SPY EYES

By Dr. Ismail Salami and Kourosh Ziabari

As the United States is caught up in a number of conflicts and military expeditions around the world, the economic situation of the North American nation is deteriorating on a daily basis, unfolding a devastative crisis with repercussions that go far beyond the tolerance of the U.S. citizens.

The hands of the American politicians are smeared with the blood of Iraqi and Afghan women and children and they are complicit in the sufferings of the Palestinian, Kenyan and Haitian people; still, they're trumpeting for new military adventures in the Middle East, especially the much-favored war with Iran which they have long been talking about. This clearly shows the top echelons of the US government are not prone to learn from their past mistakes but rather opt for plunging into the quagmire they've created for themselves.

The economic situation of the United States in these days brings to mind the bitter and unforgettable days of Great Depression which began in 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s and early 1940s. The global economic depression in the years preceding the World War II started from the U.S. with the stock prices suddenly falling on September 4, 1929 and followed by the Wall Street Crash of October 29, 1929 known as the Black Tuesday.

Now, the U.S. which is spending millions of dollars in the wars which it has waged in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya is entrapped in an exacerbating economic situation which is reminiscent of those days; a situation which rings the alarm bells for the White House officials who are increasingly losing popularity with the U.S. citizens. The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for August 28 shows that only 23% of the nation's voters strongly approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty percent strongly disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -17. This widespread unpopularity is indicative of the fact that Barack Obama has failed to realize his promise of "change" both in domestic and foreign policy and erroneously trod on the botched path of his hawkish predecessor George W. Bush.

The economic indicators of the United States relate a sad story: the whole country is rife with poverty, unemployment and social inequality. Economic organizations predict a black future for the Wall Street and the ordinary citizens are seriously feeling the pain of economic meltdown.

According to the World Hunger Education Service, there has been a dramatic increase in hunger in the United States in the three years, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

The 2008 statistics of this institute show that 14.6 percent of the U.S. households (approximately one in seven), were food insecure, the highest number ever recorded in the United States.

As reported by the U.S. National Center for Law and Economic Justice, one out of seven people in the U.S. are living in poverty. "In 2009, 43.6 million people – 14.3% of the population – were poor according to the government's definition of poverty," the report says.

Due to the prevalent injustice among the racial and religious minorities in the United States, Blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites to be poor, and to be in deep poverty. "Although blacks represent 13.3% of the general population, they represent 24.2% of the poor population. Hispanics, who make up 15.9% of the population, represent 28.3% of the poor population," the U.S. Consensus Bureau reported.

Child poverty is also sadly rampant in the United States. As some independent sources believe that 25% of the U.S. children are living below the poverty threshold, the U.S. National Center for Children in Poverty based in the Columbia University Mailman School puts this number at 21%, saying that 15 million children in the United States live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level. However, these are official and state-sanctioned figures.

The U.S. Census Bureau believes that one in five U.S. children under age 18 lived in poor families whose income is below the federal poverty level. The Census Bureau made this announcement in September 2009; however, the Brookings Institute researcher Julia B. Isaacs believes that the government is not telling the whole truth. The 2009 statistics of the U.S. Consensus Bureau "lag considerably behind current economic conditions," Isaacs writes. "Job losses and wage reductions occurring in 2009 were obviously not captured. In addition, many adverse events in 2008 were only partially captured."

In an article co-written by Nikolai Barrickman and Kate Randall for Global Research, the results of a study carried out by the U.S. Children's Defense Fund (CDF) on the state of children after the "Great Recession" of 2008 and 2009 have been cited, showing a significant and remarkable inequality among the different social classes in the United States, especially the children.

"The CDF report notes the tremendous growth of social inequality in America. Since the late 1970s, the incomes of the bottom 90 percent of the population have stagnated or declined, while the incomes of the top one percent in particular-the ultra-rich-have soared," the article mentioned.

