Criminal State, Distorted Media, Front Page, Israel lobby, Washington Politics
At What Cost the Israel Lobby?
October 12, 2009 by Jeff Gates · 9 Comments
More than 46 years ago, President John F. Kennedy sought to preclude a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. In June 1963, he wrote the last in a series of insistent letters to Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Those letters sought what Israel now demands of Iran: international inspections of its nuclear facilities. The key difference: Kennedy knew for certain that Israel, while portraying itself a friend and ally, repeatedly lied to Kennedy about its nuclear weapons development at the Dimona reactor in the Negev Desert.
Best estimates point to sometime between 1962 and 1964 when Israel produced its first weapon in what is now a vast nuclear arsenal estimated at 200-400 warheads. Kennedy’s letter to Ben-Gurion was anything but friendly. The words he chose were drawn not from diplomacy but from the instructions that a judge gives a jury on criminal culpability. In that brusque letter, the U.S. commander-in-chief insisted that this purported ally prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the Zionist enclave was not developing nuclear weapons.
One day after that June 15th letter was cabled to Tel Aviv for delivery by the U.S. ambassador, Ben-Gurion abruptly resigned citing undisclosed personal reasons. As his resignation was announced before the letter could be physically delivered, Jewish authors routinely claim that Kennedy’s message failed to reach Ben-Gurion. Nonsense. That interpretative gloss ignores what we now know about Israeli operations inside serial U.S. presidencies—and about Tel Aviv’s routine intercept of White House communications.
Deprived of an Israeli government with which to negotiate, Kennedy was denied a national security victory that may well have spared the world a problem he foresaw almost a half-century ago. In retrospect, that Israeli conduct raises topical questions about the ability of the U.S.—or any nation—to hold Zionist extremists accountable.
The Khazars vs. the Kennedys
During this same 1962-63 period, Senator William J. Fulbright of Arkansas, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, convened hearings on the legal status of the American Zionist Council. The AZC received funds from the Jewish Agency, a predecessor to the state of Israel. As a recipient of U.S. taxpayer funds, the Jewish Agency used those funds to lobby for more funds. Under U.S. law, that conduct required the AZC to register as a foreign agent.
Attorney General Robert Kennedy joined Fulbright in that quest. That effort was thwarted by the Israel lobby and then by the death of President Kennedy. Thereafter, concerns about the impact of Zionist influence on U.S. policy making continued to grow. By 1973, Fulbright could announce with confidence: “Israel controls the U.S. Senate.” In 1974, he lost his Senate seat. [See: “How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy.”]
Fast-forward to today and imagine the Middle East without an enclave of nuclear-armed Zionist extremists. The threat that Kennedy posed to Tel Aviv’s arsenal was eliminated five months after Ben-Gurion’s strategically well-timed resignation. When Vice President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as his successor, LBJ quickly increased the arms budget for Israel. Imagine today’s Zionist influence on U.S. policy had Fulbright and the Kennedys succeeded in requiring that the lobby register as what it is: a foreign agent.
Following the Kennedy assassination in November 1963, Nicholas Katzenbach replaced RFK as Attorney General. Soon thereafter, the AZC evaded registration as it morphed into the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC now oversees a transnational network of pro-Israeli political operatives commonly known as “the Israel lobby.”
The Kennedy/Fulbright risk to Zionist influence reemerged five years later when Robert Kennedy announced his candidacy for the presidency during the height of an unpopular war that was vastly expanded under the leadership of the Texan who replaced his brother as president. Another Kennedy presidency posed for Tel Aviv a two-fold threat.
First, Robert Kennedy’s peace candidacy revived the possibility that he would pursue his brother’s agenda and target Israel’s nuclear arsenal in order to preclude a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Second, with Fulbright still wielding influence on U.S. foreign policy, a Kennedy administration revived concerns about restrictions on the Israel lobby.
