to read click below:
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Mahatma Gandhi Rejected Zionism
Mahatma Gandhi Rejected Zionism
by Professor A. K. Ramakrishnan
Gandhi's major statement on the Palestine and the Jewish question came forth in his widely circulated editorial in the Harijan of 11 November 1938, a time when intense struggle between the Palestinian Arabs and the immigrant Jews had been on the anvil in Palestine. His views came in the context of severe pressure on him, especially from the Zionist quarters, to issue a statement on the problem. Therefore, he started his piece by saying that his sympathies are all with the Jews, who as a people were subjected to inhuman treatment and persecution for a long time.
"But", Gandhi asserted, "My sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and in the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after their return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?"
He thus questioned the very foundational logic of political Zionism. Gandhi rejected the idea of a Jewish State in the Promised Land by pointing out that the "Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract." The Zionists, after embarking upon a policy of colonization of Palestine and after getting British recognition through the Balfour Declaration of 1917 for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews," tried to elicit maximum international support. The Jewish leaders were keen to get an approval for Zionism from Gandhi as his international fame as the leader of a non-violent national struggle against imperialism would provide great impetus for the Jewish cause. But his position was one of total disapproval of the Zionist project both for political and religious reasons. He was against the attempts of the British mandatory Government in Palestine toeing the Zionist line of imposing itself on the Palestinians in the name of establishing a Jewish national home. Gandhi's Harijan editorial is an emphatic assertion of the rights of the Arabs in Palestine. The following oft-quoted lines exemplify his position: "Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home."
Gandhi's response to Zionism and the Palestine question contains different layers of meaning, ranging from an ethical position to political realism. What is interesting is that Gandhi, who firmly believed in the inseparability of religion and politics, had been consistently and vehemently rejecting the cultural and religious nationalism of the Zionists.
What follows then is that he was not for religion functioning as a political ideology; rather, he wanted religion to provide an ethical dimension to nation-State politics. Such a difference was vital as far as Gandhi was concerned. A uni-religious justification for claiming a nation-State, as in the case of Zionism, did not appeal to him in any substantial sense.
The history of Palestine in the first half of this century has been characterized by the contention between two kinds of nationalism: Zionism and Palestinian Arab nationalism-the former striving for creating a Jewish nation in Palestine by colonizing its land through massive Jewish immigration and the latter struggling for freedom of the inhabitants of the land of Palestine from colonial and imperialist control.
Gandhi, in his role as leader of the national struggle and the Indian National Congress (the organization embodying that struggle), had been actively engaged during the 1930s and 1940s in moulding the perception of the people of India to the nationalist and anti-imperialist struggles in the Arab world. The 1937 Calcutta meeting of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) "emphatically protested against the reign of terror as well as the partition proposals relating to Palestine" and expressed the solidarity of the Indian people with the Arab peoples' struggle for national freedom. The Delhi AICC of September 1938 said in its resolution that Britain should leave the Jews and the Arabs to amicably settle the issues between the two parties, and it urged the Jews "not to take shelter behind British Imperialism." Gandhi wanted the Jews in Palestine to seek the goodwill of the Arabs by discarding "the help of the British bayonet."
Gandhi and the Congress thus openly supported Palestinian Arab nationalism, and Gandhi was more emphatic in the rejection of Zionist nationalism. The major political driving force in such a position was the common legacy of anti-imperialist struggle of the Indians and the Palestinians. Gandhi's views on the Zionist doctrine and his firm commitment to the Palestinian cause starting from the 1930s obviously influenced the design of independent India's position on the Palestine issue.
Gandhi's prescription for the Jews in Germany and the Arabs in Palestine was non-violent resistance. With regard to the Jewish problem in Germany, Gandhi noted, "I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in non-violent action, the winter of their despair can, in the twinkling of an eye, be turned into the summer of hope." His views on Zionism and his prescription of non-violent action and self-sacrifice to the Jews in Germany generated reactions ranging from anger to despair. Famous Jewish pacifists, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes and Hayim Greenberg, who otherwise admired Gandhi, felt "highly offended by Gandhi's anti-Zionism" and criticized him for his lack of understanding of the spirit of Zionism. Martin Buber, in a long reply to Gandhi's Harijan editorial, remarked, "You are only concerned, Mahatma, with the "right of possession" on the one side; you do not consider the right to a piece of free land on the other side - for those who are hungering for it."
As mentioned earlier, Gandhi refused to view the Zionist "hunger" for land in Palestine as a right. Gandhi wrote on 7 January 1939 the following in response to an editorial in the Statesman, "I hold that non-violence is not merely a personal virtue. It is also a social virtue to be cultivated like the other virtues. Surely society is largely regulated by the expression of non-violence in its mutual dealing. What I ask for is an extension of it on a larger, national and international scale."
Also, it is significant to note that, as far as Gandhi was concerned, non-violent action was not pacifism or a defensive activity but a way of waging war. This war without violence also requires discipline, training and the assessment of the strength and weakness of the enemy.
According to Paul Power, four factors influenced Gandhi's position on Zionism:
- "First, he was sensitive about the ideas of Muslim Indians who were anti-Zionists because of their sympathy for Middle Eastern Arabs opposed to the Jewish National Home; second, he objected to any Zionist methods inconsistent with his way of non-violence; third, he found Zionism contrary to his pluralistic nationalism, which excludes the establishment of any State based solely or mainly on one religion; and fourth, he apparently believed it imprudent to complicate his relations with the British, who held the mandate in Palestine."
Gandhi withstood almost all Zionist attempts at extracting a pro-Zionist stance from him. G.H. Jansen wrote about the failure of Zionist lobbying with Gandhi:
- "His opposition [to Zionism] remained consistent over a period of nearly 20 years and remained firm despite skilful and varied applications to him of that combination of pressure and persuasion known as lobbying, of which the Zionists are past masters."
Apart from responses to Gandhi's anti-Zionism from Jewish pacifists such as Buber, Magnes and Greenberg, Jansen points out at least four separate instances of Zionist attempts to get a favourable statement from Gandhi. At first, Hermann Kallenbach, Gandhi's Jewish friend in South Africa, came to India in 1937 and stayed for weeks with Gandhi trying to convince him of the merits of the Zionist cause. Then, in the 1930s, as requested by Rabbi Stephen Wise, the American pacifist John Haynes Holmes, tried "to obtain from Gandhi a declaration favourable to Zionism". In March 1946, a British MP from the Labour Party, Sydney Silverman, an advocate of Indian independence in Britain, attempted to change Gandhi's mind. At the end of their heated conversation, Gandhi stated that "after all our talk, I am unable to revise the opinion I gave you in the beginning." The fourth Zionist attempt to change Gandhi's mind was by Louis Fischer, Gandhi's famous biographer, to whom Gandhi reported to have said that "the Jews have a good case."
Later, Gandhi clarified in one of his final pieces on Zionism and the Palestine question on 14 July 1946 that "I did say some such thing in the course of a conversation with Mr. Louis Fischer on the subject." He added, "I do believe that the Jews have been cruelly wronged by the world."
Gandhi went back to his initial position by categorically stating that "But in my opinion, they [the Jews] have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism... Why should they depend on American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine?"
There were an influential number of Jews who thought that force, only force, could ensure the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. They adopted terrorism as the method to achieve their national goal. This policy of subjugation of the Palestinians by Zionist terror was totally rejected by Gandhi in no uncertain terms.
A few months before his assassination, Gandhi answered the question "What is the solution to the Palestine problem?" raised by Doon Campbell of Reuters:
"It has become a problem which seems almost insoluble. If I were a Jew, I would tell them: 'Do not be so silly as to resort to terrorism...' The Jews should meet the Arabs, make friends with them and not depend on British aid or American aid, save what descends from Jehovah."
---
Dr. Ramakrishnan is a senior lecturer, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India. He presented this paper on June 13, 1998 at a seminar organized by the Institute of Islamic and Arab Studies. The seminar was inaugurated by the chairman of India's National Minorities Commission, Prof. Tahir Mahmoud, who highlighted the traditional Indian support for the Palestinian struggle against Zionist Occupation.
by Professor A. K. Ramakrishnan
Gandhi's major statement on the Palestine and the Jewish question came forth in his widely circulated editorial in the Harijan of 11 November 1938, a time when intense struggle between the Palestinian Arabs and the immigrant Jews had been on the anvil in Palestine. His views came in the context of severe pressure on him, especially from the Zionist quarters, to issue a statement on the problem. Therefore, he started his piece by saying that his sympathies are all with the Jews, who as a people were subjected to inhuman treatment and persecution for a long time.
"But", Gandhi asserted, "My sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and in the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after their return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?"
He thus questioned the very foundational logic of political Zionism. Gandhi rejected the idea of a Jewish State in the Promised Land by pointing out that the "Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract." The Zionists, after embarking upon a policy of colonization of Palestine and after getting British recognition through the Balfour Declaration of 1917 for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews," tried to elicit maximum international support. The Jewish leaders were keen to get an approval for Zionism from Gandhi as his international fame as the leader of a non-violent national struggle against imperialism would provide great impetus for the Jewish cause. But his position was one of total disapproval of the Zionist project both for political and religious reasons. He was against the attempts of the British mandatory Government in Palestine toeing the Zionist line of imposing itself on the Palestinians in the name of establishing a Jewish national home. Gandhi's Harijan editorial is an emphatic assertion of the rights of the Arabs in Palestine. The following oft-quoted lines exemplify his position: "Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home."
Gandhi's response to Zionism and the Palestine question contains different layers of meaning, ranging from an ethical position to political realism. What is interesting is that Gandhi, who firmly believed in the inseparability of religion and politics, had been consistently and vehemently rejecting the cultural and religious nationalism of the Zionists.
What follows then is that he was not for religion functioning as a political ideology; rather, he wanted religion to provide an ethical dimension to nation-State politics. Such a difference was vital as far as Gandhi was concerned. A uni-religious justification for claiming a nation-State, as in the case of Zionism, did not appeal to him in any substantial sense.
The history of Palestine in the first half of this century has been characterized by the contention between two kinds of nationalism: Zionism and Palestinian Arab nationalism-the former striving for creating a Jewish nation in Palestine by colonizing its land through massive Jewish immigration and the latter struggling for freedom of the inhabitants of the land of Palestine from colonial and imperialist control.
Gandhi, in his role as leader of the national struggle and the Indian National Congress (the organization embodying that struggle), had been actively engaged during the 1930s and 1940s in moulding the perception of the people of India to the nationalist and anti-imperialist struggles in the Arab world. The 1937 Calcutta meeting of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) "emphatically protested against the reign of terror as well as the partition proposals relating to Palestine" and expressed the solidarity of the Indian people with the Arab peoples' struggle for national freedom. The Delhi AICC of September 1938 said in its resolution that Britain should leave the Jews and the Arabs to amicably settle the issues between the two parties, and it urged the Jews "not to take shelter behind British Imperialism." Gandhi wanted the Jews in Palestine to seek the goodwill of the Arabs by discarding "the help of the British bayonet."
