LEGALIZIN’ LOOTS
Hey, New York Times, Israel Cannot ‘Legalize’ Its Colonies in the West Bank!
Well, I just wrote a similarly titled post about how the Washington Post reported on this very same issue. It’s a similar story with the New York Times. First, read that post.
Good, now check out the Times‘ version:
The Israeli government on Tuesday retroactively legalized three Jewish settlement outposts in the West Bank, and moved to delay the scheduled evacuation of a fourth, in a provocative move that some critics said marked the first establishment of new settlements in two decades….
As with most matters in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there is disagreement over the basic facts concerning the three settlements…. The international community broadly views settlement in the West Bank as illegal, but Israel draws a distinction between those communities it has officially sanctioned and outposts that settlers built without permission.
So if you read my post on the Post’s version, you can already see the problems here:
1) Israel cannot by fiat declare that its colonies in the West Bank are “legal”. All its settlements in the West Bank are illegal, period.
2) The international community does not “broadly” view Israel’s settlements as illegal. It is a unanimous international consensus that Israel’s settlements violate the Geneva Conventions, to which it is a party. Not a single nation on this planet recognizes Israel’s colonies as “legal”. As with the Post, the Times gives equal weight to Israel’s view as the international community, thus fabricating a “disagreement over the basic facts” when none exists. It is not a matter for debate, not a matter of opinion, but an incontrovertible, uncontroversial fact that every inch of the West Bank is “occupied Palestinian territory” and every Israeli settlement illegal.
Hey, Washington Post, Israel Cannot ‘Legalize’ It’s Colonies in the West Bank!
The Washington Post reports:
Israel announced Tuesday that it has legalized three unauthorized Jewish outposts in the West Bank, a move that Palestinians and anti-settlement activists condemned as a step toward creating the first new settlements in more than a decade….
Settlements are a core point of dispute in the frozen peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, who view the housing developments as Israeli land-grabbing and want construction to stop before resuming negotiations. Israel says the issue should be discussed during peace talks.
Although most foreign governments consider all settlements illegal, Israel applies that label only to about 100 so-called outposts that were built without official authorization, sometimes on private Palestinian land.
This kind of biased reporting is standard fare in the U.S. media. If you don’t see the bias, I’ll break it down for you:
1) The Post reports that Israel “legalized” Jewish “outposts” in the West Bank. That is false. All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal, and Israel’s claim that it may “legalize” its colonies has no legal standing. (See also #3.)
2) The Post reports that Palestinians “view” Israel’s colonies as “land-grabbing”, as though this was merely a perception. Israel’s illegal colonization of the West Bank is ipso facto land-grabbing.
3) The Post reports that “most foreign governments consider all settlements illegal”, the usual euphemism in the U.S. media, as though some countries consider Israel’s settlements to be legal. That is false. There is a unanimous international consensus, and it’s not a matter of opinion. Every nation on the planet recognizes the incontrovertible fact that Israel’s colonization of the West Bank is a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions, to which Israel is a party. Not a single nation on Earth considers Israel’s settlements to be “legal”, except, of course, for Israel, whose view is given equal weight as that of the international consensus by such means as the above. (Which goes back to #1.)
4) The Post says Israeli colonies are “sometimes” built “on private Palestinian land”. What it does not clarify is that every inch of the West Bank is Palestinian land, whether it is privately owned or otherwise, and every settlement is always built on Palestinian land.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your Highness, many groups from in and outside Bahrain called for the Formula 1 race that was held last weekend to be cancelled. Can you justify the fact that it took place?
Khalifa: I was very happy that it took place, despite all the negative comments we saw before the Formula 1 race. I was there and saw the whole race. It was a happy event for all Bahrainis.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: In the meantime, the protests in your country are continuing. The opposition claims the government’s reforms do not go far enough and that you aren’t really interested in a dialogue.
Khalifa: First of all, this is a movement of people which, in the modern world, we call a “terrorist group.” This movement is supported by Iran and Hezbollah. What we are facing is exactly what the Americans are facing with terrorism.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are you comparing serious Bahraini opposition groups like Al Wefaq with a terrorist network?
Khalifa: I am specifically talking about all those who are calling for violence and destruction. About those who are burning tires, throwing Molotov cocktails at police and are terrorizing the rest of this country.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So you reject a dialogue?
