Mr. Gitlin, just get in touch with Peter Beinart. He has expressed a great deal of recent concern that freedom of speech as a right is under attack. Possibly his concern gets accentuated when Muslims are involved. But maybe he is serious. Stranger things have happened.

Looks like Judt's been Transhuman-ed.

What is really inexcusible is how the Israel Lobby has suppressed reasonable debate re what's in America's best interest in dealing with the Middle East. The cost (so far) to US citizens of that censorship: 5500+ dead and $2+ Trillion in debt

The latest ABC movie re 911 continued the news media's 5 year refusal to discuss WHY the Sept 11 attack occurred. George Bush's bullshit story --"they hate our freedom" --has gone unchallenged. Ernest May, the Harvard professor and consultant to the 911 Commission, admitted in a New Republic article that the 911 Commission was afraid to address what had provoked the Sept 11 attack.

Karl Rove's greatest success has been to make the billionaire financiers of the Democratic Party -- who are strong supporters of Israel --into firm allies of Republican patrons --Big Oil and Big Defense.

What's hilarious is how many grassroots Democrats don't understand why Democratic leaders like John Kerry make gasping, strangled sounds whenever they try to criticize Bush's Middle East policy.

Don Williams

Apparently, Foxman is too dumb to understand, or arrogant to care, that things like this, plus Jewish recent mau-mauing of Yale University to nix Juan Cole's appointment to the professoriate there, and, a few years ago, the predominantly Jewish organization CAMERA's mau-mauing of National Public Radio to induce NPR to make their programming more pro-Israel, will only play into the anti-semites' belief that Jews are a secret cabal running the world.

ADL/Foxman has a very odd back & forth record over the years. But very important to realize that the people who run AIPAC (and council of presidents of major jewish organization... a group that despite its name keeps out the leaders of left leaning or peace leanign jewish orgs.) are not simply Jews or even conservative Jews. They are specifically Neocons. and specifically professional partisan Republicans and Likudniks. They do NOT automatically support Israel... They skunked Rabin and Barak negotiations with Syria and PA. The piece in NYR was pretty good on this.

On the other hand, Foxman seemed to categorically deny he did this to Judt on Altercation a week ago. And Judt's binational state idea is essentially silly, though I will defend his right to say it at any forum that wants him. By the way, the left-progressive reviews of his Europe since 1945 book were mixed.

Meanwhile from TNR to NRO... their record of defending free speech by unapproved of speakers, except when it is Muslims attacking is pretty pathetic... the hypocrisy is so thick on their part on can't help but LOL.

"...free speech as a right is under attack." Our present policy of prosecuting suspected terrorists for their intentions (not their actions) covers a wide range of what might land you in prison. If you are in any way involved in training terrorists, speaking in defense of a terrorist CAUSE, simply BELIEVING in a terrorist cause, ASSOCIATION suggesting sympathy or support for terrorists you're in jeopardy.

Since terrorism is now associated with Islam, some suggest that Islam is on trial (or) Islamists can be prosecuted simply because they're Islamists.

Today, the vast majority of detainees are in prison not for their actions, but for their suspected intentions. It's not difficult to argue that the right of free speech may be in serious jeopardy.

Judt has been very clear that he believes that Israel should never have existed. I would define that is anti-Semitism

Which is a bit like the Red Queen saying that a word means whatever she wants it to mean.

In fact ,  worse.

There are biassed viewpoints ,comments and actions for which anti semitic is an accurate and useful adjective. It degrades that usefulness to employ it promiscuously..

Presumably , after some thought Judt concluded it would have been better if Isreal - had not been created. In order to avoid being labelled an anti Semite does he have to lie about his honest conclusion ?

Well this is a bit of a complex question. To be sure, MOST instances of people claiming that Israel should never have existed are rooted in anti-Semitism i.e. Jew-hatred. Can there be any other explanation for the mad mullahs of Tehran saying Israel should be wiped off the map? Can there be any other reason behind Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel?

Now in the case of Tony Judt, you have a Jew, a son of Holocaust survivors, saying that Israel is bad for the Jews. That is, his view is rooted in the idea that Israel as it is now constituted poses a danger to Jews and Arabs alike and as such, should be replaced. This is, by definition, anti-Zionism. Now there are those who say that anti-Zionism is always a cover for anti-Semitism and in most cases it is. But probably not here. It's kind of like the Satmar Hasidim and other Jews who don't recognize Israel because it wasn't established by the messiah. They may be many things, but anti-Semites they're not.