Gandhi and the Congress thus openly supported Palestinian Arab nationalism, and Gandhi was more emphatic in the rejection of Zionist nationalism. The major political driving force in such a position was the common legacy of anti-imperialist struggle of the Indians and the Palestinians. Gandhi's views on the Zionist doctrine and his firm commitment to the Palestinian cause starting from the 1930s obviously influenced the design of independent India's position on the Palestine issue.
Gandhi's prescription for the Jews in Germany and the Arabs in Palestine was non-violent resistance. With regard to the Jewish problem in Germany, Gandhi noted, "I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in non-violent action, the winter of their despair can, in the twinkling of an eye, be turned into the summer of hope." His views on Zionism and his prescription of non-violent action and self-sacrifice to the Jews in Germany generated reactions ranging from anger to despair. Famous Jewish pacifists, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes and Hayim Greenberg, who otherwise admired Gandhi, felt "highly offended by Gandhi's anti-Zionism" and criticized him for his lack of understanding of the spirit of Zionism. Martin Buber, in a long reply to Gandhi's Harijan editorial, remarked, "You are only concerned, Mahatma, with the "right of possession" on the one side; you do not consider the right to a piece of free land on the other side - for those who are hungering for it."
As mentioned earlier, Gandhi refused to view the Zionist "hunger" for land in Palestine as a right. Gandhi wrote on 7 January 1939 the following in response to an editorial in the Statesman, "I hold that non-violence is not merely a personal virtue. It is also a social virtue to be cultivated like the other virtues. Surely society is largely regulated by the expression of non-violence in its mutual dealing. What I ask for is an extension of it on a larger, national and international scale."
Also, it is significant to note that, as far as Gandhi was concerned, non-violent action was not pacifism or a defensive activity but a way of waging war. This war without violence also requires discipline, training and the assessment of the strength and weakness of the enemy.
According to Paul Power, four factors influenced Gandhi's position on Zionism:
- "First, he was sensitive about the ideas of Muslim Indians who were anti-Zionists because of their sympathy for Middle Eastern Arabs opposed to the Jewish National Home; second, he objected to any Zionist methods inconsistent with his way of non-violence; third, he found Zionism contrary to his pluralistic nationalism, which excludes the establishment of any State based solely or mainly on one religion; and fourth, he apparently believed it imprudent to complicate his relations with the British, who held the mandate in Palestine."
Gandhi withstood almost all Zionist attempts at extracting a pro-Zionist stance from him. G.H. Jansen wrote about the failure of Zionist lobbying with Gandhi:
- "His opposition [to Zionism] remained consistent over a period of nearly 20 years and remained firm despite skilful and varied applications to him of that combination of pressure and persuasion known as lobbying, of which the Zionists are past masters."
Apart from responses to Gandhi's anti-Zionism from Jewish pacifists such as Buber, Magnes and Greenberg, Jansen points out at least four separate instances of Zionist attempts to get a favourable statement from Gandhi. At first, Hermann Kallenbach, Gandhi's Jewish friend in South Africa, came to India in 1937 and stayed for weeks with Gandhi trying to convince him of the merits of the Zionist cause. Then, in the 1930s, as requested by Rabbi Stephen Wise, the American pacifist John Haynes Holmes, tried "to obtain from Gandhi a declaration favourable to Zionism". In March 1946, a British MP from the Labour Party, Sydney Silverman, an advocate of Indian independence in Britain, attempted to change Gandhi's mind. At the end of their heated conversation, Gandhi stated that "after all our talk, I am unable to revise the opinion I gave you in the beginning." The fourth Zionist attempt to change Gandhi's mind was by Louis Fischer, Gandhi's famous biographer, to whom Gandhi reported to have said that "the Jews have a good case."
Later, Gandhi clarified in one of his final pieces on Zionism and the Palestine question on 14 July 1946 that "I did say some such thing in the course of a conversation with Mr. Louis Fischer on the subject." He added, "I do believe that the Jews have been cruelly wronged by the world."
Gandhi went back to his initial position by categorically stating that "But in my opinion, they [the Jews] have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism... Why should they depend on American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine?"
There were an influential number of Jews who thought that force, only force, could ensure the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. They adopted terrorism as the method to achieve their national goal. This policy of subjugation of the Palestinians by Zionist terror was totally rejected by Gandhi in no uncertain terms.
A few months before his assassination, Gandhi answered the question "What is the solution to the Palestine problem?" raised by Doon Campbell of Reuters:
"It has become a problem which seems almost insoluble. If I were a Jew, I would tell them: 'Do not be so silly as to resort to terrorism...' The Jews should meet the Arabs, make friends with them and not depend on British aid or American aid, save what descends from Jehovah."
---
Dr. Ramakrishnan is a senior lecturer, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India. He presented this paper on June 13, 1998 at a seminar organized by the Institute of Islamic and Arab Studies. The seminar was inaugurated by the chairman of India's National Minorities Commission, Prof. Tahir Mahmoud, who highlighted the traditional Indian support for the Palestinian struggle against Zionist Occupation.
GORDON DUFF: TERRORISM, ALWAYS SUSPECT A “FALSE FLAG” FIRST March 29, 2010 by Gordon Duff
"Who benefits from attack on Moscow?"
"Intelligence agencies are, in actuality, the biggest terrorist organizations in the world." G Duff.
to read click below:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/03/29/gordon-duff-terrorism-always-suspect-a-false-flag-first/
"Intelligence agencies are, in actuality, the biggest terrorist organizations in the world." G Duff.
to read click below:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/03/29/gordon-duff-terrorism-always-suspect-a-false-flag-first/
Moscow subway terror: FSB role in Moscow apartment 1999. Putin blocked independent investigation
Moscow subway terror: FSB role in Moscow apartment 1999. Putin blocked independent investigation
According to Johann Hari, "the FSB is simply the renamed KGB, whose raison d'etre for decades was essentially instituitional terror in service of the govt. Putin is himself an ex-KGB man, and he has twice blocked, through the Duma, any independent investigation into the bombings. No evidence of Chechen involvement has ever been forthcoming, and the Chechen groups have claimed that they were not responsible — although they admit to other acts of violence. The Ryazan "training exercise" excuse is preposterous. It does seem to suggest that the Russian secret services were caught red-handed".
Ryazan is a place where more bombs were found and subsequently labelled a training exercise by the security services when it transpired they were involved in planting the devices.
A lawyer called MikhailTrepashkin tasked with investigating the bombings found that the basement of one of the bombed buildings was rented by FSB officer Vladimir Romanovich and that the latter was witnessed by several people. However, Trepashkin was unable to bring the evidence to court, because he was arrested by the FSB in October 2003 (imprisoned inNizhny Tagil), allegedly for "disclosing state secrets", just a few days before he was to make his findings public He was sentenced by a military closed court to four years imprisonment. Amnesty International issued a statement that "there are serious grounds to believe that Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested and convicted under falsified criminal charges which may be politically motivated, in order to prevent him continuing his investigative and legal work related to the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow and other cities.
According to Johann Hari, "the FSB is simply the renamed KGB, whose raison d'etre for decades was essentially instituitional terror in service of the govt. Putin is himself an ex-KGB man, and he has twice blocked, through the Duma, any independent investigation into the bombings. No evidence of Chechen involvement has ever been forthcoming, and the Chechen groups have claimed that they were not responsible — although they admit to other acts of violence. The Ryazan "training exercise" excuse is preposterous. It does seem to suggest that the Russian secret services were caught red-handed".
Ryazan is a place where more bombs were found and subsequently labelled a training exercise by the security services when it transpired they were involved in planting the devices.
A lawyer called MikhailTrepashkin tasked with investigating the bombings found that the basement of one of the bombed buildings was rented by FSB officer Vladimir Romanovich and that the latter was witnessed by several people. However, Trepashkin was unable to bring the evidence to court, because he was arrested by the FSB in October 2003 (imprisoned inNizhny Tagil), allegedly for "disclosing state secrets", just a few days before he was to make his findings public He was sentenced by a military closed court to four years imprisonment. Amnesty International issued a statement that "there are serious grounds to believe that Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested and convicted under falsified criminal charges which may be politically motivated, in order to prevent him continuing his investigative and legal work related to the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow and other cities.
Moscow Subway terror : Iran nuclear drive in focus at G8 meet
Iran nuclear drive in focus at G8 meet
Iran's nuclear ambitions took center stage Tuesday at a Group of Eight foreign ministers summit on global security and terrorism, overshadowed by the deadly Russian subway blasts.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton affirmed late Monday the participation in Iranian sanctions talks of China, seen as the most hesitant member of the so-called "P5-plus-1" -- the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany that are negotiating with Tehran.
Beijing, she said in an interview with Canadian television, will play a role in efforts to forge sanctions at the United Nations against the clerical regime.
"I think as the weeks go forward and we begin the hard work of trying to come up with a Security Council resolution, China will be involved," Clinton told Canadian broadcaster CTV, adding that Beijing recognized the threat of Iran's nuclear program.
"China is part of the consultative group that has been unified all along the way, which has made it very clear that a nuclear-armed Iran is not acceptable to the international community," she said.
G8 ministers at the global security talks were to discuss an upcoming review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at a New York conference in May and a nuclear security summit in Washington next month.
The meeting in Gatineau, Quebec, near the capital Ottawa, sets the stage for G8 and G20 leaders' summits in Muskoka, Ontario and Toronto in June.
"The NPT bargain is now under pressure from the perception that the nuclear weapons states have not disarmed, from the actions of countries like Iran and North Korea and from the perceived lack of support for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy," Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said late Monday.
"For the sake of future generations we need to work to renew and expand the global consensus around the treaty and its goal of a world without nuclear weapons."
Cannon previously warned that more UN sanctions against Iran appeared inevitable, and said he would ask delegates to consider "additional pressure on Iran to persuade it to stop its nuclear enrichment activities and convince the Iranian authorities to come back to the table."
He was echoed by Japan's Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, whose spokesman said the world must consider a "stronger response" to Iran's defiance, "including a possibility of adopting a new UN Security Council resolutions."
"We hope China, together with Russia (and others) will get onboard to make any decision effective," he added.
On Monday, in the wake of the deadly Moscow metro bombing, the specter of crippling urban terrorism sucked out the air as ministers arrived for the talks.
On behalf of his G8 counterparts, Cannon said G8 foreign ministers "strongly condemned the cowardly terrorist attacks" on the Moscow subway early Monday.
Ministers also expressed "their deepest sympathy to all who have been injured or bereaved by these attacks, and call for the prosecution of all those responsible," he said.
The twin rush-hour suicide bombings on packed metro trains in Moscow killed at least 39 people.
Officials said the attacks were carried out by women wearing belts packed with explosives, marking a return of the so-called "Black Widows" who terrorized Moscow a decade ago with a string of attacks.
Russia is a key member of the group of the world's eight most developed nations, which also comprises Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States.
