London for fear of being arrested. Israel complained bitterly

Miliband actually apologized to Livni and Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman for the arrest warrant issued against Livni. He promised Lieberman to begin working immediately to change the UK laws relating to ‘universal jurisdiction’. He asked Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Justice Minister Jack Straw to find an urgent solution.

But the general election overtook him. Miliband’s groveling promise was echoed by his replacement, William Hague, who announced: “We have had good discussions with Israeli ministers on Universal Jurisdiction where the last government left us with an appalling situation where a politician like Mrs. Livni could be threatened with arrest on coming to the UK…”

He said it was “completely unacceptable… We have agreed in the coalition about putting it right, we will put it right through legislation… later this year and I phoned Mrs. Livni amongst others to tell her about that and received a very warm welcome for our proposals”.

Never mind that British law was operating perfectly properly. The warrants were issued to answer well-founded charges. Under universal jurisdiction all states that are party to the Geneva Conventions are under a binding obligation to seek out those suspected of having committed grave breaches of the Conventions and bring them, regardless of nationality, to justice. There should be no hiding place for those suspected of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Applications could be made to a court for private arrest warrants, and this had been happening because the government itself was in the habit of shirking its duty under the Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention and dragging its feet until the bird has flown.

The beauty of the private warrant is that it can be issued speedily.

Bringing a private prosecution for a criminal offence is an ancient right in common law and, in the words of Lord Wilberforce, “a valuable constitutional safeguard against inertia or partiality on the part of the authority.”

Lord Diplock, another respected Lord of Appeal, called it “a useful safeguard against capricious, corrupt or biased failure or refusal of those authorities to prosecute offenders against the criminal law”.

Who can forget that Tzipi Livni, Israel’s former foreign minister, was largely responsible for the terror that brought unspeakable death and destruction to Gaza’s civilians during the blitzkrieg known as Operation Cast Lead?

Showing no remorse and with the blood of 1,400 dead Gazans (including 320 children and 109 women) on her hands, and thousands more horribly maimed, Livni’s office issued a statement saying she was proud of Operation Cast Lead. And speaking later at a conference at Tel Aviv’s Institute for Security Studies, she said: “I would today take the same decisions.”

In a sane world no British government minister would undermine our justice system in order to make the UK a safe haven for the likes of her.

Yet Miliband’s successor Hague said: “We cannot have a position where Israeli politicians feel they cannot visit this country. The situation is unsatisfactory [and] indefensible. It is absolutely my intention to act speedily.”

He even tried to make Livni’s monstrous crimes look good by claiming, as reported on the Conservative Friends of Israel website, that “the immediate trigger for this crisis [the war on Gaza] was the barrage of hundreds of rocket attacks against Israel on the expiry of the ceasefire or truce.” It is well known that the ceasefire didn’t expire. It was deliberately breached by an Israeli raid into Gaza that killed several Palestinians with the intention of provoking a response that would re-ignite the violence and provide an excuse to launch Operation Cast Lead, which the Israelis had been preparing for months.

As for Avigdor Lieberman, he lives in an illegal squat on stolen Palestinian land and is a wanted criminal on that score alone.

Livni bleated: “It’s about the entire State of Israel and our ability to go on working together against common threats.”

Common threats? The threats Israel faces are caused by its racist expansion, land theft, general lawlessness and hateful attitude towards its neighbors, not to mention the nuclear menace Israel itself poses to others in the region and the Islamic world generally. To suggest we have anything in common with the Tel Aviv regime is absurd.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office butted in with this arrogant statement: “We will not agree to a situation in which [former prime minister] Ehud Olmert, [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak and [opposition leader and former foreign minister] Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the bench. We utterly reject the absurdity that is happening in Britain.”

Miliband never went to Gaza when he should have done. But he managed to visit Gaza with Save the Children. “I had not been able to visit while in government for security reasons,” he said in an article in The Guardian.

Bollox. Hamas were honor-bound to take good care of him. The only danger would have been an Israeli air-strike or a Mossad assassin. But those risks go with the job. You can’t be an effective foreign secretary wrapped in cotton wool.

With David Miliband heading up foreign policy it was frankly embarrassing to be British. What sort of transformation has the groveler undergone that makes him now worthy of an invitation to MAP? Has he become a new White Knight championing the Palestinian underdog against the evil occupier?

I hope so. But I’ll believe it when I actually see evidence that this particular leopard’s spots have well and truly changed.