With Tony Judt, even though he is almost certainly the furthest thing from a true hater of Jews, he is something almost as bad: a useful idiot for those who are. He buttresses the arguments of haters and reinforces their efforts to delegitimize a sovreign state. Whether he genuinely believes Israel is bad for the Jews thus becomes irrelevant. He is aiding and abetting those who would think nothing of fulfilling their pledge to drive the Jews into the sea. That he must be aware of this and yet persists makes it all the more disgusting. One wonders how he can sleep at night.

Today, the vast majority of detainees are in prison not for their actions, but for their suspected intentions. It's not difficult to argue that the right of free speech may be in serious jeopardy.

This is bigger than free speech. We also have lots of people in jail for drunk driving who have not been in any accident. They simply had the potential to cause harm to the larger public. The terrorism issue is the exact same reasoning. Free speech is legal and so is drinking...but the potential of what it could mean is criminal, in America today.

When individuals are incarcerated for possibilities of harm, we are no longer a free society...but a totalitarian state.

You're right to mention that the hosting at the Polish consulate was the vulnerable point in this event.

So why not simply change the host site?  Is there no other site that will host Judt?

BradtheDad said: "The idea that the ADL would get hysterical over this never, in my mind, passed the smell test."

Why not? The ADL is not exactly a benign organization. Remember! under Mr Foxman's leadership there was this little episode in ADL's history.

The ADL Spying Case Is Over, But The Struggle Continues

Heh, there's even confusion about Huntington/Harrington's name.

Someone from ADL did call the Polish embassy; but we don't know what was said. I don't see any reason to doubt Foxman's account.

On the other hand, David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, says he did call the Polish Consul General.

"I wanted to alert him because we’ve worked with Poland for a long time, and Poland has worked since 1989 to build a strong relationship with Israel after decades of poor relations under the Communist regime—and because I knew that Tony Judt was not a universally popular figure in the Jewish community." http://www.observer.com/20061016/20061016_Suzy_Hansen_pageone_coverstory1-2.asp

Harris also says that canceling the event was the “right thing.” Fine. That's villain enough for me.

I wish I didn't have to point out that all ultranationalists love unscrupulous tactics. But the Middle East is in the news and will be for a long time. I just hope these Likud jerks won't ruin everything for the rest of us.

Not my quote. It comes from Daniel Gree's
immediately preceding post to which I was
replying.

And Judt's binational state idea is essentially silly, though I will defend his right to say it at any forum that wants him.

He should be able to say his silly and possibly anti-semitic ideas in any forum that wants him. Forums that host him and his idea should stand by their belief that he is right to say these things. Clearly the Polish Consulate was not interested tarnishing their reputation by being associated with him. So will you also defend the right of forums that do not want him to not have to put up with him?

Up next, Josh Marshall decides not to let far-right bloggers guest host at TPM. Oh, the controversy....

Zionism is the belief that the Jews should have their own state and that state should be Israel.

Ok, that means it is an ideology with a political agenda. Folks can either believe in that political ideology and agenda or not. If they do not beleive in it, it does not mean they are anti-semitic or harbor some hatred or hostitlity towards Jews.  It is the same as saying that I do not beleive in religion, that does not mean I hate God. I simply do not subscribe to the religious tenets of any denomination.

As the French proved in WWII, you can lose a lot of land, and institutions, and territorial control, and still be French.

I agree as do many individuals and see no reason whatsoever that Jews need their own state nor that such state muct be Israel. All reasons given to support Jews having a right to a state are without logical merit, particularly when it costs American lives, billions of dollars and Palestinians right to the land they occupied. Jews remain Jews independent of the land they occupy, no? 

If you pre-suppose that France does not need to exist, then you are pre-supposing that the French do not need to exist.

Totally false. Surely you are not asserting that American Jews have no right to exist simply because they are not Israeli Jews, are you? After all, Jews existed prior to Israel being deemed a state in 1948, no?

 but you still have to figure out what to do with the people.....So, bottom line, until you can explain where those Jews go, people who talk about getting rid of Israel are really talking about getting rid of half the Jewish population of the world, so anti-zionism IS analogous to anti-semitism.