Clinton told CTV that governments and nations of the world faced a "common enemy" in terrorism, and have no choice but to "go after the terrorists."
"Whether you are in a Moscow subway or a London subway or a train in Madrid or an office building in New York, we face the same enemy," the top US diplomat said.
A press conference at the end of talks in the afternoon is also expected to shed more light on an initiative to bolster economic activity in depressed regions along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, announced by Cannon late Monday.
The effort moves to boost trade between the two countries, key to rehabilitating the war-torn region. "Stability in the region is critical for global security," Cannon explained.
The plan, he said, was developed in consultation with the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
Iran's nuclear ambitions took center stage Tuesday at a Group of Eight foreign ministers summit on global security and terrorism, overshadowed by the deadly Russian subway blasts.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton affirmed late Monday the participation in Iranian sanctions talks of China, seen as the most hesitant member of the so-called "P5-plus-1" -- the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany that are negotiating with Tehran.
Beijing, she said in an interview with Canadian television, will play a role in efforts to forge sanctions at the United Nations against the clerical regime.
"I think as the weeks go forward and we begin the hard work of trying to come up with a Security Council resolution, China will be involved," Clinton told Canadian broadcaster CTV, adding that Beijing recognized the threat of Iran's nuclear program.
"China is part of the consultative group that has been unified all along the way, which has made it very clear that a nuclear-armed Iran is not acceptable to the international community," she said.
G8 ministers at the global security talks were to discuss an upcoming review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at a New York conference in May and a nuclear security summit in Washington next month.
The meeting in Gatineau, Quebec, near the capital Ottawa, sets the stage for G8 and G20 leaders' summits in Muskoka, Ontario and Toronto in June.
"The NPT bargain is now under pressure from the perception that the nuclear weapons states have not disarmed, from the actions of countries like Iran and North Korea and from the perceived lack of support for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy," Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said late Monday.
"For the sake of future generations we need to work to renew and expand the global consensus around the treaty and its goal of a world without nuclear weapons."
Cannon previously warned that more UN sanctions against Iran appeared inevitable, and said he would ask delegates to consider "additional pressure on Iran to persuade it to stop its nuclear enrichment activities and convince the Iranian authorities to come back to the table."
He was echoed by Japan's Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, whose spokesman said the world must consider a "stronger response" to Iran's defiance, "including a possibility of adopting a new UN Security Council resolutions."
"We hope China, together with Russia (and others) will get onboard to make any decision effective," he added.
On Monday, in the wake of the deadly Moscow metro bombing, the specter of crippling urban terrorism sucked out the air as ministers arrived for the talks.
On behalf of his G8 counterparts, Cannon said G8 foreign ministers "strongly condemned the cowardly terrorist attacks" on the Moscow subway early Monday.
Ministers also expressed "their deepest sympathy to all who have been injured or bereaved by these attacks, and call for the prosecution of all those responsible," he said.
The twin rush-hour suicide bombings on packed metro trains in Moscow killed at least 39 people.
Officials said the attacks were carried out by women wearing belts packed with explosives, marking a return of the so-called "Black Widows" who terrorized Moscow a decade ago with a string of attacks.
Russia is a key member of the group of the world's eight most developed nations, which also comprises Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States.
Clinton told CTV that governments and nations of the world faced a "common enemy" in terrorism, and have no choice but to "go after the terrorists."
"Whether you are in a Moscow subway or a London subway or a train in Madrid or an office building in New York, we face the same enemy," the top US diplomat said.
A press conference at the end of talks in the afternoon is also expected to shed more light on an initiative to bolster economic activity in depressed regions along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, announced by Cannon late Monday.
The effort moves to boost trade between the two countries, key to rehabilitating the war-torn region. "Stability in the region is critical for global security," Cannon explained.
The plan, he said, was developed in consultation with the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
BERNANKE – THE ROTHSCHILD PUPPET
ZIONIST JEWS WITH THEIR INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CABAL turned the Treasury Department of the United States into a private Jewish business through the Independent Treasury Act of 1920.
Following the unconstitutional Federal Reserve Act of 1913 which installed European Jews as overseers of America’s monetary system, the Independent Treasury Act of 1920 abolished the US Independent Treasury once and for all.
Since then, the independence of the US Treasury Department has been usurped by Zionist Jews with their so-called, Federal Reserve Bank. For there is nothing ‘federal’ about this privately-owned Jewish bank, nor has it any ‘reserves.’
A consortium of Jewish banks, with the Rothschilds at the head, are the real owners of the Federal Reserve System. Indeed, it is a system of perfidy by which Zionist Jews charge American taxpayers interest on all monies, (book entries made out of thin air), loaned to the US government.
THANKS TO THE ZIONIST JEWISH BANKSTERS in control of our monetary system, America has been plunged into a debt economy with inflation built into the system due to the compounding interest charged by the Zionist-owned Federal Reserve.
Although the US Constitution grants our own Treasury Department the right to print money allocated to the US government WITHOUT interest -the Jews put an end to this. The US taxpayer is now in deep debt to a slew of Jewish bankers whose loyalties are to their own spread out around the globe, not to America.
Here Is A List Of The Jewish Banks Who Own The Federal Reserve:
-1- Rothschild Banks of London & Berlin -2- Warburg Banks of Hamburg & Amsterdam -3- Lazard Brothers of Paris -4- Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy -5- Goldman, Sachs of NY -6- Lehman Brothers of NY -7- Kuhn Loeb Bank of NY (Now Shearson American Express) -8- Morgan Guaranty Trust of NY (Levi P Morton - J P Morgan Bank - Equitable Life - are principal shareholders) -9- Hanover Trust of NY (William and David Rockefeller of Chase National Bank NY are principal shareholders.) View Entire Story Here & Here.
Ben Shalom Bernanke is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. His co-chairman and co-religionist (of course) is the Zionist Jew and Fed careerist, Donald L Kohn. With the Zionist takeover of the Federal Reserve from 1913 to 1920 and its current preponderance of international Jewish control, the stiff, dull, and wooden manner of the Fed’s chairman speaks for itself: Ben Shalom Bernanke is indeed a Rothschild puppet.
Ron Paul Grills Bernanke - July 21, 2009 Here.
BERNANKE ADMITS FED’S INDEPENDENCE
Refuses Government Audits
ATTACKING GOVERNMENT AUDITS AS A ‘THREAT,’ Bernanke came out in strong opposition to the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009, proposed by Ron Paul. The pending legislation calls for a full auditing of the Zionist-owned Federal Reserve Bank. Bernanke argues that audits would compromise ‘independence,’ seeking to deny legislative victory for the Fed’s leading opponent, Congressman Ron Paul.
Speaking to the House Financial Services Committee on July 21, 2009, Bernanke spoke of the ‘threat’ of audit-reviews:
“Because government reviews may be initiated at the request of members of Congress, the threat of reviews could be seen as efforts to try to influence monetary policy decisions.” View Entire Story Here.
In other words, Bernanke, being the Rothschild puppet that he is, wants to keep all monetary policy decisions within the closed doors of the international Jews who OWN the Federal Reserve. All outside ‘influence,’ whether from the US Congress or the American taxpayer, is unacceptable to Bernanke and the international Jews whom he represents.
Bernanke argues that the Fed is already allowing audits of its operations. But many, like Ron Paul, contend that the current audits do NOT provide a full disclosure of the Fed’s secret activities. The sham auditing system presently in use, provides for an outside auditor RETAINED by the Fed’s own Board of Governors, as well as an internal in-house examination conducted by the Fed’s Board itself.
The current law disallows auditing of three areas: 1) Transactions the Federal Reserve makes with international financing organizations 2) Deliberations and decisions of monetary policy 3) Transactions made by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).
The FOMC is a component of the Federal Reserve Bank, charged with overseeing the nation’s open market operations, that is, buying and selling: government bonds, foreign currency, and gold. Members of the FMOC include, (of course), Zionist Jews, Bernanke, Kohn, and Rosengred (Boston Federal Reserve).
EITHER DEMONSTRATING HIS ESSENTIAL STUPIDITY or taking orders so as to soften the American citizens’ pessimism over the economic downturn spiral, (so they won’t blame the Zionist Jews in power), Bernanke in classic doublespeak spoke of “positive signs indicating an end to the recession despite the rate of job losses remaining high and the unemployment rate continuing its steep rise.”
Methinks It’s Time To Unseat The Zionist Jews In Power Like Bernanke
& End Their Stranglehold On Our Lives Once And For All
Following the unconstitutional Federal Reserve Act of 1913 which installed European Jews as overseers of America’s monetary system, the Independent Treasury Act of 1920 abolished the US Independent Treasury once and for all.
Since then, the independence of the US Treasury Department has been usurped by Zionist Jews with their so-called, Federal Reserve Bank. For there is nothing ‘federal’ about this privately-owned Jewish bank, nor has it any ‘reserves.’
A consortium of Jewish banks, with the Rothschilds at the head, are the real owners of the Federal Reserve System. Indeed, it is a system of perfidy by which Zionist Jews charge American taxpayers interest on all monies, (book entries made out of thin air), loaned to the US government.
THANKS TO THE ZIONIST JEWISH BANKSTERS in control of our monetary system, America has been plunged into a debt economy with inflation built into the system due to the compounding interest charged by the Zionist-owned Federal Reserve.
Although the US Constitution grants our own Treasury Department the right to print money allocated to the US government WITHOUT interest -the Jews put an end to this. The US taxpayer is now in deep debt to a slew of Jewish bankers whose loyalties are to their own spread out around the globe, not to America.
Here Is A List Of The Jewish Banks Who Own The Federal Reserve:
-1- Rothschild Banks of London & Berlin -2- Warburg Banks of Hamburg & Amsterdam -3- Lazard Brothers of Paris -4- Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy -5- Goldman, Sachs of NY -6- Lehman Brothers of NY -7- Kuhn Loeb Bank of NY (Now Shearson American Express) -8- Morgan Guaranty Trust of NY (Levi P Morton - J P Morgan Bank - Equitable Life - are principal shareholders) -9- Hanover Trust of NY (William and David Rockefeller of Chase National Bank NY are principal shareholders.) View Entire Story Here & Here.
Ben Shalom Bernanke is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. His co-chairman and co-religionist (of course) is the Zionist Jew and Fed careerist, Donald L Kohn. With the Zionist takeover of the Federal Reserve from 1913 to 1920 and its current preponderance of international Jewish control, the stiff, dull, and wooden manner of the Fed’s chairman speaks for itself: Ben Shalom Bernanke is indeed a Rothschild puppet.
Ron Paul Grills Bernanke - July 21, 2009 Here.
BERNANKE ADMITS FED’S INDEPENDENCE
Refuses Government Audits
ATTACKING GOVERNMENT AUDITS AS A ‘THREAT,’ Bernanke came out in strong opposition to the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009, proposed by Ron Paul. The pending legislation calls for a full auditing of the Zionist-owned Federal Reserve Bank. Bernanke argues that audits would compromise ‘independence,’ seeking to deny legislative victory for the Fed’s leading opponent, Congressman Ron Paul.