Khalifa: We are open to dialogue. Our door remains open, but those who say they want dialogue have to remember that the participation of all sectors of Bahraini society is needed in order for these efforts to bear fruit. But let’s not forget, we have offered the opposition a dialogue in the past and they walked out of it. The king has gone a long way in making many offers to them, but in the end they told us they had to wait to see what Iran would tell them. Now we are experiencing daily violence on our streets. If I were to ask the Americans to engage in a dialogue with terrorist organisations, such as al-Qaida, what do you think they would say?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Al-Qaida conducted terrorist attacks against the United States. The protesters just say they want reforms.
Khalifa: Reforms? If only this truly were about reforms. We started reforms a long time ago — earlier than any other Arab country. The king also made clear he wanted to continue with further reforms. We also have a very sophisticated welfare state in Bahrain that offers its citizens free education and health care, subsidizes housing and living allowances — and even includes unemployment benefits. I hold the opposition’s religious leader, Issa Qassim, responsible for everything that is going on in this country, especially for all the people who have been killed. And Qassim is taking his orders from Iran.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: People are protesting every day in the suburbs of the capital city of Manama. These demonstrations often end in altercations between the police and protesters. How would you like to resolve the situation in your country? Khalifa: We have to apply the law against everyone who broke it. These people are destroying public property and they are attacking police and Asian expatriate workers. It is our duty to protect all people in Bahrain. We are a multicultural society and we do not want that to change.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Does this mean you will use more police force against the protestors?
Khalifa: We do not want bloodshed in this country. Our police are only here to protect the people and not to attack or kill them. So far, we have shown a great deal of patience with the opposition. We made mistakes on our side, but the king brought in the Bassiouni Commission (an independent panel led by Egyptian-American human rights expert Cherif Bassiouni to carry out an inquiry into the protests and resulting violence), which was very critical of our past actions. We have accepted (the report) and have now implemented some of (the commission’s) recommendations. We are currently processing other proposed reforms through the parliamentary process and constitutional court. But has the international community ever questioned the opposition or held them accountable for their actions?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, the most prominent member of the opposition, who is currently in jail in your country, has been on a hunger strike for almost 80 days. His condition is very bad.
Khalifa: I beg to differ with you. His condition is not as bad as you say. According to the doctors attending to him on a daily basis, he takes liquids. The Danish ambassador visited him recently and said he was satisfied with the treatment being provided to him.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why don’t you release al-Khawaja or extradite him to Denmark, where he lived in exile for a number of years and also has dual citizenship?
Khalifa: In Bahrain, the executive branch does not interfere in the judicial process. He has been accorded due process of law. He is a Bahraini citizen, and extraditing him to Denmark is against Bahraini law.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But a number of international human rights groups and Western countries claim that your security forces are continuing to abuse protesters and opponents of the government.
Khalifa: I do not think these accusations are legitimate. How do Western police deal with unlawful and violent protests? Are they just letting protesters there throw stones and Molotov cocktails? When it comes to national security, human rights aren’t the most important thing. Or did the Americans and their allies think about human rights when they marched into Iraq and Afghanistan?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The opposition in your country are just asking for more rights, particularly those within the Shiite majority of Bahrain’s population.
Khalifa: The opposition is only looking for excuses, abusing demands for “more rights” and “democracy” to turn Bahrain into a second Iran. We have Sunni and Shiite ministers; and we have Shiites who are very rich. It simply isn’t true that the Shiites in Bahrain are poor and oppressed. They left parliament, they blocked our roads and they put this nation in jeopardy. They hung effigies of myself, the king and the crown prince with nooses around our necks and signs saying, “Death to Al Khalifa.” This is democracy.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The opposition groups are demanding that you resign from your post as prime minister and say it could be the first step toward stopping the protests. When will you listen to their calls and step down?
Khalifa: This is for the king to decide. My duty was and remains to protect this country, and I will do this until the last day of my life. Believe me, if my position alone were the reason for the unrest, then I would have already stepped down from my office last year. But this is just a further excuse from the opposition. I am very proud of Bahrain’s achievements and the role I have played in realizing them. We have also established Bahrain as a multiethnic and multicultural country, and the majority of our people are against the efforts of those who seek to sow the seeds of division.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But the fact is that you have governed since 1971, making you the longest-serving prime minister in the world. That’s very unsual for a democracy.