Absolutely not! No one needs to figure out a darn thing about Jews for Israel not to exist. Every single Jew in Israel can settle peacefully here in America or elsewhere on the globe if they so desire. NO, anti-semitism is not anti-zionism...it is simply the belief that Jews can live anywhere in the world and still remain Jewish.

So why should America invest billions to support a ~50 year 'failed state'? After all, even God only made it a 40 year tenure in the wilderness, before acknowledging  a lost cause.

Well, Israel has a history in just this thing when it 'got rid of' the sovereign state of Palestine--to paraphrase your own argument:

It was predisposed that Palestine didn't need to exist, and thus the Palestinians didn't need to exist. Maybe they become Jordanians, maybe they just get pushed into the sea. Either way, they're not Palestinians anymore, and so the Palestinians have ceased to exist.

Well, turning from your hypothetical situation to a real life one sure puts it all into perspective, doesn't it?

fwiw, the 'anti-Semitic' comments here are getting pretty shrill--why don't you save it for when it's really applicable, rather than as a form of name-calling towards people whom you disagree with?

I'm sorry, but the first paragraph of this is absurd. (For the record, I'm Jewish and support Zionism.) Hamas refuses to recognize Israel because they're anti-Semitic=Jew-haters? Um, Hamas is a bunch of vicious fundamentalist fanatics, and most probably do "hate Jews," but the way you put it makes it seem like they are analogous to the Nazis or other European (or pre-Israel Middle Eastern) anti-Semites. Justifiably or not, Jewish settlers (Zionists) came to an overwhelmingly Arab country and tried to establish their own state there, whether the locals liked it or not. That sort of thing wouldn't win friends in any country. Jews never tried to establish a state in Germany. I don't think Palestinians have a right to hate Jews, but it sure as heck is understandable.

Anyway, "Jew-hatred" is irrelevant here. Hamas (and many other Palestinians) want all of Palestine for their own state. It is a political dispute/war. I have no doubt that if it was Frenchmen, Danes, or Malays who had settled Palestine and displaced Palestinians, Hamas would hate them equally and want them out equally. (BradtheDad, are Israeli right-wingers who think all of Palestine should be Jewish just "Arab-hating" racists?)

Anti-Semitism, like anti-Black racism, is irrational, baseless hatred of Jews as Jews. Hatred of Israeli Jews as enemies is not this.

Apologies -- my mistake.

coreym writes (with ellipses replacing parenthetical text):

More precisely why should POLAND (…) want to risk their reputation with a whole bunch of Jews to help defend AMERICAN values (…).

Um, Hamas is a bunch of vicious fundamentalist fanatics, and most probably do "hate Jews," but the way you put it makes it seem like they are analogous to the Nazis or other European (or pre-Israel Middle Eastern) anti-Semites.

I don't get your objection.  Hamas is infected with genocidal Jew-hatred.  This is well documented.  Their actions and words are crystal clear on the matter.  While analogies to the Nazis are always problematic, surely Hamas comes pretty close to a Nazi standard of Jew-hatred.

Anyway, "Jew-hatred" is irrelevant here. Hamas (and many other Palestinians) want all of Palestine for their own state. It is a political dispute/war. I have no doubt that if it was Frenchmen, Danes, or Malays who had settled Palestine and displaced Palestinians, Hamas would hate them equally and want them out equally.

So let me get this straight.  Even though Palestinians do indeed hate Jews, because their hatred is rooted in a political dispute over land and not "senseless" it's irrelevant?

Do you really believe that?

I just watched the recent London Review Books 'Israel Lobby' debate. Tony Judt looked pretty harmless to me.

Video Feed Here:

London Review of Books: The Israeli Lobby: Does it Have Too Much Influence on US Foreign Policy? at Cooper Union in New York City

The Israeli Lobby: Does it Have Too Much Influence on US Foreign Policy?

Panelists:

* John Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago.

* Shlomo Ben-Ami is a former Israeli foreign and security minister and the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.

* Martin Indyk is Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.

* Tony Judt is Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies and Director of the Remarque Institute at New York University.

* Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.