Speaking to the House Financial Services Committee on July 21, 2009, Bernanke spoke of the ‘threat’ of audit-reviews:
“Because government reviews may be initiated at the request of members of Congress, the threat of reviews could be seen as efforts to try to influence monetary policy decisions.” View Entire Story Here.
In other words, Bernanke, being the Rothschild puppet that he is, wants to keep all monetary policy decisions within the closed doors of the international Jews who OWN the Federal Reserve. All outside ‘influence,’ whether from the US Congress or the American taxpayer, is unacceptable to Bernanke and the international Jews whom he represents.
Bernanke argues that the Fed is already allowing audits of its operations. But many, like Ron Paul, contend that the current audits do NOT provide a full disclosure of the Fed’s secret activities. The sham auditing system presently in use, provides for an outside auditor RETAINED by the Fed’s own Board of Governors, as well as an internal in-house examination conducted by the Fed’s Board itself.
The current law disallows auditing of three areas: 1) Transactions the Federal Reserve makes with international financing organizations 2) Deliberations and decisions of monetary policy 3) Transactions made by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).
The FOMC is a component of the Federal Reserve Bank, charged with overseeing the nation’s open market operations, that is, buying and selling: government bonds, foreign currency, and gold. Members of the FMOC include, (of course), Zionist Jews, Bernanke, Kohn, and Rosengred (Boston Federal Reserve).
EITHER DEMONSTRATING HIS ESSENTIAL STUPIDITY or taking orders so as to soften the American citizens’ pessimism over the economic downturn spiral, (so they won’t blame the Zionist Jews in power), Bernanke in classic doublespeak spoke of “positive signs indicating an end to the recession despite the rate of job losses remaining high and the unemployment rate continuing its steep rise.”
Methinks It’s Time To Unseat The Zionist Jews In Power Like Bernanke
& End Their Stranglehold On Our Lives Once And For All
Observe 1st April 2010 as a Black Day
Observe 1st April 2010 as a Black Day Against the Operationalization of the Right to Education Bill and Moves to Implement the Foreign Universities Bill!
Struggle Against the UPA's moves to Commercialize and Corporatize Education!
A well-known poem by Rabindranath Tagore spoke of a country "Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high/ Where knowledge is free…" These words ring hollow when we consider the education policy that is being implemented in India today.
On 1st April, the Right to Education Bill will become a law. In its true sense, a genuine 'Right to Education' should mean that all children upto the age of 14 are entitled to nutrition, healthcare, safety, and education of an equitable standard free of cost. But the RTE in its present form is a farce in the name of providing genuine education: it makes only the hollow promise that 25% seats in private schools will be reserved for poor students and the government will supposedly contribute to paying their fees.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Educational Institution (Regulation of Entry and Operation) Bill 2010 has been cleared by the Cabinet. This is a bill with dangerous implications, for it will pave the way for virtually unrestricted entry of foreign private players in higher education, without any controls. Worse still, reservations for SC, ST, and OBC students will not be implemented in these foreign universities. The UPA is in a great hurry to get this bill ratified. It is said to be one of the first files Kapil Sibal requested upon assuming charge in the MHRD.
Both these bills seek to absolve the government of all its responsibilities towards providing affordable, quality education to the citizens of this country. They seek to hasten the neo-liberal agenda of making education a commodity rather than a fundamental right. The corporate media is hailing Kapil Sibal policies with the claim that what Manmohan Singh did to the Indian economy, by instituting the policies of liberalization and globalization, Kapil Sibal is now doing to education by following the dictats of the World Bank and the IMF. These moves do little to improve the accessibility and quality of education available to people in our country, but instead these policies cater to the upper middle class and elite constituency as if they alone have the right to education.
So long as the present neo-liberal regime continues, so long as education is made into a commodity and universities into shops for selling education, the genuine right to education will remain a distant dream for students in this country. On 1st April 2010, the day the Right to Education Bill becomes a law will mark a low-point in the education policy of our country. AISA has decided to observe this day as a 'Black Day' against the Implementation of the RTE and the Cabinet Approval granted to the Foreign Universities Bill. Protest action will be held by all units of AISA in various state capitals and campuses. We call upon all progressive sections of the students and youth to join us in this protest!
From “KG to PG”: Resist Sibal’s Commercialization Drive!
Scrap UPA’s Farcical Right to Education Act 2009! Reject the Foreign Universities Bill!
Demand Free and Quality Education for all!
Struggle Against the UPA's moves to Commercialize and Corporatize Education!
A well-known poem by Rabindranath Tagore spoke of a country "Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high/ Where knowledge is free…" These words ring hollow when we consider the education policy that is being implemented in India today.
On 1st April, the Right to Education Bill will become a law. In its true sense, a genuine 'Right to Education' should mean that all children upto the age of 14 are entitled to nutrition, healthcare, safety, and education of an equitable standard free of cost. But the RTE in its present form is a farce in the name of providing genuine education: it makes only the hollow promise that 25% seats in private schools will be reserved for poor students and the government will supposedly contribute to paying their fees.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Educational Institution (Regulation of Entry and Operation) Bill 2010 has been cleared by the Cabinet. This is a bill with dangerous implications, for it will pave the way for virtually unrestricted entry of foreign private players in higher education, without any controls. Worse still, reservations for SC, ST, and OBC students will not be implemented in these foreign universities. The UPA is in a great hurry to get this bill ratified. It is said to be one of the first files Kapil Sibal requested upon assuming charge in the MHRD.
Both these bills seek to absolve the government of all its responsibilities towards providing affordable, quality education to the citizens of this country. They seek to hasten the neo-liberal agenda of making education a commodity rather than a fundamental right. The corporate media is hailing Kapil Sibal policies with the claim that what Manmohan Singh did to the Indian economy, by instituting the policies of liberalization and globalization, Kapil Sibal is now doing to education by following the dictats of the World Bank and the IMF. These moves do little to improve the accessibility and quality of education available to people in our country, but instead these policies cater to the upper middle class and elite constituency as if they alone have the right to education.
So long as the present neo-liberal regime continues, so long as education is made into a commodity and universities into shops for selling education, the genuine right to education will remain a distant dream for students in this country. On 1st April 2010, the day the Right to Education Bill becomes a law will mark a low-point in the education policy of our country. AISA has decided to observe this day as a 'Black Day' against the Implementation of the RTE and the Cabinet Approval granted to the Foreign Universities Bill. Protest action will be held by all units of AISA in various state capitals and campuses. We call upon all progressive sections of the students and youth to join us in this protest!
From “KG to PG”: Resist Sibal’s Commercialization Drive!
Scrap UPA’s Farcical Right to Education Act 2009! Reject the Foreign Universities Bill!
Demand Free and Quality Education for all!
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Headley Saga: Mumbai attack was a joint IB-CIA-Mossad-RSS project
Headley Saga: Mumbai attack was a joint IB-CIA-Mossad-RSS project
By Amaresh Misra
The Milli Gazette
28 March 2010
With the row over India getting access to David Headley growing acrimonious each day, the CIA's double agent saga seems all set to open up a can of incredible worms.
First, the case unmasks the pro-US face of the Indian English media. When the Headley saga first came to light, Vir Sanghavi of the Hindustan Times carried an editorial piece claiming that if 'Headley is CIA, and knew about 26/11, the CIA knew about the attack.' In other words, Sanghavi accepted the 'conspiracy theory'–which in the eyes of the English media was 'peddled' by Aziz Burney and this author during the terrible aftermath of 26/11–that the event was a CIA/Mossad/RSS/ISI plot.
In November-December 2008, Vir Sanghavi and his cohorts in the English media attacked both Aziz Burney and this author for spelling forth the 'conspiracy theory'. Then after Headley's name surfaced, they changed tune, without of course admitting their debt to Mr. Burney or this author.
The fact of the matter is that in the 2009 Parliamentary elections, the English media was all set to project Lal Krishna Advani as India's next Prime Minister. It was the feverish anti-RSS, anti-Mossad work done by Aziz Burney and this author that went a long way in ensuring the victory of Congress and secular forces.
Now when the CIA hand behind 26/11 is slowly being unraveled, the English media is seeing red. It is again trying to portray Headley merely as a Lashkar operative, severing thus his links with the CIA.
This highlights the second point, that basically Headley and the CIA cannot be de-linked. Thank God the government of India put into place the NIA, a new National Investigative Agency. The NIA was set up, as the IB and other Indian agencies, especially the IB, had not only gone anti-Muslim-they had gone anti-India. This was proved in the case of Azamgarh boys picked up in and around the Batla House encounter on various bomb blasts charges. Most of the boys were products not of madarsas, but modern schools. They were youngsters in their teens; they had made a mark for themselves in professional courses and were holding jobs in the new, professional sector of the economy.
When Shri Digvijay Singh, the General Secretary AICC and the most secular leader of the India, went to Sanjarpur (under the banner of Anti-Communal Front) in Azamgarh to find out the facts for himself, he was shocked to find that Zeeshan, a boy from Azamgarh who on the fateful day of the Batala House encounter was giving his exams, had more than 50 cases slapped over him in more than three states–which meant that his parents could go on fighting cases for more than 100 years and yet Zeeshan would be in jail.
There are dozens and hundreds of Zeeshans from Azamgarh and other districts of UP, Gujarat and Maharashtra languishing in various Indian jails on unsubstantiated charges. This in fact is India's Guantanamo Bay story–that right here in the world's largest democracy the Indian security services like the IB have secret detention and torture centres where innocent Muslim youths are tortured and put to death. The IB today has been infiltrated heavily by RSS, Mossad and CIA. In fact, this one agency is an anti-national agency—it is obstructing the work of NIA and secular Indians like Shri Digvijay Singh. Soon, in India's interest, the IB will have to be closed down. All its communal officers will be hunted down and tried in a court of just law.
The IB knew about Headley—this is proved by the fact that the SIM cards used by the ten 26/11 terrorists were purchased by an Intelligence Bureau (India) (IB) informer. Till date, the investigations into the 26/11 case, which the IB is handling, have been unable to state as to how the ten terrorists got hold of the SIM cards.
The State IB chief of Maharashtra told a very senior Mumbai Police Officer just after 26/11 that he was ‘entirely in the dark about 26/11 investigations as Delhi (meaning the chief IB office) was handling it'. Basic information about 26/11 was not shared with secular Indian officers. The Headley lead would never have come to the fore had the NIA not stepped in.
IB training criminals [read here Charge-sheet against IB]
Now comes the news that the IB has set-up training camps in Gorakhpur, where it trains criminals–and then uses them to kill Muslim under-trials. The name of Chota Rajan is used as a convenient scapegoat. It is in this manner that dozens of accused in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, several other such accused in other cases, Muslim businessmen and men of influence have been eliminated on a systematic basis in Maharashtra. The latest in the long list of victims killed allegedly by IB is Shahid Azmi, the lawyer defending the accused of the 2006 Mumbai train blasts. Shahid had hit upon evidence which proved the innocence of the accused-and that is why he was bumped off, again by criminals with Nepal–Gorakhpur links!