"In 2008, the average income for the bottom 90 percent of US households was at its lowest level in more than a decade. In the face of this growth of poverty, however, income assistance programs have been slashed and are ill-equipped to deal with the serious rise in social need," the report added.

Despite all this sad account of rise in poverty and child poverty in particular, the US officials do not seem in the least worried. While the reports of the whopping rate of poverty are surfacing, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a joint interview, have blatantly said that large new cuts in defense spending would “terribly weaken” U.S. national security, arguing that the US cannot “afford to keep playing partisan chicken with its finances." The big question is are they really capable of human sympathy at all in view of the poverty enveloping their country?

Now, the U.S. is drowning in an economic quagmire. The Iraq War has thus far cost the U.S. the lives of more than 4,000 soldiers and $3 trillion, as the Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz has noted. Andrew S. Natsios, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development believes that reconstructing the dilapidated Iraq will cost the American taxpayers $1.7 billion. The National Priorities Project also established the website "Cost of War" which shows that the Afghanistan war has hitherto cost the American taxpayers $448 billion.

By following a warmongering policy in the world particularly in the Middle East region, the US government while creating havoc on a tragically global scale also seems to be taxing a collective punishment on its own people, namely that the wars which Washington officials have mounted so far and will mount in future, have cost the US public purse billions of dollars which could have been used instead for empowering the American people and ameliorating the deplorable economic situation in the country.

The world would surely be a better place if the US put an end to its adventurism and manslaughter in the region and instead buckled down to combating poverty in its own country before the creeping phenomenon erodes the very fabric of its society. Indeed, the old saying 'charity begins at home' well suits and applies to the US government.

By Sajjad Shaukat                                      

Although various sorts of violence-related terrorist acts continue in Pakistan and these have intensified in Karachi, yet sectarian violence which is part of the same game also needs our focus.

In this regard, on August 20 this year, more than 50 people, belonging to the Shia community were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a mosque in Jamrud. In another violent attack, on July 30, 12 persons were shot dead in Quetta when unidentified armed men opened fire at Suzuki van. During the months of June and July, in four separate incidents, around 40 Shia Muslims were gunned down in Quetta. However, after the August 20 incident, the enraged people went on a rampage and set tyres on fire to block the road. They also opened fire and one man was killed. In these terms, the originators of sectarian violence need particular analysis.

It is of particular attention that faced with an unending resistance in Iraq, the US had planned to spark a civil war between the Sunnis and Shias. In this context, a study of the Rand Corporation, titled ‘US Strategy in the Muslim World After 9/11’ was conducted on behalf of the then US Deputy Chief of Staff for Air Force.

The report of the Rand Corporation-a leading think tank, released on December 27, 2004 advocated that Sunni-Shia sectarian division should be exploited to promote the US objectives in the Muslim World. The study indicated that a majority of the world’s Muslims are Sunni, but a significant minority, about 15 percent of the global population is Shias.

The report of the Rand Corporation was first implemented in Iraq. In this context, American CIA also got the services of Israeli secret agency Mossad and Indian RAW in order to fuel sectarian violence in Iraq. In 2004, major terror-attacks were conducted against the Shias in Karbala and Baghdad, while US-led some countries accused Iran and Al-Qaeda for the incidents to divert the attention from the said secret agencies.

Arab leaders said that they feared the bombings were meant to sow discord between Iraqi Shias and Sunni Muslims. Likewise both the Sunni and Shia leaders of Iraq have found it difficult to believe that Al-Qeada were behind the bombings. In that respect, the prayer leader, Syed Ahmed Bukhari at the Jama Masjid of India stated, “America is fully involved in sectarian violence” in Iraq.

Nevertheless, afterwards, a chain of Shia-Sunni clashes started between Iraqi Shias and Sunnis, targeting each other’s mosques through bomb blasts, suicide attacks, and 

killings of their religious leaders. The general masses of both the sects, which could not grasp the reality, began to blame each other’s group for the subversive activities. 