September 20, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

When Will Palestinians Become Human?

By AMER ZAHR | CounterPunch | August 29, 2012

We Palestinians have been struggling for a long time.  I am not speaking of the struggle to be recognized as an independent state, or the struggle to be recognized in the United Nations, or even the struggle to be recognized in international courts.  I am speaking, rather, of the struggle to be recognized as human beings.

I am a comedian, and I travel to Israel and Palestine often to perform, visit, and conduct workshops.  I have, to this point, done all of my work for Palestinian audiences and participants.  My first job is to be funny.  But I also hope to show that Palestinians can laugh just like everyone else, especially at ourselves.  If I do my job well, maybe I can show that we can be funny too.

The legal decision handed down yesterday in Israel, absolving the government of any and all responsibility in the 2003 death of American Rachel Corrie in Gaza, confirmed something to the world that we Palestinians are already acutely aware of:  We, and those who dare to stand with us, are simply not human beings.

In the past few weeks, this phenomenon has become all too clear in Israel.  On August 16, a group of teenagers beat a Palestinian boy to near death in a Jerusalem square.  One of those arrested for that crime publicly declared his astonishment for being held accountable for beating an Arab.  On that same day, a taxi carrying a family of Palestinians was firebombed near Hebron in the southern West Bank.  Six Palestinians were injured in that attack.

Rachel Corrie was killed while she was decrying the demolition of homes in the Gaza Strip.  She was engaging in something that we Americans have been politically and socially bred to have pride in: non-violent protest.  She stood in front of a bulldozer, only to have the driver run her over, viewing her life as no more worthy than the owners of the house he was destroying.

It is no small thing to say that the state of Israel views Palestinians as subhuman.  I do not say it lightly.  I have traveled to Israel many times, encountering the various checkpoints, border crossings, and security personnel.  I am always shocked by how Palestinians deal with this everyday.  I am never shocked by, sadly, the subhuman manner in which Israel treats them.

The Qalandia checkpoint from Ramallah to Jerusalem consists of cages and steel revolvers.  Palestinians are let through at the whim of the Israeli soldiers manning their stations.  The checkpoint itself is filthy and unsanitary.  Arab towns inside Israel are many times rundown, almost completely neglected by the Israeli government, while Jewish towns are generously funded and kept up, resembling upscale American suburbs.  Studies have shown that the Israeli government spends three times as much on schools populated by Jewish students as it does on schools with Arab students.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once referred to the Palestinian citizens of Israel as a “demographic threat.”  That remark, is, of course, utterly racist.  But one has to wonder how someone like Mr. Netanyahu, who graduated from both high school and college in America, could refer to a group of people that existed in that land for centuries before the establishment of Israel as a “demographic threat.”  The answer is simple: Palestinians are simply not human.

Newt Gingrich has called us “invented,” Barack Obama was attacked in 2008 for having a “Palestinian friend,” Ehud Barak referred to us as “crocodiles,” and former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who famously made peace with Egypt, said that Palestinians were “beasts.”  Why would we expect Israel to hold anyone responsible for killing a young woman foolish enough to protect the rights of these creatures?

Amer Zahr is a Palestinian-American residing in Dearborn.  He is a comedian and graduate of the University of Michigan Law School.

August 30, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , | 2 Comments

Barak’s Blunder

Israeli defense minister misrepresents U.S. intelligence to bolster the case for war

By Philip Giraldi • The American Conservative • August 17, 2012

It should surprise no one to learn that when intelligence agencies talk to other intelligence agencies as part of a liaison relationship there are certain rules in place, even though they are frequently unspoken. During the Cold War the most productive such relationship that the United States had was not with obvious candidates like the British or Germans. It was with the Norwegians, who ran a chain of listening posts that were able to pick up signals and other valuable information drawn from the heart of the Soviet nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The U.S. knew all about the latest Russian technical developments, and both Washington and Oslo kept quiet about what they were up to.

But sometimes the temptation to use highly sensitive classified intelligence obtained from a friend is overwhelming? On August 9, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak confirmed Israeli media reports that a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) from the United States on the Iranian nuclear program had “included new and alarming intelligence” that had led to the judgment that “Iran has made surprising, notable progress in the research and development of key components of the military nuclear program.” He described the source as an intelligence report “being passed around senior offices.” Barak concluded that the new report means that Israel and the United States now have the same view of developments in Iran, meaning that both now believe that the country’s nuclear program has a military component which makes Iran unambiguously a threat.