In fact, the state of Maharashtra holds the dubious distinction of almost institutionalizing the extra-judicial killing of Muslim youth and personalities. Headley was in India months and years before the 26/11 attack; he even surveyed Pune where a blast took place as late as February 2010. It beats one’s imagination as to how the IB did not know about Headley and his movements. There can only be two scenarios: that the IB is totally incompetent–or that the IB is heavily infiltrated by CIA and Mossad: the agency knew about 26/11 and did nothing to stop it.
This places the IB at par with Headley, as executioners of 26/11 and mass murderers. There can be no other honest conclusion.
Headley holds the key to the fact that 26/11 was not just a mere Lashkar operation–that it was a joint Mossad-CIA operation, conducted with possible ISI and RSS help.
If the charge-sheet against Raj Kumar Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya, accused in the Malegaon and other blasts, is read, it is clear that there was always some sort of collusion between the RSS and the ISI. The so-called nationalists, the Hindutva forces, took money to the tune of crores of rupees from the ISI! The IB knows about this transaction but is keeping quiet!
The Headley saga has links to Abhinav Bharat and pro-Hindutva terror groups. The pro-Hindutva terror groups are widely believed to be behind the Pune blasts where a combination of RDX and Ammonium Nitrate was used. Right after the visit of Shri Digvijay Singh to Maharashtra in February 2010, the state home secretary spoke of the possibility of the involvement of Hindutva groups in the Pune blasts. Other officers, including the ATS chief Raghuvanshi, purported to be an RSS/opportunist also spoke of this possibility. But then RR Patil, the Maharashtra Home Minister whose role during 26/11 was disastrous and who was removed from his post in the wake of the attack on Mumbai (but who was restored after the 2009 assembly elections), made amazing statements ‘that those who take the name of Hindu organizations in the Pune blasts will be punished'!
How can a Home Minister make such a statement? Now we hear that Rakesh Maria, a notorious anti-Muslim officer, with pro-Israeli links, a man who has killed and tortured innocents, has been made the new ATS chief and Raguvanshi has been promoted! Secular organizations in Maharashtra were demanding that Raghuvanshi be removed and that an honest, secular officer be made the ATS chief so that Hemant Karkare's seminal work in cracking the shell of Hindutva communalism could be promoted!.
But Rakesh Maria is even worse than Raghuvanshi. It seems that the NCP in Maharashtra has taken a clear anti-Congress, anti-national line. RR Patil, who is a third grade, uncouth, thoroughly communal, NCP leader should be removed from his post. The Maharashtra chief minister should act, because if the NIA gets access to Headley, the latter's links with Hindutva organizations–and the whole RSS-Mossad-CIA-ISI-IB nexus–will be exposed. This nexus is working overtime to destabilize the Congress government and undo the commendable work done by the party under the secular leadership of Sonia Gandhi.
Amaresh Misra is a famed historian and chief of the Anti-Communal Front of the All India Congress Committee (AICC)
By Amaresh Misra
The Milli Gazette
28 March 2010
With the row over India getting access to David Headley growing acrimonious each day, the CIA's double agent saga seems all set to open up a can of incredible worms.
First, the case unmasks the pro-US face of the Indian English media. When the Headley saga first came to light, Vir Sanghavi of the Hindustan Times carried an editorial piece claiming that if 'Headley is CIA, and knew about 26/11, the CIA knew about the attack.' In other words, Sanghavi accepted the 'conspiracy theory'–which in the eyes of the English media was 'peddled' by Aziz Burney and this author during the terrible aftermath of 26/11–that the event was a CIA/Mossad/RSS/ISI plot.
In November-December 2008, Vir Sanghavi and his cohorts in the English media attacked both Aziz Burney and this author for spelling forth the 'conspiracy theory'. Then after Headley's name surfaced, they changed tune, without of course admitting their debt to Mr. Burney or this author.
The fact of the matter is that in the 2009 Parliamentary elections, the English media was all set to project Lal Krishna Advani as India's next Prime Minister. It was the feverish anti-RSS, anti-Mossad work done by Aziz Burney and this author that went a long way in ensuring the victory of Congress and secular forces.
Now when the CIA hand behind 26/11 is slowly being unraveled, the English media is seeing red. It is again trying to portray Headley merely as a Lashkar operative, severing thus his links with the CIA.
This highlights the second point, that basically Headley and the CIA cannot be de-linked. Thank God the government of India put into place the NIA, a new National Investigative Agency. The NIA was set up, as the IB and other Indian agencies, especially the IB, had not only gone anti-Muslim-they had gone anti-India. This was proved in the case of Azamgarh boys picked up in and around the Batla House encounter on various bomb blasts charges. Most of the boys were products not of madarsas, but modern schools. They were youngsters in their teens; they had made a mark for themselves in professional courses and were holding jobs in the new, professional sector of the economy.
When Shri Digvijay Singh, the General Secretary AICC and the most secular leader of the India, went to Sanjarpur (under the banner of Anti-Communal Front) in Azamgarh to find out the facts for himself, he was shocked to find that Zeeshan, a boy from Azamgarh who on the fateful day of the Batala House encounter was giving his exams, had more than 50 cases slapped over him in more than three states–which meant that his parents could go on fighting cases for more than 100 years and yet Zeeshan would be in jail.
There are dozens and hundreds of Zeeshans from Azamgarh and other districts of UP, Gujarat and Maharashtra languishing in various Indian jails on unsubstantiated charges. This in fact is India's Guantanamo Bay story–that right here in the world's largest democracy the Indian security services like the IB have secret detention and torture centres where innocent Muslim youths are tortured and put to death. The IB today has been infiltrated heavily by RSS, Mossad and CIA. In fact, this one agency is an anti-national agency—it is obstructing the work of NIA and secular Indians like Shri Digvijay Singh. Soon, in India's interest, the IB will have to be closed down. All its communal officers will be hunted down and tried in a court of just law.
The IB knew about Headley—this is proved by the fact that the SIM cards used by the ten 26/11 terrorists were purchased by an Intelligence Bureau (India) (IB) informer. Till date, the investigations into the 26/11 case, which the IB is handling, have been unable to state as to how the ten terrorists got hold of the SIM cards.
The State IB chief of Maharashtra told a very senior Mumbai Police Officer just after 26/11 that he was ‘entirely in the dark about 26/11 investigations as Delhi (meaning the chief IB office) was handling it'. Basic information about 26/11 was not shared with secular Indian officers. The Headley lead would never have come to the fore had the NIA not stepped in.
IB training criminals [read here Charge-sheet against IB]
Now comes the news that the IB has set-up training camps in Gorakhpur, where it trains criminals–and then uses them to kill Muslim under-trials. The name of Chota Rajan is used as a convenient scapegoat. It is in this manner that dozens of accused in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, several other such accused in other cases, Muslim businessmen and men of influence have been eliminated on a systematic basis in Maharashtra. The latest in the long list of victims killed allegedly by IB is Shahid Azmi, the lawyer defending the accused of the 2006 Mumbai train blasts. Shahid had hit upon evidence which proved the innocence of the accused-and that is why he was bumped off, again by criminals with Nepal–Gorakhpur links!
In fact, the state of Maharashtra holds the dubious distinction of almost institutionalizing the extra-judicial killing of Muslim youth and personalities. Headley was in India months and years before the 26/11 attack; he even surveyed Pune where a blast took place as late as February 2010. It beats one’s imagination as to how the IB did not know about Headley and his movements. There can only be two scenarios: that the IB is totally incompetent–or that the IB is heavily infiltrated by CIA and Mossad: the agency knew about 26/11 and did nothing to stop it.
This places the IB at par with Headley, as executioners of 26/11 and mass murderers. There can be no other honest conclusion.
Headley holds the key to the fact that 26/11 was not just a mere Lashkar operation–that it was a joint Mossad-CIA operation, conducted with possible ISI and RSS help.
If the charge-sheet against Raj Kumar Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya, accused in the Malegaon and other blasts, is read, it is clear that there was always some sort of collusion between the RSS and the ISI. The so-called nationalists, the Hindutva forces, took money to the tune of crores of rupees from the ISI! The IB knows about this transaction but is keeping quiet!
The Headley saga has links to Abhinav Bharat and pro-Hindutva terror groups. The pro-Hindutva terror groups are widely believed to be behind the Pune blasts where a combination of RDX and Ammonium Nitrate was used. Right after the visit of Shri Digvijay Singh to Maharashtra in February 2010, the state home secretary spoke of the possibility of the involvement of Hindutva groups in the Pune blasts. Other officers, including the ATS chief Raghuvanshi, purported to be an RSS/opportunist also spoke of this possibility. But then RR Patil, the Maharashtra Home Minister whose role during 26/11 was disastrous and who was removed from his post in the wake of the attack on Mumbai (but who was restored after the 2009 assembly elections), made amazing statements ‘that those who take the name of Hindu organizations in the Pune blasts will be punished'!
How can a Home Minister make such a statement? Now we hear that Rakesh Maria, a notorious anti-Muslim officer, with pro-Israeli links, a man who has killed and tortured innocents, has been made the new ATS chief and Raguvanshi has been promoted! Secular organizations in Maharashtra were demanding that Raghuvanshi be removed and that an honest, secular officer be made the ATS chief so that Hemant Karkare's seminal work in cracking the shell of Hindutva communalism could be promoted!.
But Rakesh Maria is even worse than Raghuvanshi. It seems that the NCP in Maharashtra has taken a clear anti-Congress, anti-national line. RR Patil, who is a third grade, uncouth, thoroughly communal, NCP leader should be removed from his post. The Maharashtra chief minister should act, because if the NIA gets access to Headley, the latter's links with Hindutva organizations–and the whole RSS-Mossad-CIA-ISI-IB nexus–will be exposed. This nexus is working overtime to destabilize the Congress government and undo the commendable work done by the party under the secular leadership of Sonia Gandhi.
Amaresh Misra is a famed historian and chief of the Anti-Communal Front of the All India Congress Committee (AICC)
MARCH TO THE AMERICAN (TERROR) CENTRE,
BHARAT -BACHAO- ANDOLAN
"FOR A NATIONAL STRUGGLE AGAINST IMPERIALISM, ZIONISM & BRAHMANISM"
:DEFEND THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION - DEFEND DEMOCRACY:
"DEADLY-HEADLEY = CIA / FBI = MUMBAI 26/11 TERROR ATTACK"
"CIA AGENT HEADLEY: PROVES AMERICAN COMPLICITY IN MUMBAI 26/11 TERROR ATTACK"
"EXTRADITE DAVID HEADLEY TO INDIA"
"AMERICAN-ISRAELI IMPERIALISTS - QUIT INDIA"
:PROGRAMME:
MARCH TO THE AMERICAN (TERROR) CENTRE, NEW MARINE LINES.
