"Declaring Independence from Israel" Phil Giraldi

"Selling out to Israeli interests has become de rigueur for Republican politicians and presidential hopefuls as well as for a heck of a lot of Democrats as well. Former Bill Clinton U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson recently commented that Israel is “our anchor in the Mideast. Our beachfront is Israel. They’re our strongest ally” while Senator Chuck Schumer, who is poised to become Senate Minority Leader, has declared “One of my roles, very important in the United States senate, is to be a shomer – to be the shomer Yisrael (guardian for Israel). And I will continue to be that with every bone in my body …”

The description of Israel as a close ally is not true, of course. Though Israel is persistently referred to as America’s greatest friend by the chattering class it is not legally or practically an ally at all and never has been. And then there is the recent revelation that Israel not only spied on Americans officials negotiating with Iran but also used the information obtained with members of Congress to undercut the talks. It is quite possible that Netanyahu was getting his intelligence from someone inside the United States delegation, raising a perhaps more troubling issue about the loyalty of some senior officials. It also suggests that at least some Congressmen received briefings from the Israeli government that included classified information obtained from the U.S. negotiating team and did nothing about it."  Phil Geraldi

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"They’re our strongest ally”  This statement is something that always puzzles me.  What exactly does Israel do for the US other than to relieve us of a lot of cash?  pl 

http://www.unz.com/article/declaring-independence-from-israel/

Comments

[Tom Welsh]

But that's secession! And secession hasn't been allowed in the USA for 238 years. (I keep count - I'm British).

[turcopolier]

Tom Welsh
And no matter how much you plead you will not be let back in! pl

[Cee]

All,

You should have heard Richardson on Washington Journal on CSPAN a few weeks ago. I kept trying to call. He's lucky I couldn't get through. It was pathetic to hear this crap about this Special Relationship. Is it special because of the blackmail?
I remember what happened to the former governor of New Jersey and I can bet you all that similar things happened to other politicos. This is more than just AIPAC bribery.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Col. Lang:

You asked:

"What exactly does Israel do for the US other than to relieve us of a lot of cash?"

US Protestants get - in their minds - an association with the legends of an alien people that endows their own history with mythical meaning - which it would otherwise lack.

It reminds me of an analogy to the ancient Greek ideas that a hero that engages in extraordinary struggles against adversity will be alive in a meaningful way during those periods of struggle; he is fit for company of the gods.

[The Beaver]

"It is quite possible that Netanyahu was getting his intelligence from someone inside the United States delegation, raising a perhaps more troubling issue about the loyalty of some senior officials."

May be the "social worker" needs to come out clean!

[LeaNder]

Strictly he could be a disgruntled Brit, considering his owns country's history in matters at hand.

But yes, its somewhat mean.

I would never want to lean back and make jokes as a German this way.

[ex-PFC Chuck]

Cee:
I couldn't agree more. The Snowden revelations indicate that NSA has been sending Israel raw feeds. To think that they just file and forget them after whatever analysis they're contracted to do is just fatuous.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/02/06/get-the-hell-out-of-our-country-part-ii/

[ex-PFC Chuck]

Beaver:
Back in the day of the Bush 43 Iraq fiasco it certainly seemed to me that Dougie Feith's basic loyalties were to Israel. So it's comforting to know that Jebbie allegedly has him on his list of national security advisers.

[confusedponderer]

"What exactly does Israel do for the US other than to relieve us of a lot of cash?"

Ask for more.

[oofda]

Indeed, what has Israel ever done for the U.S., except give intel on how to help the U.S. protect Israel? From the Lavon Affair, the USS LIBERTY, and the damage that Pollard and other spies have done to our security, one would have to consider Israel as a liability.

[HankP]

Col. Lang -

As best I can tell, it's that Israel keeps those damn Arabs out of our Holy Land.

[The Beaver]

@ ex-PFC Chuck

Plus let's remember who is USG for Political Affairs at the UNY ( rumours have it that Ban Ki-Moon does not sneeze w/o asking for permission from Jeffrey Feltman ) and how Amano got his job as DG of IAEA.