After experiment in Iraq, more deadly pattern of sectarian violence and clashes was conducted in Pakistan.

In this connection, the year of 2011 witnessed a number of sectarian events. For instance, on January 25, a suicide bomber struck in the Urdu Bazaar area of Lahore, killing 10 people including a woman and three Policemen. On February 22, a prominent leader of the Shia community was shot dead by the unidentified attackers in the vicinity of Peshawar. On April 3, 51 persons were killed when two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the shrine of Sufi saint Ahmed Sultan in Dera Ghazi Khan. On July 16, the militants ambushed a bus carrying Sunni Muslims and massacred 10 passengers in Parachinar. On July 28, a prayer leader of Jamia Albadar mosque, Abdul Karim Mengal, was shot dead by unknown activists in Quetta.

In 2010, terror-related sectarian incidents continued. For example, on September 2, triple blasts killed more than 35 persons in Lahore when miscreants targeted the procession of Shias who were celebrating Hazrat Ali’s day of martyrdom. On the same day, seven people including a police constable were injured in Karachi when terrorists opened fire at the Youm-e-Ali rally. Next day, a deadly suicide attack in Quetta killed more than 55 people who participated in the rally of the Al-Quds Day. On May 28, armed assaults on two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore killed more than 70 people. On July 1, in Lahore, more than 45 persons were killed by the two suicide bombers at the Data Darbar.

Besides these subversive acts, similar pattern of attacks have kept on going in 2009. On December 4, suicide assaulters stormed a mosque in Rawalpindi, killing 40 people. On December 28, a blast in the middle of the Muharram procession killed more than 25 persons in Karachi as the Shias across the country were celebrating the key holy day of Ashoura. On June 12, a suicide bomber killed five people including anti-Taliban cleric Dr. Sarfraz Naeemi in Lahore.

Notably, in some cases, hand grenades were also used by the culprits and exchange of firing took place between the insurgents and security forces.

It is mentionable that some banned religious organisations have claimed responsibility for various sectarian attacks, but it is the game of RAW and CIA which arrange a message for media from an unidentified place in order to divert the attention of people towards these groups, and sometimes towards the Taliban. Otherwise, particularly RAW is well-known for carrying out sectarian terror attacks against minority Shias, Ahmadis, Sufis, Christians and Sikhs in Pakistan.

Especially, RAW has hired the services of the Indian Muslims who are on its payroll, and these agents have joined the ranks and files of the Taliban and other sectarian groups of Pakistan. Posing themselves as staunch believers, these agents target religious leaders and places of worship in Pakistan with a view to inciting the sentiments of the people of the opponent sect. The main aim behind is to continue sectarian disturbance in Pakistan.

In this respect, sinister role of Indian RAW could also be judged from some other events of sectarian violence. In 2008, in Khyber Agency, intermittent fighting between Lashkar-e-Islam and Ansar-ul-Islam had claimed as many as 1500 lives. Lashkar Islami is led by fanatic cleric Mangal Bagh who follows the puritanical Deobandi form of Sunni Islam and has close connections with the extremist Taliban of Afghanistan. Besides other areas of Pakistan, more than 2000 people died in sectarian riots in Kurram Agency, bordering Afghanistan. Its areas have been hit by fierce clashes, pitching Sunni Muslims against the minority Shias. A number of ceasefires was concluded between the warring sects with the help of government officials and the tribal Maliks, but the same proved fruitless owing to the support from Afghanistan where more than hundred training centers covertly established by RAW are supervising anti-Pakistan activities with the tactical help CIA and Mossad.