WE WILL CONGREGATE AT CHURCHGATE RLY STN (EAST),
ON THE LARGE FOOTPATH & THEN MARCH ON . . .
DATE: 29TH MARCH, 2010 (MONDAY) / TIME: 4.30pm ONWARDS . . . .
===============================
DAVIS COLEMAN HEADLEY IS A CIA-FBI AGENT &
USA is COMPLICIT IN THE MUMBAI 26/11 TERROR ATTACKS!!
The Government should be ashamed at the treatment being meted out to India by the US. It is clear that Headley is a mass murderer & is being protected & shielded by the Obama Administration. Leave alone being extradited, now Attorney-General Eric Holder tells us that that our security agencies will have no direct access to Headley at all. This is very clear from the statements of Timothy J. Roemer (US Ambassador) who stated that “no decision on direct access for India to David Headley has been made.”
It is clear to all who are sound if mind, as undoubtedly David Coleman Headley is a CIA-FBI operative whose task was to organize & expedite the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks. Thus the role of the CIA, FBI & Mossad in fomenting & planning the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks are proved beyond doubt & need to be investigated by the patriotic elements within the security apparatus & the media. Only the naive & corrupt can continue to deny this fact, more so to the detriment of our national sovereignty & security.
David Headley is a CIA asset & they have invested a lot of their precious resources in training him & therefore they are going to atrocious levels to protect him. The CIA always does. Thus under the cover of the American Judicial system, Headley will disappear into the prisons, soon acquire a new identity, new papers & documents, passports & Visas, Credit Cards & Bank Accounts . . . & will resurface, doing what he is best at, a terrorist-drug dealer-mercenary.
Undoubtedly, the CIA-FBI, which are the world’s leading mercenary agencies, whose forte is too engineer assassinations, terror & wars, has infiltrated sections of the Indian political leadership & our internal security, as it has the Pakistani ISI, Military & Political establishment.
Thus now the US intervention & occupation of the South Asian region is deepening by the day, as it keeps on increasing the tensions between India & Pakistan as well as China. It is an old imperial ploy of divide & rule along religious & sectarian lines as well as between nations.
The terror attack Mumbai 26/11, was directed at all of South Asia & this point must be understood by all those who are committed to the cause of South Asia.
The 26/11 terror attack has only aided the US/Israeli effort to create an atmosphere conducive to increasing its pervasive & corrupting influence in determining both our National & International policies. Very true indeed!!
Now the newspapers are clearly raising the issue of Headley being a CIA-FBI operative, a fact that we had stated initially as soon as the story appeared. The reports also state that the CIA was aware about the Headley-Rana linkage! Indian authorities had suspected that Headley was a CIA agent. There are taped conversations between Headley & Rana.
Moreover, the simple fact of the matter is that Headley is involved in the terror attack & should be immediately extradited to the Indian authorities for interrogation & should be tried & sentenced like Kasab (who is a mere foot-soldier & his trial is a contrived circus, despite all the media attention)
In the news report that appeared in the Indian Express (pg 5, 10/12/09), the hotel owner is openly blaming the police for having 'misplaced' Headley's 'C-form' & has filed a complaint on the matter. The hotel owner in his complaint to the Ajmer Superintendent of Police, has stated that he had also submitted the C-forms of two other Israelis along with that of Headley.
So why was Headley arrested by the FBI? The answer to that is that Indian Intel was hard on the heels of Headley & were about to arrest him. It was then that the FBI whisked away Headley to protect him. Now that he has been subjected to the laws of the US judicial system, he is beyond our reach. Leave alone a trial for Headley's central role in the 26/11 attacks, we do not even have the right to interrogate him.
In fact it is suspected that, it was Headley who was the CIA mole in the LeT, who was passing out information on the coming 26/11 terror attack. This was partly shared by the CIA with the Indian authorities & had specifically mentioned the Taj & that the attack would come by sea.
There are two significant points to note:
1) How much information did the CIA actually divulge to India - very very meagre it is clear.
2) More intriguingly with the Pakistani authorities & it's friends in the ISI & the Military with which the CIA has a very deep & intimate relationship, stretching over 6 decades - it supposedly shared none !!!
Any moron is full aware that a 26/11 style attack could lead to a war, in fact a nuclear war between India & Pakistan, then why did not the CIA warn it's friends on either side & thus prevent the attack ??
For the simple reason that it is in the strategic interests of the US & Israel to create a warlike situation across South Asia. The larger objective is for India to mobilise & deploy it's military into the war theatre in Afghanistan if required & later in the coming war on Iran, which is imminent. The tensions & warmongering has now fuelled an arms race & both the countries are amongst the top buyers of weapons, required to protect their half-starving masses.
Also do note that during the phase of the worst series of terror attacks between 2006-08, Headley was present in that period & was flying into India mainly from Pakistan. Yet our authorities did not once suspect or interrogate him?? Unfortunately the Indian People are not that naive. This clearly means that there are certain forces within the country that are allied to the US & Israel & working in tandem to foment terror attacks.
Do especially note the period between August 2007 & September 2008 as this was during which we passed through the worst national crisis over the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. The attacks coincide with Headleys' presence in India (Josy Joseph, 17/11/09, DNA ). The terror attacks in Hyderabad II (25/8/07), Bangalore (25/7/08), Ahmedabad & Surat (26/7/08) & Delhi (13/9/08). All these blasts made it easier for the pro-US elements to take the country into the American-Israeli strategic orbit in the name of fighting the global war on terror.
Again even the blasts that Shri Hemant Karkare has traced to the Abhinav Bharat, find a relation to Headley's footprints. Thus he is present during Malegaon (8/9/06), Samjhauta Express (19/2/07), Mecca Masjid, Hyderabad I (18/5/07).
Thus clearly Headley was also co-ordinating his attacks with the Abhinav Bharat & Sanatan Sanstha as well as with the Indian Mujahedeen (which is a creation of Intel services comprising criminals & informers from within the Muslim community).
We thus can infer the following from the latest revelation:
1) David Headley's trail as he traveled across the country to & identify the sites for terror attacks was & is being covered up by the police on the instructions of the pro-CIA/Mossad sections of the Intelligence Bureau.
2) This was the similar case in the city of Mumbai, where Headley's membership form at the 'Moksh Gymnasium' had both his photograph & signature 'missing'. The flat which he rented on Bridge Candy has no agreement papers & so is the case with his office in Tardeo.
3) The fact that the hotel owner also submitted two forms of Israeli's on that day, also could mean that Headley was also being guided by Mossad agents to identify Jewish targets, which they finally did & thus Nariman House.
4) Headley's very entry into the country has been managed with the connivance of the authorities at the highest levels. And thus even though Headley was a drug dealer having faced a jail sentence, Pakistani born, could still manage to get a clearance. Also do note that he was travelling directly via Pakistan into India. The clearance of his Visa from the Indian Consulate in Chicago actually requires criminal proceedings against the Indian Consul general, the Indian Ambassador & the Minister & the concerned officers in the Home Ministry in Delhi. That was the reason that the authorities panicked & said that Headley's papers at the Chicago Consulate had gone missing. They later found them. With changed signatures, we guess!
5) It is clear that after working for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Headley was later was recruited & trained by the CIA-FBI.
6) The CIA-FBI then used Headley in their plan to execute the 26/11 attack in Mumbai. Headley's task was to travel across the country, identify the targets & provide information to his CIA-FBI handlers. It was the CIA-FBI who then passed the information onto their ISI / LeT contacts in Pakistan.
7) Headley's role was also to draw in his LeT contacts to plan the 26/11 terror attacks.
8) The IB, that has been colluding with the CIA-FBI, instructed it's plants within the police force to cover Headley's trail, which they dutifully performed as is the case both in Mumbai & in Pushkar.
Thus as our inference on the Headley matter is the following:
a) It proves the fact that David Headley was a CIA-FBI agent sent to India to assist in the preparation & implementation of the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks.
b) The US intelligence, led by the CIA-FBI & the Israeli MOSSAD played a central role in co-ordinating the attack & America is complicit in the planning, financing & execution of the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks.
c) The CIA-FBI used their LeT / ISI agents in Pakistan to implement the same
d) Similarly the CIA-FBI along with certain elements & organizations within India were instrumental in fomenting the terror attack.
Undoubtedly the larger strategic objectives of the Imperial gameplan are being achieved, out of which one was to establish the CIA-FBI & Mossad as our allies & thus penetrate & undermine our external & internal security structures.
Just imagine, the CIA-FBI & Mossad are the sword arms of the Imperial project & not a whimper of protest from the secular-liberals or from the anti-Imperialist Left. Even the Obama Af-Pak surge has been barely opposed even though it deepens the US occupation of the South Asian region.
This only goes to prove as to how successful the Imperial strategy has been in creating an atmosphere for US meddling & intervention across South Asia & in neutralising the Left, Bahujans & the Muslim community by systematically promoting Islamophobia by deploying the weapon of terror.
But the Indian masses are far smarter & both the issues of the planned assassination of Shaheed Hemant Karakare & the Headley episode, have helped the People arrive at their own independent conclusions despite the disinformation campaigns unleashed by the pro-US/israeli elements within the Indian Government & the Corporate Media.
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Subject: "HEADLEY & 26/11 : U.S. PLAYS DIRTY ON INDIA" - B.RAMAN (Ex-Director of RAW)
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers38%5Cpaper3722.html
Paper no. 3722
18 - Mar - 2010
Headley & 26/11: US Plays Dirty on India - International Terrorism Monitor --- Paper No. 632
By B. Raman
Ever since the case of David Coleman Headley broke out in October, 2009, I have been repeatedly pointing out the following in my articles and TV interviews:
* Headley was a quadruple agent, who was working for the USA's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET).
* The FBI has already reached a plea bargain with him in order to avoid any formal production of evidence against him in the court which might result in details regarding his links with the US intelligence coming out.
* The FBI would not extradite him to India and would not allow the Indian agencies to have access to him in order to prevent the Indian agencies from questioning him about his links with the US intelligence on the one side and with the Pakistani intelligence on the other.
2. Extracts from two articles on this subject written by me on December 12 and 16, 2009, are annexed. What I have been writing and what I have been saying for the last five months has proved correct. The media has reported on the morning of March 18, 2010, thatHeadley was going to plead guilty to some charges as part of a plea bargain process entered into by him with the FBI. What does it mean? Firstly, there will be no formal introduction of the evidence against him and no cross-examination. Secondly, the relatives of the 166 innocent persons killed in the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist strikes cannot seek the permission of the court to be represented by a lawyer to question him on the details of his involvement in the 26/11 terrorist strikes. Thirdly, the details of his links with the US intelligence community will be covered up. Fourthly, the two Pakistani nationals living in Pakistan----Ilyas Kashmiri of the 313 Brigade, who had threatened terrorist strikes in India during the major sports events of this year, and Maj. (retd) Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha of the Pakistan Army, who have been cited as co-accused in the FBI case against Headleybecause of their role as his handling officers, will escape prosecution.