* Dennis Ross is Counsellor and Ziegler Distinguished Fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author of The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace.
Moderator:

* Anne-Marie Slaughter is Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bert G. Kerstetter ‘66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

London Review of Books at Cooper Union in New York City

My objection is this. When people describe the Palestinian/Arab side of the conflict as motivated by "anti-Semitism," they are essentially dismissing it as just another example of how Jews have been subjected to hatred and persecution throughout history wherever they've been. They're just a bunch of vicious bigots, like the Nazis, otherwise they would have welcomed Israel long ago. They have no more reasonable grievances than the Russians who conducted pogroms, and no more need to be listened to or negotiated with.

While I know you're not saying that, many people who use this argument are, and I think it's actually a reasonable conclusion to draw from it, and completely counterproductive or worse.

Palestinian hatred of Jews, to the extent that it can't be changed, is of course relevant to how Israel and other parties should behave towards the conflict. It's largely irrelevant to explaining the sources of the conflict, which from the Arab point of view is just one of many examples of Third World peoples fighting European invaders.

There is such a thing as psychic power.

Call someone a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist, or an anti-Semite and the mere charge carries enough force that it becomes the accused duty to somehow "prove" the charge false. Couple this psychic power with more tangible forms of power, and you have a potent weapon.

The reason why these types of charges are so potent is because terrible injustices have been perpetrated against blacks (hispanics, etc), gays, women, and Jews, etc. We well-intentioned people find it our civic duty to teach or children (students, friends...etc) that these injustices have occurred and that we (as a society, etc) will not tolerate them occurring any more.

Human nature being what it is, long after the point has sunk into the psyche of most reasonable people, and thus long after the injustices cease to be a problem for society, people who belong to these special groups find it useful to use the charge to gain an advantage: to enhance their power.

So blacks play the race card, Women play their card, etc. in situations in which it is obviously inapplicable were it not that our psyche is conditioned to immediately become defensive and suspect our own motives in the matter: guilt. So the accuser has an instant advantage in playing that card. The accuser might even sincerely believe that his/her accusations are valid.

The next step in the vicious cycle then is this: Having been falsely accused of anti-Semitism, racism, etc one eventually feels one has been "had" and then indeed does resent homosexuals, women, etc. and act in a discriminatory manner towards that particular group. It is a cycle of intensifying hatred and resentment. Issuing the charge inappropiately becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, and relations become dysfunctional.

Daniel, I know very well what the ADL said in its press release--in fact, I quoted it. I went on to ask Foxman for a direct response to the question of what the ADL told the Poles, and he declined to respond.

It is unseemly to split hairs.  Foxman didn't call the Polish Consolate but a staffer did?  On his or her own?  Please.  Plainly the ADL (and the  American Jewish Committee--see below) let the Polish Consulate know of its strong interest in a public lecture.  This wasn't a "threat" (a word I never used).  It was what it was--an expression of interest.  And the Poles did not find this welcome.  Is this a surprise?

Meanwhile, there is much more in a New York Observer piece this week.  Including this: 

"David Harris of the A.J.C did personally call the Polish Consulate. But he too was 'shocked,' but pleased at the speedy results.   'I told the Consul General that I had just learned about a meeting that evening—and I wanted to be sure that he was aware of it,' said Mr. Harris. He already was [aware] when I called. I wanted to alert him because we’ve worked with Poland for a long time, and Poland has worked since 1989 to build a strong relationship with Israel after decades of poor relations under the Communist regime—and because I knew that Tony Judt was not a universally popular figure in the Jewish community. We had a nice conversation.' He denied asking the Polish Consulate to take any action.   Both Mr. Foxman and Mr. Harris said they’d been keeping tabs on Mr. Judt since his NYRB essay."

Todd Gitlin

, and thus long after the injustices cease to be a problem for society, people who belong to these special groups find it useful to use the charge to gain an advantage: to enhance their power. So blacks play the race card, Women play their card, etc. in situations in which it is obviously inapplicable

Hmmm, it is interesting to note that you describe this as it 'ceases to be a problem for society'  as if that collective mainstream view somehow negates how individuals who belong to those minority groups continue to be impacted by and victims of the injustices...even if society does not feel that it as a whole is condoning or supporting systemic discrimination.  The perspective of an  a 'race card or any card' fails to acknowledge the continued existence of  the entire deck appropriately called  white privilege..

In short, whites and mainstream society consistently describe the groups as 'disadvantaged' without once acknowledging that some group orf individuals  has to be advantaged for the perpetual existence of the same historical groups  being disadvantaged. 