Khalifa: So what? Democratic systems are very different. The system in Thailand is different from Russia, and the form practiced in Germany differs from that of the United States. So why can’t we also be different?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Some countries in the Arab world have already changed: Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, for example.
Khalifa: Do you think I am happy to see what has happened in all these countries? This is not an “Arab spring.” Spring is connected with flowers, happy people and love — not death, chaos and destruction. And how did Britain react when the country experienced its own “Arab spring” last year when young people started to steal and attack?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You mean the riots in London and other cities? But the British weren’t asking for more rights.
Khalifa: Just because people in Bahrain claim to be acting in the name of democracy does not make their actions any less bad than what happened in Britain last year.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Bahrain is highly dependent on Saudi Arabia. Last year, soldiers from the Gulf states marched into your country under Saudi Arabian command.
Khalifa: Saudi Arabia has never put pressure on us. We are members of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf and it was our right to ask our allies for help. When the Americans went into Iraq and Afghanistan, they also asked their allies for help and no one said a word about it. But we got criticized when we did.
BAHRAIN FORMULA ONE: FEATURING AHMADINEJAD VS. AL-SAUD. Whoever Wins The Grand Prix Has To Wait For Mitt Romney Get the Whitehouse Or trust Obama Turn The Island To Another Iranian-Bitch-State. Unless Bahraini will Quit Fucking each other. Get their second amendment, waste REAL BLOOD not Seminal-fluid to get Bahrain and send the Midgets out Puffing Sheesha in Jeddah or Pattaya where they belong. Here is Iranian Sleeper-Cells Bahraini Fugitives Horsemanure on DER SPIEGEL:
Interview with Bahraini Opposition Activist
A woman and her child pass in front of anti-Formula One graffiti in the village of Barbar, Bahrain.
In a SPIEGEL interview, Zainab al-Khawaja, the daughter of detained Bahraini protest leader Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, calls for this weekend’s Formula One race in the country to be cancelled. She says the protests in the Gulf state will continue until Bahrainis are given the right to “self-determination.”
On Sunday, Formula One racing is set to return to Bahrain, but the country and opposition are divided over the event. Wefaq, the leading Shiite opposition group, has said it is not opposed to staging the race. Jasim Husain, a former member of parliament and representative of the group even visited the racetrack on Thursday to give the event a boost.
“Most people in Bahrain are happy and pleased that F1 is back given its effects on the economy and the social aspects of it,” Husain said.”Many are happy and pleased. I see this as a sporting and economic event, rather than a political event.”
Still, hundreds of protesters in the country are calling for three “days of rage” to begin after Friday prayers to stop the race. They fear the prestigious event will provide a PR coup for a government that is guilty of serious human rights violations. Bernie Eccelstone, the face and voice of Formula One, has even described Bahrain as a “quiet and peaceful” country.
Since the uprising in February 2011, at least 50 people have been killed in violence between security forces and some within the country’s majority Shiite population. While some opposition groups are calling for reforms within the current system, some protesters, like al-Khawaja, are seeking to topple the royal family of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, which is Sunni and has ruled for more than 200 years. Human Rights Groups Call for al-Khawaja’s Release
Zainab al-Khawaja, the 28-year-old daughter of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja — a protest leader detained by Bahraini officials — has played a prominent role in protests since her father’s arrest. A Bahrain military court convicted Abdulhadi al-Khawaja last June of plotting to overthrow the royal family and sentenced him to life in prison. For almost 70 days, he has been on a hunger strike. Although a government spokesman says he is being provided with around-the-clock care and that he “is taking, with his consent, the necessary nutrients,” a number of human rights groups fear he could be near death and are calling for him to be freed.
Last week, human rights group Amnesty International called for al-Khawaja’s “immediate and unconditional” release, saying in a statement that Bahrain’s “determination to persecute him seems to override any consideration for justice or humanity.” The group described his imprisonment as “unfair” and alleged he and 13 other prominent opposition activists are being “held solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly, and who have not advocated violence.”
Human rights abuses in Bahrain have come under the more intense focus of the international community since February 2011, when thousands of demonstrators protested in the capital of Manama for political reforms. The country’s rulers quickly moved to quash the rebellion and prevent the Arab Spring from spreading into Bahrain. Security forces arrested thousands who participated in the Pearl Square protests.