When this charismatic contender surged in the political polls, that threat was eliminated June 5, 1968 at a campaign event in Los Angeles. His death at the hand of Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian émigré, coincided with the first anniversary of the Six-Day War. The assassin later cited as his motive Kennedy’s campaign pledge to provide more fighter jets to Israel.
With that murder, the road to the presidency was cleared for Richard Nixon. When lobbied by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, Nixon readily agreed to endorse an “ambiguous” status for Israel’s nuclear arsenal, akin to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Special Standard for a Special Friend
Due to its “special relationship” with the U.S., Tel Aviv remains a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Its Dimona facility has never been subjected to the inspections it now seeks for Iran. But for photographs taken inside the Dimona facility in 1986 by nuclear technician Mordecai Vanunu, that “ambiguity” might well remain intact.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly certified that Iran is not enriching uranium beyond the 3.5% required for nuclear energy. Tehran has agreed to send its uranium abroad for the further enrichment required for medicine (19.5%), a level still well below the 90% required for nuclear weapons.
In mid-September, the U.S. intelligence agencies reported to the White House that their assessment since the National Intelligence Estimate of November 2007 remains unchanged. They still do not believe that Iran has resumed nuclear weapons development work
What about Israel? What has their lobby been doing? Answer: lobbying. As during the Kennedy era, Tel Aviv remains focused on a single goal: ensuring that its ally and patron continues a six-decade policy ensuring that Israel is not held accountable—for anything.
At what cost has the U.S. acted as if the Israel lobby is not a foreign agent? The strategic issue faced by Fulbright and the Kennedys remains unresolved: how best can the U.S. eliminate Israeli influence as a threat to national security? Since that fateful letter of June 1963, what has been the cost of this lobby to U.S. interests? What costs have been imposed on others by this special relationship? At what point will Americans say: Enough!
In 2005, Vanunu, told me:
“President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons. Prime Minister Ben Guirion said, ‘The nuclear reactor is only for peace.”
“Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote letters demanding that Ben Guirion open up the Dimona for inspection.
“When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that two senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators would visit, the Israelis would build a wall to block the underground elevators and stairways. From 1963 to ’69, the senators came, but they never knew about the wall that hid the rest of the Dimona from them.
“Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a result, Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two hundred bombs. Today, they may have enough plutonium for ten bombs a year.”
Please listen to Vanunu speak for himself in 2005, 2006, 2008 video interviews and read about his FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial in the ‘democracy’ of Israel @ VANUNU ARCHIVES:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Have you read, Grant F. Smith, Director for the Institute of Research Middle East Policy publication, “Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal”?
It begins with Senator Fulbright’s on target questions to Jewish-Agency-funded US foreign agents who did not register with the Justice Department or disclose their true financing, funding flows and covert activities and illuminates how AIPAC: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee operates “within a murky nexus regulated by four important but seldom enforced US laws.”
The lax enforcement of The Logan Act, The Foreign Agents Registration Act/FARA, the 1917 Espionage Act, Thompson Memorandum guidelines for prosecuting corporate crime coupled with the fear of being labeled anti-Semitic and a media who have failed at their commission to seek and report the truth have all colluded to exert an undue influence over Congress and thus; we the people of America to be “under the de facto influence of a powerful foreign interest.”
The rest of “Patriot Follows the Money and Exposes Foreign Agents”
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=959&Itemid=202
[Reply]
PS: On June 8, 2007, I attended the 27th annual American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s Washington, D.C. Conference-and on June 10th marched in commemoration/codemnation of the 40th year of Israel’s Illegal Occupation of Palestine.
Congressman Paul Findley, addressed the luncheon crowd:
“I was here for the first convention 27 years ago and I still have a fire in my belly for the civil and human rights of Arabs. It is time to speak openly and honestly about Israel. But, in American politics, that is still forbidden.
“…Pity that we cannot seem to shed our fear of Israel. We are afraid to speak out on Capitol Hill, for fear of losing the next election. They are more like trained poodles jumping through hoops than leaders!
“Why this fear? How did we get here?