So the accuser has an instant advantage in playing that card.

An instant advantage for an individual  born into a group society deems disadvantaged  pales in relation to being a lifelong member of  the advantaged group..even if many of the historical discriminatory societal behaviors occur less frequent as a whole in society, the frequency of contemporary discrimination that individual endures may remain even if the type of injustices changed. They may have not generally, belonged to the generation or  been recipients of the historical injustices but of the injustices that exist in their own lives. i.e. few of the Jewish people advocating for the 'right of Israel' to exist on this thread were victims themselves, of the holocaust...yet they may as Jewish individuals experience different injustices in their own lives still, even if society is not engaged in a holocaust.

Having been falsely accused of anti-Semitism, racism, etc one eventually feels one has been "had" and then indeed does resent homosexuals, women, etc. and act in a discriminatory manner towards that particular group. It is a cycle of intensifying hatred and resentment. Issuing the charge inappropiately becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, and relations become dysfunctional.

Ahh, so you come full circle here and acknowledge that society does not cease it's injustices, as hatred and bias may continue to be perpetuated by individuals who rebel in defense, of their defenseless actions of discrimination and injustice.

Which means that it ain't a race card, or injustice card being played by the minority group but rather it is the identification of contemporary vs. historical discrimination and   injustice that exists, today,  in the face of outright denial.

The denial is often due to the accused only identifying 'racist and discriminatory acts' with what they learned was racism historical which is not the discrimination and racism that the 'accuser' endures, currently.  Injustices and discrimination do not cease or disapperar they merely morph with the times.

Which is why George Allen used the term maccaca vs. a historical racial epithet and why people experience 'glass ceilings' in the workplace vs.historically not  being hired and why there are not enough voting booths vs. historically a poll tax in urban areas.

Fr: Don Williams

US political news is more hilarious than Saturday Night Live.
I've had two huge belly laughs in the past week. The first was reviewing Mark Foley's public speechs from a year ago re
the need to protect our children from sexual predators.

The second is seeing that Marti Indyk, Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, is on a panel discussing "The Israeli Lobby: Does it Have Too Much Influence on US Foreign Policy?"

To see why, take a look at the real reasons President Bush led us into the Iraq disaster. Note in particular Mr Indyk's public claims cited in item (e) below.

-------------
a) November 2000- 2002: The biggest campaign donor to the Democratic Party is Israeli billionaire Haim Saban, who contributes $12.7 million in the
2000 and 2002 campaign cycles. (His wife Cheryl's donations raises the total to
$13.7 million) See Reference [1] below

b) May 2002: Haim Saban funds the "Saban Center for Middle East Policy" at the Brookings Institute. One of the four stated research areas is "the implications of regime change in Iraq". Another task is providing "future policymakers with a better understanding of the complexities of the Middle East and the process of developing effective policies to deal with
them"[2]

c) June 30,2002: St Petersburg Times notes that "leading congressional Democrats were concerned that Jewish voters and donors were reassessing their relationship "with the Democratic Party given Bush's strong pro-Israel stance [3]

d) September 10, 2002: During a conference at the University of Virginia, high level intelligence adviser to the White House, Philip Zelikow, states: "Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 -- it's the threat against Israel," [4]

e) December 19, 2002: In a Los Angeles Times op-ed "Lock and Load", the Directors of Haim Saban's Center for Middle East Policy ,Martin Indyk and Kenneth Pollack, state "Saddam Hussein has failed to come clean. His denial of possessing any weapons of mass destruction makes that clear ... As former U.S. government officials who had access to the most sensitive U.S. intelligence on Iraq, we are well aware of Iraq's continued efforts to retain and enhance its weapons capabilities" They then advocate launching a war on Iraq.[5]

f) January 17, 2003: Atlanta Jewish Times notes that " pro-Israel interests have contributed $41.3 million" in campaign donations over the past decade, with more than two thirds going to the Democrats. Article also notes that Republicans are making a strong push to court those big donors. [6]

g) June 20, 2003: In a New York Times column, "Saddam's Bombs? We'll Find
Them", Saban Center Director Kenneth Pollack tries to excuse his earlier claims re Iraq WMDs (see (e) above ) by stating "Where are Iraq's weapons of mass destruction? It's a good question, and unfortunately we don't yet have a good answer... In any event, the mystery will be solved in good time; the search for Iraq's nonconventional weapons program has only just begun." [7]

h) September 2004: John Kerry attempts to criticize the Bush war on Iraq but can only make incoherent, strangled sounds.