[William R. Cumming]

Apparently my position on Israel has been somewhat opaque on this blog. My position [recently clarified with the help of Bibi] is that without the USA' support there is no Israel. And it is this fact now made clear means that the USA now must take full and complete responsibility for Israel and its domestic and FP. After all over 25% od Israelis have dual citizenship with the USA including Federal Reserve VP Stanley Fischer].

The import of this if the USA does not want to sink with Israel is that the US must clearly and forthrightly announce what Israeli policies are acceptable to US and enforce them.

This is not a position driven by anti-Semitism but the need for some reality.

Could be wrong as always!

[David Habakkuk]

All,

On Ted Cruz, Philip Giraldi writes:

'There is no ambiguity in Cruz. As keynote speaker for a conference held last September by the newly formed In Defense of Christians group, he demonstrated that even in front of Middle Eastern Christians it was necessary to play the Israel card, bringing Jewish ''persecution'' into the discussion before walking off stage. Just before exiting, he said, ''If you will not stand with Israel and the Jews, then I will not stand with you. Good night, and God bless.''

It appears that both those American Jews who exercise serious political influence, and also their gentile fellow-travellers, are happy with a notion of 'the Jews' as some kind of coherent people, whose primary allegiance is necessarily to their fellow Jews, and whose heart lies in Israel.

This view is, of course, very close to a traditional anti-Semitic stereotype. Accordingly, it comes as little surprise that its relentless dissemination by Zionists over the past years is leading in Britain to some revival in anti-Semitism.

The results of the poll carried out by 'YouGov' for the 'Campaign Against Anti-Semitism', which were published in January should not be taken at face value. To ask people to accept or reject generalisations about 'British Jews' is to build into the question the view expressed by Senator Cruz – that Jews are some kind of monolithic entity.

If anyone asked me to accept or reject any view of 'British Jews' I would of course refuse to answer the question, on the grounds that anyone who has known many will be aware that the notion that these have very much in common is bunkum.

The 'Campaign Against Anti-Semitism' appears to treat the fact that one in five of those questioned 'believed their loyalty to Israel made British Jews less loyal to the UK' as an indicator of 'anti-Semitism'. But this ignores elementary logic.

Such a conclusion follows inescapably from the vision of the identity of Jews put forward by figures like Cruz – unless one assumes that on each and every issue, the interests of Israel as interpreted by figures like Netanyahu are identical with those of the non-Jewish population of Britain.

This is a belief which the behaviour of American Zionists, and to a lesser extent their British counterparts, since the turn of the century has made it close to impossible for any rational being to hold.

(For the poll, see http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/14/uk-jewish-antisemitism-rise-yougov-poll .)

[Abu Sinan]

Including the Arab Christians HankP? Are you aware there are a fair amount of Arab Christians, or do you just not care?

[Charles 1]

When it comes to international relations, it is not antisemitism to note that where statecraft is required, insistence upon Jewish statecraft is a self-imposed boomerang bludgeon.

[Cee]

ex-PFC Chuck,

Correct. I remember hearing someone (CIA operative in an interview) talking about why we had so much bad intel advantage in Afghanistan and it was because there were no prostitutes or booze.

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/08/bloomberg-says-israel-lobby-is-blackmail-ing-us-govt-to-support-iran-strike-but-times-is-clueless

Considering that many people in office in the US are so base, I assume the worst!

Sex, blackmail and theft: leaks detail Israeli spy operations
Submitted by Asa Winstanley on Tue, 02/24/2015 - 21:50

Mossad prostitutes

In further revelations published today, The Guardian reported that a 55-page secret document (which it appears not to have released) by South African intelligence showed that the Mossad regularly uses sex as a way to to entice or blackmail information out of its targets (my emphasis):

A section dealing with the operational practices of Israeli field intelligence officers says Mossad puts no pressure on female agents to use sex as a “weapon” but it is expected. It adds: “If sexual blackmail or entrapment is an integral part of the mission, however, Mossad often employs actual prostitutes.”