“Militarization” has become something of a buzzword in the debate over Tehran’s intentions. It can mean a couple of things, most obviously that some research or development is taking place that can plausibly only be linked to creation of a nuclear weapon. Or it could mean that certain developments in the nuclear area have been linked to corresponding advances in ballistic missile engineering, meaning that there might be a program to work clandestinely on a bomb while simultaneously upgrading Iran’s missiles to provide a mechanism to deliver the weapon on target as soon as it is available.

Barak’s remarks sparked considerable commentary worldwide, suggesting that Israel and the United States, who appear to have been seeking a casus belli for attacking Iran, at last have found their smoking pistol enabling them to do so.  But there were some serious problems with the story, and the CIA and Office of National Intelligence initiated some immediate pushback over Barak’s apparent exposure of classified information provided to Israel by Washington.

Intelligence insiders noted immediately that there has not, in fact, been a new NIE on Iran. Barak apparently intentionally called the report he had seen an NIE to heighten the impact and veracity of what he was saying. An NIE is the consensus product of the entire U.S. intelligence community and the views contained in it are endorsed by the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. Barak clearly felt that he needed the gravitas of an NIE because there have been two previous NIEs, in 2007 and 2011, that have concluded that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program and has not made the political decision to initiate one.

So it became clear that Ehud Barak was talking about something else. It turns out that the CIA routinely shares what is referred to as finished intelligence with Israel, and among those reports there have been several examining possible advances in Iranian missile development, to include an examination of intelligence suggesting that there might be some engineering of a warhead that might be capable of carrying a small nuclear device, if such a weapon were ultimately to become available [emphasis Aletho News]. Finished intelligence consists of reports that are produced in great quantity addressing a variety of issues.  They are not unlike the types of reports generated by the various think tanks in Washington and at major universities, being generally academic in tone though carefully drafted to avoid any revelation of the sources and methods contributing to the document. Finished intelligence is frequently passed by CIA to friendly intelligence liaison services and is generally classified “Secret.”

So Barak was quite possibly misrepresenting a U.S. intelligence-generated report to serve his own purposes, and he was also leaking information that had been given to him in confidence with the understanding that he would only use it to guide internal Israel deliberations, not to discuss it with the media. The CIA was reportedly furious over the leak and, in an unusual move, the White House quickly gave a green light for the National Security Council to actually rebuke Israel, with an NSC spokesman commenting that “We continue to assess that Iran is not on the verge of achieving a nuclear weapon.”

So Israel was saying that the Iranian threat had been demonstrated based on U.S. intelligence while Washington claimed the contrary. It all might have ended there, but intelligence leaks have a tendency to spill over and turn out to be difficult to contain. The Obama White House felt compelled to assuage Israeli fears over Iran’s alleged nukes. On Friday press spokesman Jay Carney told the media (and the Israelis) that the U.S. “would know if and when Iran made” a decision to build a weapon. “We have eyes–we have visibility into the program, and we would know if and when Iran made what’s called a breakout move towards acquiring a weapon.”

Carney’s unnecessary elaboration of United States intelligence capabilities vis-à-vis Iran caused the intel community to go ballistic for a second time in two days. If there is one thing that an intelligence organization never does it is to reveal what it can and cannot do. Now Iran, which already knew that it was being monitored closely, probably has a pretty good idea where its vulnerabilities lie because the White House has told them where to look. Marc Ambinder, a national security specialist who writes for The Atlantic, explains how it works: “the CIA’s ops arm, the National Clandestine Service, along with the US military, are devoting thousands of person-hours per day working along the periphery of the country, scrutinizing and seizing cargo shipments bound for Iran, tapping the black market for nuclear supplies and buying up spare parts, and maximizing the collection of Iranian signal traffic … it has a high-definition picture of the current state of the nuclear program and would be able to much more quickly identify if, say, scientists began to create the material needed to manufacture the lens and tamper system that would induce the fission in a bomb. What’s most valuable here is the US mastery of obscure but vital types of intelligence collection that spooks call ‘MASINT’—or measurement and signature intelligence. MASINT sensors on satellites, drones, and on the ground can detect everything from the electromagnetic signatures created by testing conventional missile systems to disturbances in the soil and geography around a hidden nuclear facility to streams of radioactive particles that are byproducts of the uranium enrichment process. Put together, the US has a good handle on the nuclear supply chain; it knows what Iran has and doesn’t have; it has a good handle on who needs to be where in order for certain things to happen; it knows, probably through National Security Agency signals collection, a lot about the daily lives and stresses of Iran’s nuclear scientists.”