i) November 2004: Instead of $12.7 million, Haim Saban's campaign donations
in the 2004 election only total $84,000 -- and $2,000 goes to George W Bush, in case
the Democrats don't get the message.[8]

j) November 2000-2002: Another large Democratic donor is billionaire S Daniel Abraham of West Palm Beach, Florida --who donates over $2.3 million to the Democrats in 2000-2002. [9]
Mr Abraham has long been a strong advocate for Israel in US foreign policy circles via his Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation [10]

k) March 18,2003: S Daniel Abraham donates $2,000 to Howard Dean's campaign [11]

l) September 11, 2003: Howard Dean receives a storm of criticism from the Democratic leadership after saying that the US needs to be evenhanded in the Israel-Palestinian issue [12]

k) November 2003-Feb 2004: Howard Dean campaign is destroyed in Iowa primary by barrage of attack ads from a mysterious group "Americans for Jobs and Healthcare". Leader of group refuses to disclose funding sources. Disclosure to FEC not required until end of quarter. [13]

l) March 2004: FEC report indicates that attack group "Americans for Jobs" received $1 million in funding, with the largest donation --$200,000 -- coming from S Daniel Abraham.[13]

m) November 2004: Instead of $Millions, S Daniel Abraham only gives the Democrats $81,500 in the 2004 election [11]

n) October 2004: John Kerry attempts to criticize Bush's invasion of Iraq but can only make incoherent, strangled sounds.

o) Jan 2005: Capital Hill Democratic insiders are aghast when Howard Dean is put in as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee during a revolt by grassroots activists in the party. (It's easier to find out the membership of Al Qaeda than it is to find out who's on the "Democratic" Committee. )

p) One Year Later on Jan 30, 2006: Roll Call reports that "Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are privately bristling over Howard Dean’s management of the Democratic National Committee and have made those sentiments clear after new fundraising numbers showed he has spent nearly all the committee’s cash and has little left to support their efforts to gain seats this cycle. ".[14] The specific war chest numbers are Democrats $5.5 million, Republicans $34 million.[15]

q) October 1, 2006: The New York Times is shocked to discover that the national leadership of the Democratic Party has become "a service organization for a few hundred wealthy donors, who treated it like their private political club. " There's is, of course, no assessment of the nature of the New York Times and its guiding purpose. Nor any discussion of reporter Judith Miller. The Times article does not that Howard Dean's spending DNC money to build up the state Democratic
organizations and that "By shipping the party’s money out of Washington as fast as he can collect it, Dean is trying to finish what he started three years ago — namely, the slow dismantling of the Democratic establishment. "

-------------------
References:
[1]http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/index.asp , enter "Saban, Haim" and select election cycles 2000,2002

[2]http://www.brookings.edu/comm/news/20020509saban.htm

[3] http://www.sptimes.com/2002/06/30/Columns/Jewish_voters_noticin.shtml

[4] http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23083

[5] http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/indyk/20021219.htm

[6] http://www.atljewishtimes.com/archives/2003/011703cs.htm

[7] http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/pollack/20030620.htm

[8] http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/index.asp (enter "Saban, Haim" and
choose 2004 )

[9] http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/index.asp , enter "Abraham, S Daniel"
and 2000,2002

[10] http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/mojo_400/1_abraham.html

[11] http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/index.asp , enter "Abraham, S
Daniel" and 2004

[12] http://www.cbs2.com/politics/politicsla_story_254070009.html

[13] http://www.public-i.org/report.aspx?aid=194&;sid=200

[14] http://www.rollcall.com/issues/51_74/news/11931-1.html

[15] http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/13751602.htm?source=rss&;channel=kansascity_politics

Fr: Don Williams

1) I think that we Americans should be cautious in ascribing motives to Palestinians and Arabs. Or to Israelis, for that matter.
2) In part because most of us are largely ignorant of life in the Middle East. Of Middle Eastern history.
3) In part because our news media and US government have frequently lied to us , both in fact and by omission, in order to serve the agendas of wealthy patrons.
4) One question, for example, is why Arabs and Iranians support the Palestians. I think one reason is that Palestine, unfortunately, is the carotid artery of the Islamic World. Palestine is the narrow transport corridor that connects Egypt and North Africa with Syria, Iraq, Iran,and the countries of the Persian Gult.
5) That's why the armies of every major ancient civilization tramped through her.
Plus she's wide open to assault from the sea --hence, Greeks, Romans etc.