“Forty years ago to this day, June 8, 1967 the change occurred, the floodgates opened and money poured into Israel as never before. When President Johnson heard about the U.S.S. Liberty being attacked by Israel he ordered the rescue fighter planes to return to the deck. The rescue mission was aborted and the survivors have said they heard LBJ’s voice tell Admiral Giess, ‘Get those planes back on deck. I don’t care if the ship sinks, I will not embarrass Israel.’
“LBJ also threatened to court martial anyone who reported what had happened. Johnson accepted Israel’s false claim of “mistaken identity” and he knew it was a lie. That is when the change began and Israel learned they could get away with murdering U.S.A. soldiers.”
In 1967, the Republican representative from Iowa, H.R. Gross stood up in Congress and before getting ’shot’ down, he asked:
“Is this Government now, directly or indirectly, subsidizing Israel in the payment of full compensation for the lives that were destroyed, the suffering of the wounded, and the damage from this wanton attack? It can well be asked whether these Americans were the victims of bombs, machine gun bullets and torpedoes manufactured in the United States and dished out as military assistance under foreign aid.” [James Scott, "The Untold Story of Israel’s Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship" Pages 271-272]
By November 1967, lawmakers were willing to spend six million USA tax dollars to build schools in Israel but during the debate, Representative Gross spoke with the voice of conscience and introduced an amendment that “not one dollar of U.S. credit or aid of any kind [should] go to Israel until there is a firm settlement with regard to the attack and full reparations have been made [and Israel] provides full and complete reparations for the killing and wounding of more than 100 United States citizens in the wanton, unprovoked attack.”
“I wonder how you would feel if you were the father of one of the boys who was killed in that connection-or perhaps you do not have any feelings with respect to these young men who were killed, wounded and maimed, or their families.” [Page 272-273]
[Reply]
When you compare the landmass and population of Israel with the landmass and population of neighboring hostile Arab countries (Egypt and Jordan can now be subtracted but I include them here because there were no peace treaties at the time), you can make a good case for Israel’s developing and possessing nuclear weapons. If ever a country needed a deterrent, Israel was, and probably still is that country. They have managed their nuclear capacity pretty responsibly.
[Reply]
But in order to make the “pretty good case” for the criminal paranoia that would justify the secret development and production of nuclear weapons, one would have to posit some sort of basis for that fear.
Might not that include the facts that this is an artificial “state” created by U.N. mandate on land that had been the traditional home of nomadic Arabs for as long as records had been kept? Or that the claim by the Israelis to this “homeland” was based on an interpretation of ancient texts with no physical, archeological evidence (both of the pieces of evidence brought forward to support the claim have been discredited) in a part of the world that is littered with ancient sites and artifacts? That may very well have caused some paranoia among the newly minted Israelis.
Imagine the U.N. declaring that, due to the documented fact of 2.5 million Arab/Muslim deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hands of the U.S. and it’s allies, the gulf coasts of Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida panhandle from 150 miles inland to 26 miles offshore are to be given to Arab Muslims and declared a sovereign nation. Think the new citizens of our theoretical “Arabistan” might be a little paranoid and feel a real need for deterrence?
As for how well “They have managed their nuclear capacity” (presumably meaning “capability”), one would be forced to argue that it is not the management of the resulting nuclear stockpile that is in question, but rather the very existance of such a secret stockpile so as to require management. Especially one in the hands of of a people who, according to their own history, are culturally inclined to violence and wars of conquest.
[Reply]
Hello,
My view on Israeli Nuclear Weapons program is based on Theodor Herzl’s view that: “We can be the vanguard of culture against barbarianism”, as he endeavored to justify Der Judenstat to imperial powers du jour, predicting: “The antisemites WILL BECOME our most loyal friends, the antisemites nations will become our allies”.
Every generation of Zionist statesmen and stateswomen since then, has emphasized the integral role of Zionistan as a frontier outpost of the West: “There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, they are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy.” – that was Moshe Katsav in 2001, Israel’s President.