3. Unless one is naive beyond redemption, it was clear from the beginning that the Obama Administration and its FBI were trying frantically to prevent the truth regardingHeadley from coming out. I wrote on December 12, 2009: "Senior officials of the White House and the FBI have been taking close and unusual interest in the investigation and prosecution. The Director of the FBI himself was reported to have visited Chicago beforeHeadley was produced before the court. Many in India have analysed this as indicative of the close interest taken by President Obama in counter-terrorism co-operation with India.A more plausible explanation is that this is indicative of the concerns in the White House and the FBI that if the prosecution is not properly handled, the case could result in a bombshell if it emerges that one of the active conspirators of 26/11 was an agent of a US agency. This could lead to suits for heavy damages against the US Government from the relatives of the Americans, Israelis and other foreigners killed."
4. Headley will be protected. The FBI will be protected. The US administration will be protected. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) will be protected. The Pakistani Government and its Army will be protected.
5. Only we poor Indians will remain unprotected because the Govt. of India headed by Dr.Manmohan Singh cannot protect us.
6. What naivete, Mr.Prime Minister! What naivete!
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. )
E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com
ANNEXURE I
(Extracts from my article of December 12,2009, titled " FBI Avoiding Focus onHeadley’s Links With Narcotics Control Agency" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3545.html)
Sections of the US media have pointed out that the fact that the report filed against him by the FBI in the court on December 7 was called a Criminal Information Report and not an indictment indicates that the FBI has already reached a plea bargain deal with him under which as a quid pro quo for his admitting some charges when the trial formally commences next month, the FBI will not press other charges against him. His admitting some charges and the FBI dropping other charges will obviate the need for an elaborate trial with the introduction of detailed evidence.
This would prevent any deliberate or inadvertent disclosure by him of his work in the Af-Pak region for the DEA, which works in close co-operation with its Pakistani counterpart. The two have many joint operations.
It is very likely that the US will not allow his independent interrogation by Indian investigators and that it will not agree to his extradition to India as that might result in the Indian authorities coming to know not only of his contacts with Pakistani agencies, but also with the DEA.
Senior officials of the White House and the FBI have been taking close and unusual interest in the investigation and prosecution. The Director of the FBI himself was reported to have visited Chicago before Headley was produced before the court. Many in India have analysed this as indicative of the close interest taken by President Obama in counter-terrorism co-operation with India. A more plausible explanation is that this is indicative of the concerns in the White House and the FBI that if the prosecution is not properly handled, the case could result in a bombshell if it emerges that one of the active conspirators of 26/11 was an agent of a US agency. This could lead to suits for heavy damages against the US Government from the relatives of the Americans, Israelis and other foreigners killed.
ANNEXURE II
( Extracts from my article of December 16,2009, titled " "Headley: A Quadruple Agent" -
at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3552.html )
By studying these extracts submitted by the FBI along with other FBI documents submitted by the FBI to the court and US media reports about Headley’s links with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),one can make the following assessment:
a. Headley was not a double agent, but a quadruple agent. He initially started working for the DEA around 1998. Even if one presumes that initially the FBI and the CIA were not aware of this, they should have become aware of this by 2004 when the National Counter-Terrorism Centre with a common charter and a common data-base was set up by the Bush Administration under the newly-created post of Director National Intelligence (DNI).
b. He started working for the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) sometime in 2005. It is not clear whether he joined the LET at his own instance or at the instance of the FBI or the CIA or both in order to penetrate it. He was already visiting Pakistan at the instance of the DEA since 1998. Since 2006, he started visiting India too. The DEA and the FBI would have been aware of his visits since every time a conscious agent of an agency travels abroad his passport is scrutinized by the controlling agency on his return. This is a security precaution followed by all intelligence agencies.
c. He started working for the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri towards the end of 2008 and agreed to visit Copenhagen to collect operational information for a possible terrorist attack. This was probably not at the instance of the FBI, which came to know accidentally of Headley volunteering himself to undertake a task in Copenhagen while monitoring the chat room of the old students of the Army Cadet School at Hasan Abdal. Both Headley and Rana studied in the school. The FBI putHeadley under electronic surveillance after obtaining orders of a relevant court.
d. While doing the electronic surveillance to monitor his involvement in the Northern or Copenhagen or Micky Mouse project for the 313 Brigade, the FBI came across a series of E-mail intercepts in July and August, 2009, which showed that Headley had helped the LET in preparing itself for the 26/11 terrorist strikes and had agreed to help the LET in carrying out another terrorist strike in India for which he was to visit India. The FBI started monitoring the meetings and conversations of Headley and Rana and recorded their conversation of September 7, 2009, in a car which clearly indicated their involvement in the 26/11 terrorist strike.
e. The communications between Headley and his LET handler intercepted by the FBI in July and August also indicated that he was planning to visit India in October to prepare the ground for another terrorist strike. The FBI had two options---either allow him to go to India, alert the Indian intelligence and keep him under surveillance or arrest him before he left for Pakistan and India. If he had been allowed to go to India, watched there and arrested by the Indian intelligence, his past contacts with the US agencies and his role in 26/11 would have come to the notice of the Indian authorities. There is no evidence so far to show that till July 2009 the FBI was aware of his active role in 26/11. They were probably only aware of his frequent visits to Pakistan and India on behalf of the DEA operations. The FBI arrested him when he was about to leave for Pakistan and India on October 3.
=======================
J osy Joseph / DNATuesday, November 17, 2009 0:50 IST
New Delhi: Call it a bizarre coincidence but investigators are beginning to suspect an eerie connection between the timing of David Coleman Headley's India visits and the series of bomb blasts and terror strikes that rocked the country between 2006 and 2008.
A majority of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative's visits to India coincided with the attacks, which took place either just after he left the country, or just prior to his arrival. He was in the country in 2008, when bomb blasts had rocked Ahmedabad and Bangalore.
Sources say that many within the establishment are beginning to wonder why immigration authorities did not question Headley's movements at the time. He had often entered India through, as well as exited from the country to, Pakistan. His immigration forms were not properly filled on some occasions while, on others, his place of stay was marked incorrectly. "All this should have raised questions. But I suppose his American name was a great cover," says one officer.
The bomb blasts in New Delhi on the eve of Diwali in 2005 seemed to have been the starting point for a series of terror strikes in major cities in India. Subsequently, the number of major attacks outside of Jammu & Kashmir began to gain momentum and peaked with the Mumbai attacks last year in November.
Now, almost a year after the 26/11 carnage, and with several new angles to LeT operations emerging afresh after the arrest ofHeadley and his associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana, sources are beginning to take a deeper look into the movements of the duo in South Asia.
Headley's first trip to India was on a US passport 097536400, after he changed his name from Daood Gilani, on September 14. He came in from Karachi to Mumbai, and stayed for three months.
Six days before he landed, Malegaon was ripped apart by a series of blasts that killed 37 people. The police claim it was a LeT-SIMI plot.
The next time Headley landed in Mumbai was on February 22, 2007, just three days after the Samjhauta Express train blast. While the perpetrators of the blast remain a mystery, there has been evidence to point fingers at both Islamic terrorists as well as Hindu fringe groups.
His next visit lasted 53 days, after he landed in Mumbai from Colombo. Headley thereafter returned to Mumbai from Dubai on May 17. A day after he left, a blast took place at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad during Friday prayers.
In May-June 2007, Headley spent 18 days in Mumbai, coming in via Dubai. There were no immediate attacks but, three months later, Hyderabad is hit again, this time with three explosions that kill over 40 people. Intelligence agencies had then pointed fingers at the LeT-HUJI network in which Hyderabad resident Shahid Bilal was a key player. A few years before the blast, Bilal had gone to Pakistan where he emerged as a key terror player and helped LeT-HUJI recruit youngsters from Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere. Bilal was mysteriously shot dead a few months later in Karachi.
Headley visited Mumbai twice in the September-November 2007 period. Once, he came in from Dubai and the second time from Lahore to Delhi, and returning to Lahore subsequently. Investigators believe that it was during those trips that Headley may have started recording the targets and making other preparations for the 26/11 attacks - that is, if he was a part of the conspiracy.
Increasingly, Headley had also started coming into India directly from Pakistan, not via Dubai or any other stop.
Headley next arrived in Mumbai in April 2008, just for six days. Within a month of his leaving, serial blasts rocked Jaipur on May 13.
The next trip, lasting a month in July 2008, saw two serial blasts rocking the country. First, on July 25, a series of small bombs rock Bangalore, and the attack remained a mystery for long. In recent times, the Bangalore police have claimed that it was the handiwork of a group of Islamic terrorists and was planned in Kerala.
A day later, over 15 bombs went off in Ahmedabad, killing almost 50 people. The Indian Mujahideen, a shadow terror group, challenged the government to stop them in an email sent minutes before the attack.
Two months later, Delhi was shaken by serial blasts on September 13.
Months later, Tahawwur Hussain Rana landed in India, on November 12, 2008 on a business visa that was valid until the 30th of last month. He and his wife visited Kochi among other places and left via Dubai for Chicago on November 21. Five days later, the 10 terrorists landed in Mumbai to carry out the 26/11 mayhem.
Sources in the security establishment are still struggling to figure out what exactly were Rana and Headley up to. Was is just a reccee or were they recruiting foot-soldiers for terrorist strikes?
"FOR A NATIONAL STRUGGLE AGAINST IMPERIALISM, ZIONISM & BRAHMANISM"
:DEFEND THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION - DEFEND DEMOCRACY:
"DEADLY-HEADLEY = CIA / FBI = MUMBAI 26/11 TERROR ATTACK"
"CIA AGENT HEADLEY: PROVES AMERICAN COMPLICITY IN MUMBAI 26/11 TERROR ATTACK"
"EXTRADITE DAVID HEADLEY TO INDIA"
"AMERICAN-ISRAELI IMPERIALISTS - QUIT INDIA"
:PROGRAMME:
MARCH TO THE AMERICAN (TERROR) CENTRE, NEW MARINE LINES.
WE WILL CONGREGATE AT CHURCHGATE RLY STN (EAST),
ON THE LARGE FOOTPATH & THEN MARCH ON . . .
DATE: 29TH MARCH, 2010 (MONDAY) / TIME: 4.30pm ONWARDS . . . .
===============================
DAVIS COLEMAN HEADLEY IS A CIA-FBI AGENT &
USA is COMPLICIT IN THE MUMBAI 26/11 TERROR ATTACKS!!
The Government should be ashamed at the treatment being meted out to India by the US. It is clear that Headley is a mass murderer & is being protected & shielded by the Obama Administration. Leave alone being extradited, now Attorney-General Eric Holder tells us that that our security agencies will have no direct access to Headley at all. This is very clear from the statements of Timothy J. Roemer (US Ambassador) who stated that “no decision on direct access for India to David Headley has been made.”