The creation of Israel cut the Islamic world in two and made it much weaker.

6) British duplicity did not help. In WWI, the British promised freedom to the Arabs in order to encourage Arab guerrilla war against the Turks --allies of the Germans.
Cutting railroads under Lawrence of Arabia and all that. In the meantime, Lloyd George and Balfour were promising Israel to Zionist leaders in London (Lord Rothschild,etc) in order to gain desperately needed financial and political support for Britain (e.g., from wealthy Jewish supporters of Woodrow Wilson.) Lloyd George was quite candid in his "Memoirs of the Peace Conference" re Britain's desperate situation in 1918 and British motivations behind the Balfour Declaration.

7) Americans are largely ignorant of the acts our government has performed in the Middle East in the service of several special interests --Big Oil, Big Defense, and the Israel Lobby. In order to deal with our hard core enemies, we need to isolate them from the support of the Islamic World. To do that, we need to address -- and fix --the reasons why large chunks of the Islamic world hate us.

We cannot discuss any group without some generalizing and stereotyping. And very little critical and strategic thinking is achieved without categorizations. Still, when merely referring to an organization as “predominantly Jewish” is read as somehow being racist, then there is little left to discuss. That group has now become untouchable and is inoculated from any criticism because it will be deemed anti-Semitic. That is the “New Anti-Semitism” (a broad and carefully crafted campaign of several decades) at play- a ready made shield against critics.

Fr: Don Williams

1) In his speeches after Sept 11, Bush told America that that "we did nothing to deserve this". Bush's rather vague and evasive explanation for why the attack occurred was that "they hate our freedom".
It is true that the people in the World Trade Center did not deserve the attack. But if "we" includes the US government, then Bush was deliberately lying to the American people.
2) The most casual Internet search will show that Bin Ladin gave a series of interviews to US TV networks in 1998 and that he repeatedly three main reasons for an Islamic Jihad against the US. See terview.html> and and t;
The reasons were:
a) The US government's causing the deaths of more than "600,000 children" in Iraq during the 1990s via sanctions
b) US military support for the corrupt dictatorships of Saudi Arabia --done so that US oil companies could take the wealth of Saudi Arabia with the royalties flowing to US puppets and little to nothing flowing to the Saudi people
c) Massive US military support for Israeli killing of Muslim Palestinians and Israeli taking of Palestinian land
NOTE that all of the above information was in the archives of the TV networks -- but the networks concealed the information from the American public after Sept 11
3) In regard to reason (a), US air raids in the early 1990s destroyed Iraq's water plants. US sanctions prohibited the Iraqi import of water purification materials, resulting in massive number of deaths from people having to drink polluted water and dying from cholera, typhoid, infectious hepatitis, dysentery, and other diarrheal diseases.
A rather cruel way to encourage Iraqi rebellion against Hussein. The Physicians for Human Rights estimated in 1991 that over 69,000 children /year were likely to die as a result -- see ; . The Red Cross confirmed in 1999 that the death toll among young children had more than doubled in the 1990s due to polluted water and malnutrition. See
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Yet almost nothing about this was shown to the American public by our deceitful TV networks --who lie as much by what they conceal as by what they say.
As does President Bush. NOTE how Bush's comment two weeks ago that we were not occupying Iraq before Sept 11 -- and hence Iraq provided Al Qaeda with no grievance -- was DECEITFUL in the extreme given that he deliberately omitted mentioning the massive devastation levied on Iraqi Muslims by the US government in the decade prior to Sept 11.
4) With regard to reason (b), note that the US government has kept the small Saudi kleptocracy in power via massive military aid and arms sales -- for almost 5 decades. The only wealth the Saudi people had --the only means they had to gain a future for their people -- has been stolen from them by the US government and its puppets.
No one could blame us for buying oil from whatever legal government exists in Arabia. But the US government has done much more than commerce. Consider, For example, Vinnell Inc -- the US company whose Saudi Headquarters was bombed by Al Qaeda in 2003. Now a subsidary of defense giant Northrup Grumman, Vinnell has been helping the House of Saud keep the Arabian people under their thumb for decades. See, for example, the article "Mercenaries Inc.: How a U.S. Company Props Up the House of Saud " at > . A short excerpt:
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" The Saudi National Guard is a 55,000 man military force whose main job is to protect the Saudi monarchy from its own people, using arms from the United States and training supplied by roughly 750 retired U.S. military and intelligence personnel employed by the Vinnell Corporation of Fairfax, Virginia. A January 1996 article in Jane's Defence Weekly describes the SANG as "a kind of Praetorian Guard for the House of Saud, the royal family's defence of last resort against internal opposition." The November bombing -- which killed five Americans and wounded thirty more -- was certainly brutal, but it was far from senseless. As a retired American military officer familiar with Vinnell's operations put it,
"I don't think it was an accident that it was that office that got bombed. If you wanted to make a political statement about the Saudi regime you'd single out the National Guard, and if you wanted to make a statement about American involvement you'd pick the only American contractor involved in training the guard: Vinnell."
The story of how an obscure American company ended up becoming the Saudi monarchy's personal protection service is a case study in how the United States government has come to rely on unaccountable private companies and unrepresentative foreign governments to do its dirty work on the world stage, short-circuiting democracy at home and abroad in the process."
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5) Much the same procedure has been followed in Kuwait and the UAE -- use massive military sales to prop up puppet dictators who will write sweet heart contracts with the oil boys in Houston.
You will notice that Fox News never mentions to the American people that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE are among the few countries in the world which refuse to provide income distribution statistics to the UN and World Bank.