Although the whole Islamic world is target of Indo-Israeli plot, yet the same has intensified in case of Pakistan and Iran. It is due to the fact that Pakistan is a declared atomic country, while Iran is determined to continue its nuclear programme. In this regard, US-led some countries, especially India have been sabotaging Pak-Iranian ties covertly, while sectarian unrest is also part of their game. Notably, Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and a Sunni militant group Jundollah (God’s soldiers) which get arms from RAW and CIA are responsible for many sectarian assaults on Sunnis and Shias. In the past few years, their militants with the cooperation of foreign agents also kidnapped and killed Iranian nationals in Pakistan. In this respect, on October 18, 2009, a suicide attack had killed several officers in the Iranian Sistan-Baluchistan. On December 15, 2010, two suicide bombers blew themselves up near a mosque in Iran, killing 39 people. Jundullah claimed responsibility for these incidents. Regarding all these attacks, Tehran had directly accused CIA for funding of that type of terrorist attacks, while diverting the attention of Iran towards Islamabad through secret propaganda.

In this context, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei disclosed, “The bloody actions being committed in Iraq, Pakistan and Iran are aimed at creating a division between the Shias and Sunnis…those who carry out these terrorist actions are directly or indirectly foreign agents.”

No doubt, CIA, RAW and Mossad are the real originators of sectarian violence in Iraq and now in Pakistan as part of other subversive acts which keep on going.

By Wayne Madsen

Jakarta:

In light of WMR's previous report on Mossad playing a substantial role in the devastating bombing of downtown Oslo, we have obtained an exclusive photograph of a suspected Israeli intelligence operative laughing it up with an Indonesian police officer on October 13, 2002, the morning after the deadly bombings of the night club district of Kuta in Bali at 11:05 pm on October 12. At least 202 and maybe as many as 400 people died in the twin explosions. Most of the dead were Australians on holiday. The attack spurred Australian Prime Minister John Howard into joining the U.S.-British war in Afghanistan and, later, in Iraq.

The western man pictured, the only westerner seen in the immediate vicinity of Bali's "Ground Zero," is standing at the police lines and looking toward the bombed and burned out debris of the Paddy Pub and the Sari Club, located across the street. While the civilian Balinese and Indonesian Marines, Army, police, and Special Forces were traumatized by what happened the night before, the suspected Israeli was noticeably happy at the somber scene of destruction. He was so happy, a journalist immediately dispatched to the scene from Jakarta decided to snap the man's photograph. The man's joviality at a scene where there were human intestines and other body parts strewn across exposed re-bar stripped of concrete and hideously burned bodies made him the subject of immediate suspicion.

Laughing it up at a horrific bombing scene on Bali in 2002. Israelis have a sordid history of relishing in terrorist bombings from New York and Beirut to Bali and Oslo.

The reaction of the unknown celebrator of the Bali bombing is similar to the celebration of five known Mossad agents witnessed celebrating the first impact of an aircraft into the World Trade Center on September 11. 2001, from a location at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, immediately across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan.

The following is WMR's report dated August 12, 2008, on the Bali bombing and its aftermath, including FBI spying on U.S. journalists:

Recently, FBI director Robert Mueller called New York Times executive editor Bill Keller andWashington Post executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr. and apologized for the FBI improperly obtaining phone records on their Jakarta, Indonesia-based reporters in 2004 during a "national security investigation." FBI agents apparently by-passed judicial authorization in declaring that an emergency existed in their desire to discover with whom the reporters were communicating.

The reporters affected by the FBI surveillance were the Post's Ellen Nakashima and Natasha Tampubolon and the Times' Raymond Bonner and Jane Perlez.

WMR has learned from another Jakarta-based journalist that the FBI was attempting to discover what information the journalists may have obtained on a false flag operation involving the deadly 2002 bombings in Bali that was blamed by the United States on Jemmah Islamiya, the Southeast Asian affiliate of "Al Qaeda."

On March 27, 2007, WMR reported on the subject of the FBI's interest in Jakarta-based correspondents: "Our Indonesian and American sources report that there was a significant U.S. and Israeli military-intelligence connection to the October 12, 2002 bombings of the Sari Club in Bali, Indonesia. A DeHavilland Dash-7 aircraft registered in Queensland, Australia, landed at Denpasar Airport in Bali only hours before a massive explosion ripped through the Sari Club, killing over 200 people, many of them vaporized.