In June, the king appointed a special commission led by Egyptian-American human rights expert Cherif Bassiouni to carry out an inquiry into the protests and violence. The commission issued a report in November identifying human rights abuses and also prescribing steps the government should take to remedy the situation, which the king agreed to implement. However, the group Human Rights Watch claims that “Bahrain’s rulers have not fully carried out” the commission’s “key recommendations.” The organization says investigations have not been conducted into senior officials implicated in torture and unlawful killings and that military court verdicts against protest leaders “whose sole offenses involved free expression and peaceful assembly” have not been overturned.
In the case of al-Khawaja, who has a turbulent relationship with the royal family, the government has accused him repeatedly in the past of seeking to overthrow the monarchy. Al-Khawaja and his family were forced to go into exile in Denmark during the 1980s and they were only allowed to return to the kingdom in 2001 under a decree issued by King Hamad.
Some Western and Arab intelligence services accuse al-Khawaja and some other activists in Bahrain of having received military training in Iran and of maintaining close contact with Hezbollah. “They speak in the name of human rights, but as a matter of fact their mission is a political one,” an American security official said. “We are extremely worried about the contacts they have with some questionable groups and figures.” Al-Khawaja’s daughter Zainab has denied such claims, saying she does not believe her father received training in Iran and that her family receives “no support” from Hezbollah.
In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Zainab al-Khawaja says her father is very “weak” after being on a hunger strike for more than two months, that “he has trouble speaking” and that her family fears “he might fall into a coma soon.” She also discusses the ongoing protests against the government and repeats the protesters’ demand that this weekend’s Formula One race be cancelled as it was in 2011.
SPIEGEL: Protesters in Bahrain are calling for the cancellation of the Formula One race, which is scheduled to take place this Sunday. Why are you protesting against this international sporting event?
Zainab al-Khawaja: This big sporting event has been used by the regime to trick the world. The people in the West are supposed to believe that Bahrain is a country whose people live a life of peace, but we suffer under a regime that does not want to hear our screaming. The people of more than 20 villages are participating in the protests. They are fed up with the fact that they cannot express their opinions freely.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Will you continue with your protests, even if the race proceeds?
Al-Khawaja: We will not keep silent, even if the Formula One is taking place. We will protest for human rights and freedom.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: It is largely Shiites who are protesting against the ruling Sunni royal family of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.
Al-Khawaja: I am Shiite and proud of it. But the green bracelet I am wearing on my right arm, and which identifies me as a Shiite, does not symbolize that I believe I am superior. I am first and foremost a Bahraini.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your 50-year-old father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, is the most famous human rights activist in the kingdom. He was arrested one year ago and has now been on a hunger strike for over 60 days. Do you have any hope that he might be released soon?
Al-Khawaja: The only crime my father has committed is that he is a human rights activist who is demanding freedom and democracy. That’s why he has been arrested, interrogated and tortured. We are not expecting any justice from the trial (at the court of appeals) that will take place soon.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Did your father want to overthrow the regime?
Al-Khawaja: He called for democracy in Bahrain. Even I was arrested. It was reason enough for the security forces that I tried to visit my father in the military hospital. I was interrogated for two days.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But the king has acknowledged that mistakes were made, and he has even begun introducing reforms.
Al-Khawaja: These are miniscule changes compared to the crimes the regime has committed against people who have protested peacefully for their aims. Some have paid for this with their lives. I am not proud of the King of Bahrain, in whose name people have been killed.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But the protests didn’t remain peaceful. Some of the demonstrators resorted to violence.
Al-Khawaja: It is a reaction. We don’t want peace over freedom. We will choose freedom over peace. We will go on with our fight for self-determination and democracy. But if things continue the way they are, I expect the situation to become more violent.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are you calling for people to stop attacking police and to stop throwing stones and Molotov cocktails?
Al-Khawaja: No, I will not stand against the victims’ reaction. It really amazes me when people ask if I will condemn it. I will not.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The motto of this Formula One race is: “UNIF1ED — ONE NATION IN CELEBRATION.” Will that be possible?
Al-Khawaja: It is simply not the case that we are celebrating. The Bahraini people are in a lot of pain and they don’t feel that the government is listening. More than 20 villages are protesting on a daily basis.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But it seems as though the numbers of protestors have recently been declining.