If Marc Ambinder has figured out in some detail how the U.S. collects its most sensitive intelligence on Iran, the Iranians have almost certainly come to the same conclusions. Which means that they can move to address their vulnerabilities and can work harder to shield their intentions if they actually are developing a weapon, possibly doing so with outside technical help from the sophisticated friendly foreign intelligence services of Russia and China. As for the Israelis, a foolish attempt to use U.S.-provided intelligence to further demonize a country that has already been effectively blackened will prove counter-productive. Israel and its friends in Congress have long been demanding that CIA and NSA provide them with raw instead of finished intelligence. Raw intelligence is information that comes in as it is collected, indicating the sources and methods used. It is extremely valuable because it is transparent and not subject to analysis, but it is also highly vulnerable to disruption if it is in any way exposed. The resistance within the intelligence community to providing the Israelis anything of that nature has just hardened, with credit going to Ehud Barak for leaking information in an attempt to obtain some political mileage to bolster his country’s incessant arguments in favor of war.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

August 18, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Deception | , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Israeli high court rejects south Hebron village petition

Ma’an - 10/08/2012

Villagers in the South Hebron Hills face eviction as Israel pushes plans
to use their land for army training (MaanImages/Eleonora Vio, File)

BETHLEHEM – Israel’s High Court on Thursday rejected a petition against the removal of Palestinian villagers from the southern West Bank by the Israeli army, but stressed further legal challenges were still open.

The ruling allows villagers in the south Hebron hills to remain in their villages until November 1, when an order blocking their displacement will expire.

The court said it was not taking a position on the wider dispute, in which the Israeli government has ordered demolition of eight of the 12 villages in an area the army designates as a military training zone.

Tamar Feldman, a legal director for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel who filed the petition, insisted: “It is the full legal right of all of the residents of these villagers to remain on the land that they have owned for generations and use it for their livelihood.”

“There is no justification, legal or moral, for evacuating and displacing residents from their homes and their lands – whether we are talking about 12 villages or 8,” she said.

Residents of the south Hebron hills have fought a long battle to remain in their homes.

In 1999, over 700 residents were evicted due to “illegal residence in a firing zone” and Israeli forces confiscated property and demolished buildings and wells.

Israel’s High Court issued an interim injunction, and Israeli forces allowed named petitioners to return but not their relatives.

In July, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the court the army plans to demolish Khirbet al-Majaz, Khirbet al-Tabban, Sfai, Khirbet al-Fakheit, Halaweh, Mirkez, Jinba, and Kharoubeh.

The Israeli state says the residents are squatters from the nearby town of Yatta, while lawyers for the villagers say their rural communities pre-date the establishment of the state of Israel.

August 10, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a Comment

August 5 Sinai Attack Bears All the Hallmarks of an Israeli False Flag

By Martin Iqbal  | EmpireStrikesBlack | August 6th, 2012

On Sunday 5 August a number of unidentified militants carried out an attack in the Egyptian Sinai in which several Egyptian soldiers were killed, and Israel’s border was penetrated. After Iftar as the Egyptian Muslims were breaking their fast, unknown militants killed 16 Egyptian soldiers and stole an Egyptian armoured vehicle. Using a pick-up truck packed with explosives, the militants breached the Egypt-Israel border at the ‘Kerem Shalom’ crossing and subsequently drove approximately one mile into Israel using the armoured vehicle they had commandeered.

This event brings severe geopolitical repercussions for Egypt, and is characterised by extremely suspicious circumstances. Resultingly we must carefully consider this attack within its proper context.

Israel had foreknowledge of the attack

The Israeli military knew in advance that the Sinai attack would occur, which even allowed them to have aircraft defending the area in advance – hence why the armoured vehicle was blown up shortly after crossing the border and the attack was thwarted within 15 minutes of its advent.(1) IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz wasted no time in pointing out that “a large disaster was averted.

This begs the question, why did the Israelis not inform the Egyptian military to allow them to prevent the attack in the first instance? The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports,(2)

Israeli intelligence had information on the planned attack, which allowed the military to have helicopters in the area to strike the vehicle, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman said Monday.