The FBI appears to have been interested in the identities of the sources for a number of Jakarta-based journalists investigating the Bali bombings. However, the bureau only required authorization for surveillance of journalists defined as "U.S. persons" under intelligence collection statutes.

U.S. ambassador Boyce exerted tremendous pressure on Syafie Ma'arif, the head of Indonesia's second largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, to ensure accused Bali and Jakarta Marriott Hotel bombing mastermind, the elderly Abu Bakar Bashir remained in prison. In 2003, Bashir was cleared on leading Jemmah Islamiyah but was not released from prison until 2004. Boyce was accused of manufacturing evidence against Bashir and wanting to keep him in prison to prevent the cleric from providing evidence linking U.S. intelligence to the bombings in Indonesia. The Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, many of them Australian, were portrayed as Australia's "9/11" in a propaganda ploy to convince Australia to commit troops to the Iraq war.

Even before the Bali bombings, the Bush administration attempted to get the government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri to secretly arrest Bashir and hand him over to the United States for extraordinary rendition. Megawati refused the request made in a meeting between Megawati and Boyce, National Security Council official Karen Drook, State Department interpreter Fred Burks, and an unidentified CIA agent. The CIA agent warned Megawati that there "would be a problem" if Bashir was not handed over to the United States. A month later, terrorist bombs ripped through the Bali tourist spots.

—-

UPDATE: WMR has also learned that the Australian government placed pressure on the Indonesian government to quickly remove the debris from the Bali bombing to barges brought in by Australia to Kuta port. The debris was then dumped in the ocean. Similarly, debris from the World Trade Center in New York was quickly transferred to Staten Island and eventually to India and China for smelting. In both the New York and Bali incidents, important forensics sites were compromised before a full investigation could be carried out. The decision to remove crime scene evidence came on orders from above.

By Humayun Gauhar

“Be careful. Be very careful,” friends are warning. “It took much less for NATO to walk into Libya than what’s happening in Karachi. First, their bombs opened the door for the rebels. Now, continued bombing will make it safe for them to enter.” True, but Pakistan is not Libya. It’s much bigger, much more complex.

Gaddafi made some grave mistakes. Starting out as a revolutionary to overthrow western hegemony, monsieur became a horrible tyrant. He killed his own people; he killed innocent foreigners – the Lockerbie bombing and the cold-blooded murder of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher come to mind. The mushrooming of rebel groups became a natural consequence. It also provided the hegemon ‘justification’ to ‘help’ the rebels. By making up with the West he let the hegemon in through the door. While he won the release of odious Lockerbie bomber in return for an oil concession to a British oil exploration company, thereafter the most concessions he gave were to China and Russia. Big mistake. The hegemon was riled. Today Gaddafi is all but done, running for his life, hiding in warrens and rat holes.

We too have exploited our people endlessly and unleashed tyranny on them periodically. But unlike Libya, we let the hegemon in through our door from inception – in fact, we never let him out.   

Libya’s oil, exploited and unexploited, is now virtually in American hands. Add Iraq and they’ve already got a huge reserve. Add Afghanistan and they also have gas pipeline routes. Add Afghanistan’s unexploited ‘rare earth minerals’ that China recently stopped exporting and they have great power. Next could be Saudi Arabia and Iran. The small fry would follow. Wars and control over global energy reserves are a sure way to kick start a bankrupt economy. America came out of the ‘Great Depression’ not because of Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ but because of the Second World War. But, “The times. They have a changed”. Attacking Iran is attacking an ideology. It could bring ‘Economogeddon’.  

Why Pakistan? It has little oil and hardly any gas left. Five reasons: to establish an Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline; prevent an Iran-Pakistan-China gas pipeline; control Karachi’s ports and foil China in Gwadar; control Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal; reduce China’s influence. Won’t work. It would lead to global anarchy. America knows it.