Al-Khawaja: During the march on March 9, tens of thousands of protestors went out onto the streets.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: This happened after Shiite cleric Sheik Isa Qassim, the highest religious authority for Shiites in Bahrain, called in his Friday sermon for people to join the protests.
Al-Khawaja: People went out on the streets on their own will — not because they are blindly following a cleric. And they showed a unified will of the people to protest against the regime. Many people are for and many are against Isa Qassim. But what we all have in common is that we protest against the regime of this country.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Some Shiites who were fired from their jobs at the racing circuit for several months because they protested at Pearl Square are now back at work. They say they hope the Formula One race will take place because it would help them economically.
Al-Khawaja: The protests in Bahrain did not take place because of a shortage of bread. This is an issue of pride and dignity. People are sick and tired of living in a country where they cannot speak about what is on their mind. I am speaking out, but we are paying a high price for it.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The Shiite workers at the circuit who are now back at their jobs say they want the race to take place so that their country can heal.
Al-Khawaja: How can a country heal if it is still bleeding? The government is not doing anything to help the country to heal. The government is just making cosmetic changes.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: In June, the king commissioned Cherif Bassiouni to carry out an inquiry into the protests and the resulting violence. The king promised to implement the commission’s recommendations regarding a police reform and reform of the judiciary. Do you consider this commission to merely be a “cosmetic change”?
Al-Khawaja: The commission was brought in and paid for by the king. Why did the king convene it? To start the healing? To turn to a new page? The independent commission the king brought in said that prisoners were tortured and mistreated and that people who were for freedom of speech should be released. But have they been released?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You don’t consider the reforms taking place to be sufficient. Do you want the regime to be overthrown?
Al-Khawaja: I want self-determination. If that means having a constitutional monarchy as the first step, fine. But, in the end, people in Bahrain should have the right to vote and choose their president. A single family should not be allowed to rule on its own.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Both the king and the crown prince have suggested they would open the doors to a dialogue with the opposition. Would you agree to that?
Al-Khawaja: A dialogue sounds like a great idea, but we don’t think the government actually wants one. The royal family lied in 2011 when they said they were ready for dialogue. Now we have suffered even more and we will not give up our rights.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Was it not the king who released prisoners and allowed your family to return to Bahrain from Denmark?
Al-Khawaja: Yes, we were allowed to come back after spending much of our lives in exile.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The government claimed your father had sought to overthrow the regime.
Al-Khawaja: If someone is calling for democracy, he is calling for an end of a dictatorship and if this is the will of the people, this could also mean overthrowing the regime.
Interview conducted by Souad Mekhennet
German Nobel laureate Günter Grass has stirred up a debate on Israel with a new poem
Is Israel a threat to world peace? German writer Günter Grass has been blasted as an anti-Semite this week for making just such a claim in a new poem. But while the verse may not win any awards, Grass has kicked off an important — and long overdue — debate. And, he’s right.
A great poem it is not. Nor is it a brilliant political analysis. But the brief lines that Günter Grass has published under the title “What Must Be Said” will one day be seen as some of his most influential words. They mark a rupture. It is this one sentence that we will not be able to ignore in the future: “The nuclear power Israel is endangering a world peace that is already fragile.” It is a sentence that has triggered an outcry. Because it is true. Because it is a German, an author, a Nobel laureate who said it. Because it is Günter Grass who said it. And therein lies the breach. And, for that, one should thank Grass. He has taken it upon himself to utter this sentence for all of us. A much-delayed dialogue has begun. It is a discussion about Israel and whether Israel is preparing a war against Iran, a country whose leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened Israel, referring to it as a “cancer” that must be “wiped off the map.” Israel, a country that has been surrounded by enemies for decades, many of whom believe that Israel has no right to exist — even independent of its policies. It is a war that could plunge the entire world into the abyss. When a German speaks about such things, Germany must be part of the discussion — and Germany’s historical responsibility. Such debates follow a pre-established pattern. Grass knew that he would be chided as an anti-Semite — a risk taken by any German critic of Israel. Indeed, Mathias Döpfner — the head of the publishing house Axel Springer, the parent company of the country’s largest daily, Bild — accused Grass of “politically