There is less hesitation among Mossad chiefs about using male agents to become intimate with embassy secretaries, airline stewardesses and others who might provide valuable information.

What sort of information are the Israelis after in South Africa? Other cables, published by Al Jazeera yesterday, go some way to answering that question.

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/sex-blackmail-and-theft-leaks-detail-israeli-spy-operations

[BabelFish]

Yes indeed. And, not just a passive liability, if there is such a thing, but a growing, active, willful liability that causes our country damage on a growing basis.

[confusedponderer]

Cameron will be disconsolate to hear that.

[LeaNder]

David, it seems they have adopted ADL's exquisite poll design. ;)

But strictly if you assume that antisemitism is here to stay and to remain till the end of days, isn't it enough to check if people are still aware of the basic stereotypes?

In other words you simply need to check, if they are still widely known? Sarcastically: make sure they are still known in the process?

Compared to the ADL poll the poll that J-Street had done to get the pulse of the US Jewish community was excellent. It was enormously well done in comparison.

But yes, you are not the only one that is puzzled by this type of polls. Ages ago by now it feels, I read an exquisite article by an Israeli scholar on the issue on Antiwar. He kept me from refreshing my little knowledge in the Empirical Sciences to better understand my perplexion.

*********
European antisemitism was a dominant meme in the larger debates surrounding antisemitism in the post 911 world. I was stunned by Jewish American academics, wondering if it was safe for them to travel to Europe at one point.

Some kind of academic peak it felt at the time, was paralleling European anti-Semitism with anti-Americanism by a US scholar.

http://tinyurl.com/Twin-Brothers

There would be lot to write about Benjamin Weinthal, especially his campaigns concerning the Center for the Studies of Antisemitism in Berlin, but here a more recent take on the topic:

http://tinyurl.com/Dangerous-Mix

In a nutshell: the most anti-Semitic group by now are of course "the Arabs", closely followed by Europe, the ultimate cradle of both religious hate of the Jews and later antisemitism. ... The only non-tainted group are Americans. Maybe due to the close post WWII relationship? ...

Do you recall the attempts to reshape the definition of anti-Semitism in Europe? The EU working paper for the definition of antisemitism? It felt this may have been a parallel political not purely academic enterprise to activities in Europe: Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism.

Our dear friend Jeffrey Goldberg recently had a cover story, I think, about antisemitism in Europe. Of course with the ultimate question: Should European Jews leave Europe?

http://tinyurl.com/Goldberg-Jews-Europe

[LeaNder]

Here is an excellent take on matters in a slightly satirical way on Jewdas: Keeping antisemitism simple.

http://jewdas.org/keeping-antisemitism-simple/

[LeaNder]

Hmmm?

‘Black people have such wonderful rhythm’

concerning this "positive stereotype", I guess I must out myself as racist. In a class in "style and rhetoric" over here I choose "black writing" for my paper. I was very, very attracted to what felt like rhythm to me and then checked how exactly it might be produced. ... i shouldn't have done, I realized too late. I didn't keep the critical analytical distance to the extend I should, I was told. ...

This may be why I was very, very attracted by my late friend's David Mills piece on drums in black history:

http://tinyurl.com/black-history-drums

[LeaNder]

Hmmm? that's not quite David's article I had in mind. Although my response is still there. Thus it feels I have to ask David's nephew who keeps up the site what exactly happened.

Strange.

His original article was about white fear that drums could possibly incite the blacks to revolt and thus restrictions for blacks to use them.

[Trent]

Hank, I assume sarcasm on your part. Otherwise, did Israel protect the Holy Land last summer when it seized 1,000 acres in, wait for it, Bethlehem?

[Babak Makkinejad]

From UK:

http://www.jewishjournal.com/world/article/jewish_candidate_quits_uk_race_after_saying_israel_should_kidnap_obama

I would like to draw your attention to 2 things:

"...replaced on the ballot by Dr. Raymond Shamash, a dentist who served as a medical officer in the Israeli army during the Yom Kippur War in 1973."

and

“There are 2.8 million [Muslims] people [in the United Kingdom] who are ideologically and religiously opposed to us,”