If a ruthlessly dispassionate observer were to step back and look at Pakistan in its entirety – the wood from the trees, as it were – he would say, “It’s over.”

“Why?” one would ask.

“Because Pakistan suffers an acute common sense deficit. Wisdom lies buried deep.”

Sure outsiders will interfere if you stupidly create the conditions for interference. Since the return of ‘democracy’ political gangs have killed more than 6,000 people, more than 2,000 this year alone, excluding security personnel. People are so desperate that they want to somehow – anyhow – get the hell out of the hell that is Karachi.

It would be a mess. If India plays any sort of role – and it would be out of character for it not to – like ‘recognizing’ the ‘rebels’ as the ‘legitimate’ government, and China enters the fray, which inevitably it must with so much strategic investment at stake, it would be Armageddon. Sure there will be huge orders for America’s military-industrial complex, but there may be no military-industrial complex left to meet those orders. The hope is that the millennia old wisdom of these three great civilizations emerges and defeats the nefarious designs of a desperate hegemon without history and civilization. America knows the consequences too.  Perhaps the only way to save Karachi might be to either make it a federal territory or to take the capital back there, however stupid and difficult it might seem – often only irrational solutions work in irrational situations.

It’s not just Karachi. Secular and religious maniacs in different garb chasing different agendas are on the rampage throughout Pakistan. Sure India is helping many of them. Considering we are the enemy, why wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t you?

America has been setting us up for long. We are accused of all sorts of things, from being two-faced to hiding Osama Bin Laden to helping the Taliban. After the Abbotabad caper tension between our army and the US ratcheted up so much that today they are hardly on talking terms. We threw out their ‘trainers’ and overt and covert intelligence operatives and placed restrictions on the movement of their diplomats. America not only stopped our funding but also reimbursement of our expenses. The temperature remains high.

If the Pakistan volcano erupts, the destruction would be great. The world map would change. Cartographers would become very busy. It would completely alter the Muslim world and South Asia, making new paradigms that the world might find difficult to cope with. America knows that. How to prevent it?

Find another way. Find horses for courses. What new breed of horse does America find for the Pakistani course? The hushed chatter has it that America has a new doctrine: “If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em”. The task is to prevent a gaggle of crazed religious fanatics with different interpretations and agendas parceling the country out between them. If you can’t defeat them militarily, defeat them ideologically. Pull the rug out from under their feet. Hijacking their ideology by forging a modern and progressive ‘American Islamic Revolution’ with our military leading the way – a mixed breed by mating the new American Islamic mare and the old Pakistani military horse. Get the “guardians of Pakistan’s geographical and ideological frontiers” to play their hand, the Sabz Hilali Parcham – ‘Green Flag, Islamic Crescent’. Our generals at wits end may agree with alacrity. Islam is the only platform they could now possibly ride in on after the erosion of their credibility. If the majority of Pakistanis really are as moderate as we think, they should lap it up. If it works, it could be replicated elsewhere. Muslims scholars having failed, let the Islamic renaissance come from America. That this is precisely where the problem will lie: while Islamic is acceptable to our people, America is not. They love Islam; they hate America. A new Islamic doctrine forged by America doesn’t stand a chance. Don’t fool around with an ideology if you don’t quite understand it. End up aping western constructs in Islamic garb and it won’t work. Religion is ideology by another name. Ideology is secular religion. Don’t put you hand into a red-hot cauldron.

That it could be tried is not outside the realm of possibility. Nothing in this crazy situation is. Stupidity is also a democratic right. They could try and turn the joke that Pakistan functions on three, ‘As’ – Allah, America and the Army – into reality.

An Analysis

By Lawrence Davidson

One might ask if it isn’t a stretch to assert that protesting Israeli and Zionist behavior is the same as anti-Semitism? Common sense certainly tells us this is so. Unfortunately, we are not dealing with situations that are ruled by common sense. What we are facing here is the issue of ideologues bred to a specific perceptual paradigm and their insistence that others conform to it.