Israel and Egypt remained in close contact during the attack, Barak said, according to reports.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak curiously blamed the attack on an unidentified ‘global’ Jihadi terror group. Although Barak is unable to identify the group, we are supposed to believe his alarmist assertion that it is global in nature.

Compulsive liar and Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, tried to pin the attack on Iran within hours, stating on his Twitter account,

“Iranian backed terrorists again struck at our Southern border today killing 15 Egyptian guards and attempting to massacre Israeli civilians,”

Obviously it was too soon for him to be in possession of evidence linking the attack to Iran, and Oren subsequently deleted his Twitter post. Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu did precisely the same thing with regard to the Burgas terror attack in Bulgaria, subsequently retracting his claim that Iran was behind the carnage, instead blaming Hezbollah. At the time of writing, the identity of the perpetrator of the Burgas attack is unknown to Bulgarian and US authorities.

Late last year MK Aryeh Eldad, foaming at the mouth, stressed that World public opinion should be prepared(3) for Israel waging war on Egypt, should Egypt deploy more troops in the Sinai than what has been agreed in the Egypt-Israel ‘Peace’ treaty. Today however, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak is demanding that Egypt step up its military control of the Sinai:(1)

“Perhaps this will be necessary wake-up call for the Egyptians to take matters in their hands in a more serious way,”

Israel’s designs on the Sinai

There are alarming indications that Sunday’s events were a false flag attack designed to give Israel the pretext it requires to carry forward its regional agenda. The Sinai raid must be considered within the context of Israel’s longstanding designs on the Sinai Peninsula.

In February 1982 an important Hebrew paper appeared in a Jewish journal named KIVUNIM (Directions). Penned by Oded Yinon and titled ‘A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties‘, the essay delineates strategies for Israel to become a regional hegemon in the Middle East. The short and long term strategies discussed involve the dissolution of the surrounding Arab states, and the expansion of Israel beyond its current undeclared borders.

Israel covets the Sinai for not only ideological reasons (the realisation of ‘Eretz Yisrael’ – Greater Israel), but also economic ones. Yinon makes no secret of Israel’s designs on the Sinai:

The loss of the Suez Canal oil fields, of the immense potential of the oil, gas and other natural resources in the Sinai peninsula which is geomorphologically identical to the rich oil-producing countries in the region, will result in an energy drain in the near future and will destroy our domestic economy: one quarter of our present GNP as well as one third of the budget is used for the purchase of oil. The search for raw materials in the Negev and on the coast will not, in the near future, serve to alter that state of affairs.

(Regaining) the Sinai peninsula with its present and potential resources is therefore a political priority which is obstructed by the Camp David and the peace agreements. The fault for that lies of course with the present Israeli government and the governments which paved the road to the policy of territorial compromise, the Alignment governments since 1967. The Egyptians will not need to keep the peace treaty after the return of the Sinai, and they will do all they can to return to the fold of the Arab world and to the USSR in order to gain support and military assistance. American aid is guaranteed only for a short while, for the terms of the peace and the weakening of the U.S. both at home and abroad will bring about a reduction in aid. Without oil and the income from it, with the present enormous expenditure, we will not be able to get through 1982 under the present conditions and we will have to act in order to return the situation to the status quo which existed in Sinai prior to Sadat’s visit and the mistaken peace agreement signed with him in March 1979.

Israel’s ultra-secure border was penetrated during the August 5 attack in which 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed; the operation was sophisticated and ambitious. Considering this in hand with the fact that Israel had foreknowledge of the event, it is highly likely that this attack was carried out by (or with the support of) Israel’s notorious ‘thou shalt wage war by deception‘ intelligence agency, the Mossad.

The raid serves as a perfect pretext for Israel to realise its desire to reoccupy the Sinai. As Israeli propagandists crawl out of the woodwork and baselessly blame unknown ‘global’ terror groups in addition to Iran, we would be terminally foolish not to treat this event with the utmost suspicion.

Notes

(1) ‘Barak hopes Sinai attack will be a ‘wake-up call’ for Egypt’ – Jerusalem Post, 6 August 2012
(2) ‘Barak calls Sinai attack, border inflitration a ‘wake-up call’ for Egypt’ – Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 6 August 2012
(3) ‘MK: Prepare for War If Egypt Deploys in Sinai’ – Arutz Sheva, 27 November 2011

August 6, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Israel Sets the Narrative on Bulgaria Attack: Accuses Iran with No Evidence; Media Repeats Claim Dutifully

By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | July 19, 2012

“It almost doesn’t matter what proof they have or don’t have, it’s really a matter of perception right now and Israeli officials are accusing Iran and its government of orchestrating these attacks.”