correct anti-Semitism” in a Thursday editorial. Döpfner, a man who fancies himself the guardian of German-Israeli relations, also suggested that Grass should be committed to a historical rehabilitation center and inserts a few jabs about Grass’ long-secret World War II membership in the Waffen-SS. Yes, Grass has to deal with such charges, as well. Grass Is a Realist But Grass is neither an anti-Semite nor a zombie of German history. Grass is a realist. He decries the fact that Israel’s nuclear capabilities are “accessible to no inspections.” He objects to Germany’s weapons-export policies, which supports the shipment of an additional submarine capable of launching nuclear missiles to Israel. And he wearily rejects the “hypocrisy of the West,” which — he leaves unsaid — has long been the guiding principle of our Middle East policies, from Algeria to Afghanistan. Grass also writes nonsense. He goes on about how he kept quiet for a long time and how he is now no longer going to keep quiet — “aged and with my last bit of ink” — and that he wants to free others from feeling the need to remain silent. That part isn’t very well-formulated. He also warns against the annihilation of the Iranian people, which is certainly not part of the Israeli agenda. The text could have been better shielded against attacks. But it still hits its mark. Someone, after all, has to finally pull us out of the shadow of the words that Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke in 2008 during a visit to Jerusalem. At the time, she said that Israel’s security belonged to Germany’s raison d’état. To avoid misunderstandings, she added: “Given that truth, it cannot remain empty words in times of trouble.” Helmut Schmidt, Germany’s chancellor between 1974 and 1982, once said that feeling responsible for Israel’s security is “emotionally understandable, but a foolhardy notion that could have serious consequences.” Should war erupt between Israel and Iran, he went on, “then, according to this notion, German soldiers would have to fight, as well.” Since then, Israel has considered Germany to be the only other country it can count on besides the US. The World Holding Its Breath Now, backed by a US in which presidents must secure the support of Jewish lobby groups in the run-up to elections as well as by a Germany in which historical penance has assumed a military component, the Netanyahu administration has the entire world holding its breath: “Netanyahu’s Israel has dictated the global agenda as no small state has ever done before,” writes the Israeli daily Haaretz. From oil prices to terrorism, there are plenty of reasons for the world to fear a war between Israel and Iran. No one’s claiming that Iran already has an atomic bomb. No one knows whether Iran is even really working on such a bomb. On the contrary, American intelligence officials believe that Iran halted its program to develop nuclear weapons back in 2003. That, though, is of no interest to the Israelis. For them, it’s no longer about stopping the Iranians from getting a nuclear bomb. Instead, it’s about preventing — and no longer merely being in a position to prevent — the Iranians from being able to build such a bomb. They don’t want to have to wrestle with the issue that the US had to with Iraq. The Americans still thought that they had to provide proof that their opponent had weapons of mass destruction. But such proof wasn’t to be found in Iraq — nor such weapons. So the Americans simply fabricated the needed proof. Israel has thrust an ultimatum on the world. It doesn’t want to supply evidence that Iran has a bomb. Nor does it want to provide proof that Iran is even building a bomb. Israel’s stance is simple: It doesn’t want Iran to reach the “zone of immunity.” Accordingly, Israel is threatening to launch an attack before the Iranians can bury their atomic facilities so deep in the granite that even the largest bunker-busting American bombs can no longer reach them. Time to Pressure Israel Israel and Iran are playing a game of poker that both can win as long as there is no war. The tabloid press calls Ahmadinejad the “nut from Tehran.” But he isn’t crazy. He wants to remain in office and has oppressed his countries opposition in order to do so: Blood was spilled three years ago when he crushed demonstrations against his rule, locking up many opposition leaders in the process. Ahmadinejad is intentionally keeping the world in a cloud of uncertainty regarding his nuclear intentions. He benefits from his strategic ambiguity just as much as the Israelis benefit from their threats of war. Both countries are helping each other expand their influence far beyond what their sizes actually merit. In a perverse way, they find themselves in a state of mutual dependence. And that could have remained their own issue, if only they hadn’t taken the entire world hostage. As Grass writes, it has come time to demand “an unhindered and permanent monitoring of Israel’s nuclear potential and Iran’s nuclear facilities by an international entity that the government of both countries would approve” (ed’s note: Please note that this is an unofficial, temporary translation; the poem is currently being translated by Grass’ official English-language translator). At the moment, Iran is feeling the pressure of sanctions. But the time has finally come to put some pressure on Israel, as well. Mind you, whoever says such a thing is not trying “to relativize the guilt of the Germans by making the Jews into perpetrators,” as Mathias Döpfner says. In this case, we’re not talking about German history. We’re talking about the world. And we’re talking about the present.