Here is an example: Take an American kid from a self-conscious Jewish home. This kid does not represent all American Jewish youth, but does typify say 20% of them. He or she is taught about the religion and also taught about recent history and the near annihilation of the Jews of Europe. He or she is sent to Hebrew school, and maybe a yeshiva school as well. Most of our hypothetical student’s friends will be Jewish and of similar background. Between home, friends and school the student might well find him or herself in something of a closed universe. Throughout this educational process Judaism and its fate in the modern world is connected with Israel and its survival. The Arabs, and particularly the Palestinians, are transformed into latter day Nazis. In addition, Israel’s state ideology of Zionism becomes assimilated into the credos of the religion. Soon our hypothetical student cannot tell the difference between the two. Then, having come of age, our student goes off to college or university. Now he or she is no longer in a closed world. The result can be culture shock and an uncomfortable feeling that the student is on a campus where vocal and assertive debate about Israel and its behavior sounds like an attack on the Jewish religion. Our student complains to the ZOA, Hillel, AIPAC, or some similar organization and we are off down a road toward censorship and/or litigation. Lawsuits are lodged (particularly if the ZOA is involved), donors swear that they will no longer support the institution, legislators bang on desks at the state capital, and boards of directors want to know what is going on and what the institution’s president is going to do about it?

There have been a number of efforts to try to use sweet reason to work out some of these problems before they get too explosive. For instance, in 2006 there was concern over the efforts of various pro-Palestinian campus groups to promote an academic boycott of Israel. Is this being anti-Semitic? Should campuses allow this to be advocated? After all those who espouse academic boycott have a good deal of evidence of criminal activities on the part of the Israeli Universities. At that time the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) sought to clarify the issues by arranging a roundtable discussion on academic boycott by those who stood pro and con. This sounded like a good idea. But no, the Zionist side did not like the list of discussants on the pro side and tried to censor the list. The AAUP resisted that move, so the Zionist side pressured the donors subsidizing the proposed roundtable to pull their support. The whole thing collapsed. It seemed the Zionists were not going to discuss the topic except on their own terms.

Just recently there has been similar attempt at sweet reason. A heated debate is now taking place over whether Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which bars federal funds from institutions that discriminate) can be applied to schools that allow criticism of Israel which the Zionists claim is anti-Semitic. If so, those same Zionists, whose influence is strong in Congress, can use Title VI as a club to threaten colleges and universities with the loss of financial support unless they shut down the criticism. This, of course, equates to censorship and an attack on free speech.

Once more the AAUP, which opposes the use of Title VI in such situations, approached the American Zionists in an effort to find a compromise position. Professor Cary Nelson, head of the AAUP, managed to enter into negotiations with Kenneth Stern, the "anti-Semitism expert" of the American Jewish Committee (AJC). The two of them worked out a common position which, after consultation with others in each organization, was signed and released to the public. What did this document say? For our needs, here are its most important points:

1. Title VI is not an appropriate instrument to use when trying to "protect" Jewish students from "anti-Israel events, statements and speakers." To use Title VI this way amounts to censorship.

2. Question: How do we know what is going on at a college or university campus is anti-Semitism? Answer: "Six years ago the European monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) created a working definition of anti-Semitism….while clearly stating that criticism of Israel in the main is not anti-Semitic, [it] gives some examples of when anti-Semitism may come into play, such as holding Jews collectively responsible for the acts of the Israeli state, comparing Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, or denying to Jews the right of self-determination (such as by claiming that Zionism is racism). In recent years the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights have embraced this definition too. It is entirely proper for university administrators, scholars and students to reference the working definition in identifying definite or possible instances of anti-Semitism on campus."
3. Conclusion: Censorship should be avoided, Title VI should be avoided, but the "working definition" should be used to make judgments as to how best to "wrestle with ideas" while at the same time "combating bigotry."