- Stephanie Gosk, MSNBC Correspondent, February 15, 2012

“A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.”

- Reverend C.H. Spurgeon, April 1, 1855

The Israeli government wasted no time mourning, memorializing or reflecting on the loss of life after bombing of a bus of Israeli tourists at an airport on the Bulgarian coast.  It was too busy going into full-on warmongering mode, immediately laying the blame for the tragic terrorist act on the government of Iran, despite a complete lack of evidence.

But in this world of propaganda, Israeli officials were out-front, setting the narrative for the Western media before any facts emerged. Facts aren’t important, just perception.  Perception is reality.

Ha’aretz reporter Amos Harel wrote yesterday afternoon:

The government didn’t hesitate to point a finger on Wednesday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, apparently supported by detailed intelligence, immediately blamed Iran for the terror attack on Israelis in Bulgaria that killed seven people.

Netanyahu warned of “an Iranian terror attack spreading throughout the world” and promised that “Israel will retaliate forcefully.” Remember that, whenever Iran has stated its intention to “respond” to attacks on its citizens on its own soil, it is accused of bellicosity and aggression.

Harel reported that the Israelis have “no doubt about who is behind the deadly attack in Bulgaria.”  Netanyahu insisted, with no supporting information, “All the indications are that Iran is behind this deadly attack.”

This claim, however, was not in line with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s own statements to the press.  Barak said the attack was “clearly… initiated probably by Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad or another group under the terror auspices of either Iran or other radical Islamic groups.”

So, according to the top Defense official in Israel, the bombing was carried out by someone from some group somewhere that definitely is connected to Iran or someone else.  Absolutely.  Damning evidence, huh?

Israel’s Fascist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman took the Netanyahu line as well: “I cannot get into all the operational details, but the identification is certain,” he said on Israel Radio. “From immediately after the attack, we worked hard and now the puzzle is put together, the identity and the responsibility are completely clear.”

Well that was fast.

Israeli President Shimon Peres jumped on the blame band wagon, saying, “We were witnesses to a deadly terror attack coming out of Iran… we know there were other attempts, and this time they succeeded.”  He vowed retribution, stating that Israel “has the means and the will to silence and paralyse terror organisations.”

In contrast with Israeli hysteria and acting like a mature adult, Nickolay Mladenov, the Bulgarian foreign minister, said, “We’re not pointing the finger in any direction until we know what happened and complete our investigation.”

Nevertheless, the Iran allegation shot around the world at warp speed and was repeated uncritically by every major news outlet.  Many commentators also noted that the attack came on the 18th anniversary of the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a terrorist attack that many have long accused Iran of carrying out, despite the complete lack of any credible evidence to back up the claim.

And now, Bulgarian media is reporting that the suicide bomber responsible for the terror attack had no connection to Iran, but was former Guantanamo detainee Mehdi Ghezali, a Swedish citizen of Algerian and Finnish ancestry.  He was captured in 2002 in Pakistan and turned over to the United States on suspicion of being an al-Qaeda sympathizer.

The New York Times has an extensive report detailing Bulgarian suspicions, some evidence, and a torrent of statements made by Israeli officials.

As more details emerge, it will become more and more clear how despicable the immediate exploitation of this tragedy by Netanyahu and cohorts to blame Iran with no evidence whatsoever actually is.  But why grieve for those murdered and act like a responsible, somber leadership when you can warmonger and point fingers?

*****

UPDATE:

Immediately on the heels of reports that Swedish citizen Mehdi Ghezali is the lead suspect in the bombing, both Bulgarian and Swedish officials have denied such a development in the investigation.

Once again, in contrast to Netanyahu’s bloviating, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov said, “it is wrong and a mistake to point fingers at this stage of the investigation at any country or organization.” Ha’aretz reports:

“We are only in the beginning of the investigation and it is wrong to jump to conclusions,” he added, saying that Bulgaria had “excellent cooperation with the Israeli security forces in matters pertaining to the investigation.”

Mladenov added that the countries “will investigate until we discover who is behind the attack. At this stage all we know about the identity of the culprit is his external appearance and a copy of a counterfeit Michigan driver’s license.”

 

July 20, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a Comment

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