And this is George Bush at Israel’s 60th B’day bash: “Our two nations both faced great challenges when they were founded. And our two nations have both relied on the same principles to help us succeed. We built strong democracies to protect the freedoms given to us by an Almighty God”.
That century year old linkage manifests itself in the Israeli-American relationship. It is a lot more than AIPAC and JINSA. It has to do with who the oligarchs are, and what is their agenda. While Herzl and the World Zionist Federation are credited with founding Israel, the fact that it was done with Rothschild money is rarely if ever mentioned. Even by the antagonists of Israel. Notice that the Balfour Declration was issued to Lord (Lionel) Rothschild. Why to him? The world’s financial powers control both nations, as well as those of EU.
So… fast forwarding, being that vanguard, the farthest outpost of Western culture and civilization, i.e., Zionistan, is an intregal part of the world superpower equation that is being ridden hard by its ideological-financial oligarchs, in both its “la mission civilisatrice” agenda, as well as its henchman on the ‘Grand Chessboard’ when public opinion won’t allow the greatest democracy on earth to play havoc with others itself.
This is what I wrote in Chapter 2 of Prisoners of the Cave in 2003, and I remain unpursuaded, still, that this is inaccurate perception: Excerpt:
While the number of ~200 is often quoted, even today, it is an old number. The current actual size of Israel’s nuclear arsenal is likely to be in the thousands, comprising an assorted cocktail of Armageddon inflicting gifts of the Jews to modern civilization.
How Israel got its nuclear weapons is an interesting tale, not to be rehearsed here. As a key ally of America through the Cold War, it is very likely that some of Israel’s warheads remained aimed at the Soviet Union, as much as Israel’s own enemies in the region. The Soviets were likely made aware of this because that is why they could never belligerently threaten Israel on the side of their own Arab client-states during the 1973 Arab Israeli war and essentially stayed out of it, while America openly supported Israel. And that is also what likely emboldened Israel to preemptively take out the Iraqi Nuclear reactor nearing completion in 1981 that was being built with Russian assistance, with no retaliation from the Soviets. And this was going on even as Iraq was being supplied with conventional weapons of mass destruction by America and the West and goaded on to fight Iran’s Islamic revolution to neutralize it – using the Iraqis as the front foot soldiers to take the brunt of the casualties, with a nuclear armed Israel as the backup armor. I am quite certain that had Iran’s counter offensive prevailed over Iraq and taken over Baghdad, that Israel would have struck with a preemptive Nuclear strike on Iran – as the immediate interests of America and Israel merged on the borders of Iran (apart from the continued outflow of oil). Thus nuclear arming of Israel was a necessity for America seen in this light – as almost an extension of America in the Middle East. An idea that JINSA has diligently pursued, to build up Israel’s defenses to have it prevail over all its neighbors by wielding its nuclear club.
End Exceprt
While it is stated by many that JFK was against nuclear arming Israel, it isn’t entirely clear to me. JFK was just as beholden to Jewish money to get him elected as every US president of recent memory. The photograph of a young JFK congressman in the home of the butcher of Palestine, David Ben-Gurion, screams louder than my words can.
“Deception is the state of mind, and the mind of state”.
Thanks,
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
[Reply]
Informed and educated people know that the most powerful weapon of all in the Zionists’ arsenal is their domination of Western media. It is this weapon that turns lies into truth, illusion into reality. It is this weapon that is used to brainwash the masses; convincing them to hate who the Zionists hate. To wage wars against those who the Zionists condemn. There are millions upon millions of dumbed-down, misinformed people (non-Jews) who wholeheartedly believe the Arab world is out to get them…that the state of Israel is populated by meek, persecuted Jews–like Jewish characters from some Hollywood Holocaust film. It’s illusion, but this illusion is reality to vast sums of people.
What more powerful weapon is there than a weapon that can convert masses of people to your cause? And rally them to fight and die for your cause?