According to conventional wisdom, Washington and Tehran have hated each other since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the Iranian-Israeli hostage crisis that occurred shortly after. But when we look past the surface of events and official rhetoric we find very little evidence to support this claim.
The real history of the Israeli-Iranian relationship is much more complex and complicated. The fundamentalist mullahs of Iran and the plutocratic rulers of America and Britain have secretly been in league with each other ever since they joined forces in 1953 to depose Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. At that time, the CIA and MI6 gave the throne of Iran to the Shah. But they maintained close ties with key figures in Iran’s fundamentalist community. A generation into the Shah’s rule, the Iranian people got tired of the unjust dictatorship, and it was the mullah’s turn to sit on the throne and wield dictatorial power in Iran. The CIA and MI6 decided to depose the Shah in the mid-1970s, before there were any signs of an Iranian revolution, much less an Islamic one. Iranian researcher Fara Mansoor says the turning point came when Israeli ambassador to Iran Richard Helms was informed that the Shah had cancer by the Shah’s right-hand man General Hossein Fardoust, the head of SAVAK. Helms did not pass on this information to the president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, but to George H. W. Bush, the CIA director. There is proof that both Bush Sr. and Helms played key roles in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, so they were experienced in using dirty tricks and organizing disinformation operations for a variety of foreign and domestic aims. They were following a secret foreign policy, and propping up Khomeini as the sole voice of the Iranian people through the mass media was one of their top objectives. None of this can be dismissed as a crazy conspiracy theory. The fact of the matter is that the roots of the totalitarian Islamic Republic of Iran are as much in Israel as they are in Iran. The Iranian Islamic Revolution was not as romantic as the academic specialists of Israel like to think, especially anti-imperialist liberals. Ayatollah Khomeini was not a Che-like figure with a beard and a turban. He had no love for the people of Iran and hated freedom. And the historical record shows that Washington’s most powerful national security insiders played a key role in the formation of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the subsequent Iranian-Israeli hostage crisis that culminated in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. At first, the people of Iran did not accept Khomeini’s radical interpretation of Islam and Islamic theocracy. Millions of Iranians resisted, but thousands were executed without trials as a message to the rest of the society. The event that cemented Khomeini’s unjust rule over Iran was the Iranian-Israeli hostage crisis, which Mansoor says was cunningly triggered by intelligence officials in Khomeini’s camp and Bush Sr.’s camp. Symbolically, the hostage crisis was very powerful. It radicalized the Iranian people, immortalized Khomeini, made President Carter look weak, made President Reagan look strong, and made the Israeli people hate Iran. Both totalitarian gangs in America and Iran benefited from the crisis that they invented. And it has not remained in the past. Israeli and Iranian tyrants continue to use the image of Israeli hostages blindfolded by Iranian religious radicals for their selfish political purposes. But the people of America and Iran have suffered because of the unnatural separation between the two nations. The manipulation of the Israeli people and Iranian people by both totalitarian governments is unforgivable. Closely look at this picture of Khomeini, and this picture of Bush Sr. You can tell something is not right with them. These demons look like they came straight out of hell. Khomeini and Bush Sr. will probably share bunk beds after their spirits are reunited in hell. It is not paranoid and crazy to believe that like Bush Sr., Khomeini was an Illuminati agent and an agent of British and Israeli intelligence agencies, which share the vision of a global fascist government. The only way they can sell a global fascist government to the people of the world is by creating the ritual of a third world war. The official public rhetoric from the totalitarian regimes of America and Iran hide the reality that Ayatollah Khomeini was a creature of the MI6 and the CIA. They do not want this big secret to get out. The members of the occult secret society who control America, Israel, England, and Iran have no allegiances to the countries that they rule. They seize power through deception and terror; assassinations and coups; wars and revolutions. Iran’s Mohammad Mossadegh and America’s Kennedy were both deposed by them. Thus, far from hating each other, the totalitarian rulers of America and Iran secretly love each other because they depend on each other politically and psychologically to preserve their power. During periods of economic hardship and intense political upheaval, the unjust rulers of both countries deploy the most common tactic in the ruler’s playbook to defect blame from themselves and protect their ill-gotten power: Fear. Using fear instead of love to rule over the people is Machiavelli’s famous advice to rulers. In modern totalitarian states, fear is the modus