This letter was signed by both Cary Nelson as President of the AAUP and Kenneth Stern as the Director of the anti-Semitism and extremism sub-division of the AJC. Released in early August 2011, it took only a few days before it was repudiated by the AJC. On 9 August David Harris, President of the American Jewish Committee, "apologized" for the joint declaration, said it was "ill advised" and blamed a breakdown in the AJC’s "system of checks and balances" for the slip up. Kenneth Stern is now on an unscheduled sabbatical and cannot be reached for comment.

This is, of course, a replay of the 2006 situation and just goes to show that, it is the hard right ideologues who are in charge on the Zionist side. These people have a worldview that allows for no compromise. Censorship is exactly what they want and Title VI is as good a weapon to wield as any. What could Kenneth Stern possibly have been thinking? There is no room for sweet reason here.

This is not the end of the story. There is something wrong with the fact that the AAUP was so quick to endorse the EUMC working definition of anti-Semitism (a definition, by the way, that Kenneth Stern had a hand in writing). Consider these two statements from the above AAUP-AJC declaration each of which, according to the "working definition," can be seen as anti-Semitic: 1) "holding Jews collectively responsible for the acts of the Israeli state" and 2) "denying to Jews the right of self-determination (such as by claiming that Zionism is racism)." As we are about to see the first statement has hidden facets to it and the second defies historical reality.

Statement 1:

It is absolutely the case that the Jews should not be held collectively responsible for the actions of Israel. But it should be pointed out that it is just such collective responsibility that Zionists insist upon. Zionist ideology demands that Israel be recognized as representing world Jewry. Zionists expect that, in return, all Jews will identify with and actively support Israel–feel one with the "Jewish state." They classify those Jews who do not recognize their collective responsibility to Israel as somehow deficient or perhaps "self-hating" Jews. So let us get this straight, if holding Jews collectively responsible for the acts of Israel is anti-Semitic, what does that make the Zionists?

Statement 2:

a. That Jews have some sort of natural right to political self-determination is highly questionable. How about Protestants, Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, ad infinitum? Just how far do we want to push this claim of political self-determination for religious faiths? Oh, but the Zionists insist that Jews are not just adherents to a particular faith–they are a "people." Well, for sure that is an opinion. It just doesn’t happen to be the opinion of millions of other Jews who see Judaism as a religion pure and simple. Of course, if the latter are vocal about this they run the risk of being labeled "self-hating."

b. And who, except of course the Zionists, says that Zionism is a desirable vehicle for the expression of this alleged right of self-determination? Let us face it. Israel and its Zionist ideology were born of the will of a small minority of Jews, almost exclusively from Central and Eastern Europe, most of whom were secularists, and almost all of whom carried within their heads the poisoned perceptions of European imperialist bigotry – an outlook which still characterizes the state they set up. That is why, in practice, Zionism has resulted in a prima facie racist environment in Israel. And now we are told that, according to the "working definition," pointing out the link between Zionism and racism is an act of anti-Semitism!

Given this close reading of parts of the "working definition," the AAUP really ought to rethink its apparent support of the document. It is a position that can only give impetus to the very censorship the AAUP dreads.

One has come to expect twisted logic from the Zionists. Actually, one can expect this sort of thinking from any band of ideologues. Their blinkered vision, incapable of seeing around the corners of their prejudices, guarantees that most of what comes out of their mouths and their pens is sophistry.

However, what is one to do when folks you count on as rational and careful thinkers, like the leadership of the AAUP, get caught short this way? What is one to do when flawed reasoning and spurious assumptions start to be translated into criteria for government administrative decisions? What can you do when a fifth of the Congress decides to take a break and visit one of the most racist places on the planet and you risk being labeled an anti-Semite for decrying this fact? Well, you have a good laugh, have a good cry, and then go post your assessment of the situation on your website. Then you get a bit drunk. Finally, you repeat ten times "I will never to stay silent."