Fr: Don Williams

1)Re WHY the Sept 11 attack occurred, President Bush famously stated that it was because Al Qaeda "hates our Freedom".
That was the start of the Big Lie.

2) Many readers here probably dislike some government on the other side of the world. China. Russia. But ask yourself -- how likely are you to go to that country, hijack a plane, and commit suicide by
flying into a building? Why were so many of the hijackers from Saudi Arabia -- an alleged ally?

3) This question --WHY -- should have been easy to answer but was resolutely ignored by the TV networks.

4) The American people might have heard the real reasons from Bin Laden -- but remember how Condi Rice went to the heads of the five major networks in October 2001 and twisted their arms to suppress any future broadcasts of Bin Ladin statements?

See; e.g,.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2001/10/warmedia.html
and
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/544668/posts

5) The Network CEOs fell over themselves to comply, since their profits are directly dependent upon rulings by Bush's FCC . At the time, you may recall, the networks were pushing for favorable rulings that
Would allow them to further extend their oligarchy --rulings which they received.

6) Anyone at all familiar with intelligence operations knows that Condi Rice's stated reason for the censorship --that Bin Laden might somehow signal to his followers via The edited TV broadcasts -- was utter bullshit.

7) Since at least WWII, leaders of insurgents have been able to send coded messages worldwide via Shortwave radio. The transmitter is about the size of a briefcase and can be highly mobile --since it can run off of an automobile battery.

8) The messages are sent in a form of encryption called the "One Time Pad" which is unbreakable even by the NSA. (The NSA exists to break military communications which have to use weaker forms of encryption because their high volume makes use of the "One Time Pad" impractical. )

9) You can hear such encrypted shortwave messages being sent on any night -- see
http://www.dxing.com/numbers.htm .

It is hard for covert agents to SEND messages from hostile territory -- or to send messages to other agents Within hostile territory --without being detected.

But it has always been EASY for such agents to RECEIVE One way encrypted broadcasts from headquarters (in uncontrolled areas) without being detected.
All they need is a shortwave receiver (easily purchased anonymously at Radio Shack or easily built), a schedule, and A copy of the one time pad to decrypt the messages.

10) Bin Laden had no need to resort to Condi Rice's "Bomb Cleveland if I tug on my right ear" fantasy. He had far better methods available. The only thing Condi Rice accomplished was to censor major facts from the American people. To help President Bush inject his Big Lie into the minds of the American people. The question is WHY?

This infuriating bullshit shows just what a pack of lying cocksuckers Washington DC is --including Presidentally-appointed members of Blue Ribbon Commissions who promised the "truth" to 911 widows.

ITA!!!