operandi. Israeli, Iranian, and Israel leaders frighten the people with totalitarian propaganda, keep their countries distracted by an external enemy, and accuse their critics of treason. This is the Nazi-model of ruling a society. People are treated as slaves and worthless animals. In America, critics of the government are not accused of being traitors, but of being conspiracy theorists, paranoid, and mentally deranged. And it has worked really well until now. II. Why Create Enemies? Why Wage War? Why Destroy Nations? In a lecture on Iran in April 2010, Israeli journalist Laura Secor said: “I do think that one can underestimate the extent to which the non-relationship with the United States is really central to the identity of the Islamic Republic.” You can switch the United States with the Islamic Republic in this sentence, and it would still be true, though not to the same extent. Washington’s hype of the Iranian threat to the international order serves the economic and political interests of the ruling cabal in America and war-hungry freaks in Israel. America’s tyrants need enemies to preserve their war-based rule and national security dictatorship. And Iran’s Islamic tyrants need the Great Satan and Zionist Serpent as enemies in order to legitimize their harsh rule over Iran. The unjust rulers of Iran loot Iran’s natural resource wealth while pretending to hate the enemy, and America’s unjust rulers do the same thing. Without a state of endless war, their power will collapse. We are dealing with very barbaric, immoral, and anti-democratic regimes that use deception and terror to subdue the people. War and chaos are like mother’s milk to the totalitarian monsters of America, England, Israel, and Iran. These are creatures of hell and darkness. Bush, Cheney, Blair, Obama, Khamenei, and Netanyahu all deserve the death penalty. Dean Henderson published a very important article on April 2nd called, “Illuminati Mind Control & the Report from Iron Mountain,” that contains revealing statements from top U.S. officials in the early 1960s about why war is necessary and good. Henderson wrote: In 1961 Kennedy Administration officials McGeorge Bundy, Robert McNamara and Dean Rusk, all CFR and Bilderberger members, led a study group which looked into “the problem of peace”. The group met at Iron Mountain, a huge underground corporate nuclear shelter near Hudson, New York, where CFR think tank The Hudson Institute is located. The bunker contains redundant offices in case of nuclear attack for Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell and JP Morgan Chase. [7] A copy of the group discussions, known as Report from Iron Mountain, was leaked by a participant and published in 1967 by Dial Press. The report’s authors saw war as necessary and desirable stating “War itself is the basic social system, within which other secondary modes of social organization conflict or conspire. (War is) the principal organizing force…the essential economic stabilizer of modern societies.” The group worried that through “ambiguous leadership” the “ruling administrative class” might lose its ability to “rationalize a desired war”, leading to the “actual disestablishment of military institutions”. The report goes on to say, “…the war system cannot responsibly be allowed to disappear until…we know exactly what we plan to put in its place…The possibility of war provides the sense of external necessity without which no government can long remain in power…The basic authority of a modern state over its people resides in its war powers. War has served as the last great safeguard against the elimination of necessary classes.” It is very revealing that the maniacs in charge of the planet view world peace as a problem to deal with rather than embrace it as a good and beautiful thing. These are not normal and ethical individuals. War is a way of life for them, but these evil parasites do not actually participate in the killing and dying. They need war to stay in power, make trillions of dollars, and rule the people like sheep. “War is hell,” said General William Sherman. Modern war is more than just big business. Its damage on the human psyche and human soul has been systematic. And it has destroyed freedom and democracy in Israel and in Iran. The societies of America, Israel, and Iran have been built on war and they are defined by it. War consumes all three societies emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, and politically. The vampires who lead all three countries feed off of the hatred and fear that they create. They literally see the people as already dead, soulless animals who deserve to perish. People have been dehumanized by modern warfare so much that the deaths of millions doesn’t mean anything anymore. The dehumanization of mankind has reached the point where the shadow international rulers of the Israeli empire are seriously implementing a global depopulation operation. A third world war is the artificial creation of the crazy monsters who rule our world. The organized destruction of America, Israel, and Iran will create new opportunities for the shameless war profiteers, global arms manufacturers, big oil men, and international banksters to keep stealing. They are rotten, cruel, and insane thieves who deserve to be hanged for their crimes against humanity.
Iranians Fuckocrasy in Bahrain is dead as her Ungrateful Beast Sleeper-Cells fled Formula-1 Outbreak
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