The only way the criminal state of Israel will ever be held accountable for it’s brazen acts of repression and terrorism is when-and only when-the Zionist iron grip on Western media is broken. Just this one criminalstate.com article aired and printed in the mainstream media would bring Israel to it’s knees.
[Reply]
Jeff Gates Reply:
October 17th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Keep an eye on Zionist media mogul Haim Saban who recently submitted a second bid for Aljazeera — with the help of Bill Clinton.
[Reply]
Fascinating! Why do the pharisees always win? what happened to america? is good not strong enough to combat evil? they are so clever – the people in between…
[Reply]
Even though, the internet has exposed almost each of Zionist lies – one must give credit to Zionists for being consistant with their lying nature. They have been caught red-handed for putting words in their critics’ mouths – from Castro to Bishop Tutu; from Imam Khomeini to Chavez and from Ahmadinejad to Erdogan. The latest one is JTA’s (October 27, 2009) headline: “Iran will keep nukes as long as Israel does”. Disregarding IAEA’s several findings which confirmed that while Iran doesn’t have nuclear bombs (at least not yet), Israel has a stockpile of those – in fact what Ahmadinejad did say during his meeting with Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (as reported by JTA under the headline): “Iran will continue to progress in its nuclear program (doesn’t say for military usage) as long as Israel continues to have nuclear weapons. When an illegal regime possesses nuclear weapons, the other countries’ right for peaceful nuclear energy cannot be denied.”
Iranian government has just told IAEA watchdog that until the country receive the neclear fuel bought from France for its reactor in Tehran – it intends to keep its lightly enriched uranium inside Iran. Earlier, IAEA had negotiated a deal under which Tehran would ship 75% of its spent uranium stock to Russia and France for further reprocessing. Iranian nuclear negotiators had made a counter offer that Tehran may agree to IAEA’s proposal only if it gurantee foreign supply of nuclear fuel for the Iranian reactor, which is used for the production of medical isotopes for cancer treatment.
Since Islamic Revolution in 1979 – Tehran has developed very close relations with its nuclear neighbors (Russia, China, India and Pakistan) – with Russia and China being its major trading partners. All those four neighbors have their eyes set on Iran’s oil and gas resrves (second largest in the Middle East after Saudi Arabia). China is soon to become Iran’s No.1 trading partner (currently it stands US$29 billion annually). This is the major economic factor which would dull any US additional sanctions against Islamic Iran. Iran’s weak point, which the ZOGs intend to exploit – is country’s existing limited petroleum refining capacity. In order to counter western sanctions in this field, Chinese companies have already signed contracts worth US$8 billion to expand Iranian refineries.
Dilip Hiro in his October 29 article, titled Why Obama\’s Iran Policy Will Fail wrote:
“Obama has not drawn the right conclusion from his predeccesor’s failed Iran policy. A paradigm of sticks-and-carrots is simply not going to work in the case of Islamic Republic. Here, a lesson is readily available, if only the Obama White House is willing to consider Iran’s recent history. It’s unrealistic to expect that a regime which fought Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (then backed by the US) to standstill in a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s, unaided by any foreign power, and has for 30 years withstood the cosequences of the US-imposed economic sanctions will be alarmed by Washington’s fresh threat of Crippling Sanction (as demanded by its Tel Aviv master, Bibi).
The Chinese want to import Iran’s petroleum and natural gas through pipelines across Central Asia, thus circumventing sea routes vulnerable to US naval interdiction. As this is integral part of China’s energy security policy, little wonder that Chinese oil companies have committed an estimated US$120 billions – so far – to Iran’s energy industry.
As a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is, in fact entitled to enrich uranium. The key point is the degree of enrichment: 5% enriched uranium for use as fuel in the electricity generating plant (called low enriched uranium); 20% enriched uranium for use as feedstock for producing medical isotopes), and 90%-plus for bomb-grade fuel……”
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/ahmadinejad-its-your-move-obama/
[Reply]