It is clear to all who are sound if mind, as undoubtedly David Coleman Headley is a CIA-FBI operative whose task was to organize & expedite the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks. Thus the role of the CIA, FBI & Mossad in fomenting & planning the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks are proved beyond doubt & need to be investigated by the patriotic elements within the security apparatus & the media. Only the naive & corrupt can continue to deny this fact, more so to the detriment of our national sovereignty & security.
David Headley is a CIA asset & they have invested a lot of their precious resources in training him & therefore they are going to atrocious levels to protect him. The CIA always does. Thus under the cover of the American Judicial system, Headley will disappear into the prisons, soon acquire a new identity, new papers & documents, passports & Visas, Credit Cards & Bank Accounts . . . & will resurface, doing what he is best at, a terrorist-drug dealer-mercenary.
Undoubtedly, the CIA-FBI, which are the world’s leading mercenary agencies, whose forte is too engineer assassinations, terror & wars, has infiltrated sections of the Indian political leadership & our internal security, as it has the Pakistani ISI, Military & Political establishment.
Thus now the US intervention & occupation of the South Asian region is deepening by the day, as it keeps on increasing the tensions between India & Pakistan as well as China. It is an old imperial ploy of divide & rule along religious & sectarian lines as well as between nations.
The terror attack Mumbai 26/11, was directed at all of South Asia & this point must be understood by all those who are committed to the cause of South Asia.
The 26/11 terror attack has only aided the US/Israeli effort to create an atmosphere conducive to increasing its pervasive & corrupting influence in determining both our National & International policies. Very true indeed!!
Now the newspapers are clearly raising the issue of Headley being a CIA-FBI operative, a fact that we had stated initially as soon as the story appeared. The reports also state that the CIA was aware about the Headley-Rana linkage! Indian authorities had suspected that Headley was a CIA agent. There are taped conversations between Headley & Rana.
Moreover, the simple fact of the matter is that Headley is involved in the terror attack & should be immediately extradited to the Indian authorities for interrogation & should be tried & sentenced like Kasab (who is a mere foot-soldier & his trial is a contrived circus, despite all the media attention)
In the news report that appeared in the Indian Express (pg 5, 10/12/09), the hotel owner is openly blaming the police for having 'misplaced' Headley's 'C-form' & has filed a complaint on the matter. The hotel owner in his complaint to the Ajmer Superintendent of Police, has stated that he had also submitted the C-forms of two other Israelis along with that of Headley.
So why was Headley arrested by the FBI? The answer to that is that Indian Intel was hard on the heels of Headley & were about to arrest him. It was then that the FBI whisked away Headley to protect him. Now that he has been subjected to the laws of the US judicial system, he is beyond our reach. Leave alone a trial for Headley's central role in the 26/11 attacks, we do not even have the right to interrogate him.
In fact it is suspected that, it was Headley who was the CIA mole in the LeT, who was passing out information on the coming 26/11 terror attack. This was partly shared by the CIA with the Indian authorities & had specifically mentioned the Taj & that the attack would come by sea.
There are two significant points to note:
1) How much information did the CIA actually divulge to India - very very meagre it is clear.
2) More intriguingly with the Pakistani authorities & it's friends in the ISI & the Military with which the CIA has a very deep & intimate relationship, stretching over 6 decades - it supposedly shared none !!!
Any moron is full aware that a 26/11 style attack could lead to a war, in fact a nuclear war between India & Pakistan, then why did not the CIA warn it's friends on either side & thus prevent the attack ??
For the simple reason that it is in the strategic interests of the US & Israel to create a warlike situation across South Asia. The larger objective is for India to mobilise & deploy it's military into the war theatre in Afghanistan if required & later in the coming war on Iran, which is imminent. The tensions & warmongering has now fuelled an arms race & both the countries are amongst the top buyers of weapons, required to protect their half-starving masses.
Also do note that during the phase of the worst series of terror attacks between 2006-08, Headley was present in that period & was flying into India mainly from Pakistan. Yet our authorities did not once suspect or interrogate him?? Unfortunately the Indian People are not that naive. This clearly means that there are certain forces within the country that are allied to the US & Israel & working in tandem to foment terror attacks.
Do especially note the period between August 2007 & September 2008 as this was during which we passed through the worst national crisis over the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. The attacks coincide with Headleys' presence in India (Josy Joseph, 17/11/09, DNA ). The terror attacks in Hyderabad II (25/8/07), Bangalore (25/7/08), Ahmedabad & Surat (26/7/08) & Delhi (13/9/08). All these blasts made it easier for the pro-US elements to take the country into the American-Israeli strategic orbit in the name of fighting the global war on terror.
Again even the blasts that Shri Hemant Karkare has traced to the Abhinav Bharat, find a relation to Headley's footprints. Thus he is present during Malegaon (8/9/06), Samjhauta Express (19/2/07), Mecca Masjid, Hyderabad I (18/5/07).
Thus clearly Headley was also co-ordinating his attacks with the Abhinav Bharat & Sanatan Sanstha as well as with the Indian Mujahedeen (which is a creation of Intel services comprising criminals & informers from within the Muslim community).
We thus can infer the following from the latest revelation:
1) David Headley's trail as he traveled across the country to & identify the sites for terror attacks was & is being covered up by the police on the instructions of the pro-CIA/Mossad sections of the Intelligence Bureau.
2) This was the similar case in the city of Mumbai, where Headley's membership form at the 'Moksh Gymnasium' had both his photograph & signature 'missing'. The flat which he rented on Bridge Candy has no agreement papers & so is the case with his office in Tardeo.
3) The fact that the hotel owner also submitted two forms of Israeli's on that day, also could mean that Headley was also being guided by Mossad agents to identify Jewish targets, which they finally did & thus Nariman House.
4) Headley's very entry into the country has been managed with the connivance of the authorities at the highest levels. And thus even though Headley was a drug dealer having faced a jail sentence, Pakistani born, could still manage to get a clearance. Also do note that he was travelling directly via Pakistan into India. The clearance of his Visa from the Indian Consulate in Chicago actually requires criminal proceedings against the Indian Consul general, the Indian Ambassador & the Minister & the concerned officers in the Home Ministry in Delhi. That was the reason that the authorities panicked & said that Headley's papers at the Chicago Consulate had gone missing. They later found them. With changed signatures, we guess!
5) It is clear that after working for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Headley was later was recruited & trained by the CIA-FBI.
6) The CIA-FBI then used Headley in their plan to execute the 26/11 attack in Mumbai. Headley's task was to travel across the country, identify the targets & provide information to his CIA-FBI handlers. It was the CIA-FBI who then passed the information onto their ISI / LeT contacts in Pakistan.
7) Headley's role was also to draw in his LeT contacts to plan the 26/11 terror attacks.
8) The IB, that has been colluding with the CIA-FBI, instructed it's plants within the police force to cover Headley's trail, which they dutifully performed as is the case both in Mumbai & in Pushkar.
Thus as our inference on the Headley matter is the following:
a) It proves the fact that David Headley was a CIA-FBI agent sent to India to assist in the preparation & implementation of the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks.
b) The US intelligence, led by the CIA-FBI & the Israeli MOSSAD played a central role in co-ordinating the attack & America is complicit in the planning, financing & execution of the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks.
c) The CIA-FBI used their LeT / ISI agents in Pakistan to implement the same
d) Similarly the CIA-FBI along with certain elements & organizations within India were instrumental in fomenting the terror attack.
Undoubtedly the larger strategic objectives of the Imperial gameplan are being achieved, out of which one was to establish the CIA-FBI & Mossad as our allies & thus penetrate & undermine our external & internal security structures.
Just imagine, the CIA-FBI & Mossad are the sword arms of the Imperial project & not a whimper of protest from the secular-liberals or from the anti-Imperialist Left. Even the Obama Af-Pak surge has been barely opposed even though it deepens the US occupation of the South Asian region.
This only goes to prove as to how successful the Imperial strategy has been in creating an atmosphere for US meddling & intervention across South Asia & in neutralising the Left, Bahujans & the Muslim community by systematically promoting Islamophobia by deploying the weapon of terror.
But the Indian masses are far smarter & both the issues of the planned assassination of Shaheed Hemant Karakare & the Headley episode, have helped the People arrive at their own independent conclusions despite the disinformation campaigns unleashed by the pro-US/israeli elements within the Indian Government & the Corporate Media.
============================================
"SATYAMEV JAYATE - THE TRUTH WILL PREVAIL"
JAI HIND! JAI BHARAT! INQUILAB ZINDABAD!
FOR A SOUTH ASIAN UNION! ONE ASIA - UNITED ASIA!
================================================================
Feroze Mithiborwala (National President) -
Kishore Jagtap (National Convenor)
Madhu Shetye, Dinu Randive, Sagar Sarhadi, Arun Velaskar, Mukta Srivastava, Mulniwasi Mala, Sudhir Dhawale, Farid Khan, Bhagwan Kesbhat, Aslam Ghazi, S S Yadav, Jagdish Nagarkar, Uttam Gade, Simpreet Singh, Shyam Sonar, Yavar Ali Qazi,
Farrouk Mapkar,
Varsha V V, Sanjay Shinde, Shridhar Shirsagar, Sanjay Sakharkar, Pramod Shinde, Reshma Jagtap, Madhav Wagh, Baba Dalvi, Shravan Devre, Asif Khan, Valji Bhai, Abid Zaidi, Chetna Birje, Vilas Gaikwad, Avinash Kamble, Jyoti Badekar, Arif Kapadia, A. H. Faruqi, Aarti Bonkar, Ravi Joshi, Pooja Badekar, Munawwar Azad, Ghaza Azad, Manohar Rajguru, Munawwar Khan, Farid Batatawala, Mark Anthony, Winnie Eapen, Tito Eapen, Harshavardhan Vartak, Rahul Gupta, Shadab Sheikh, Dr. Ashwin Bhosle, Dr. Rizwan Sheikh, Santoash Khangaonkar & Sainath Shinde.
=====================================================================
:ORGANIZATIONS:
Awami Bharat , National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), Maratha Seva Sangh, Sambhaji Brigade, Trade Union Centre of India (TUCI), Indian Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), Qaumi Majlis-i-Shura, Aapli Mumbai, Safai Kaamgar Mazdoor Union, Republican Panther,
Phule-Ambedkari Vichar Manch, Jamaat-i-Islami-i-Hind, Aapli Mumbai, Marathi Bharati, All India Milli Council, National Minorities Federation,
OBC Parishad, Republican People of India, Marathi Bharti, Vidyarthi Bharti, Muslim Intellectual Forum, Gujarati Intellectual Forum,
Hindu Vikasini, Christian Panther, Yuva Sarkar, Ganai Sanskrutik Utthan
==================================================================
Contact: 98208 97517 / 93245 14101 / 93237 03158 / 99693 63065
JAI HIND! JAI BHARAT! INQUILAB ZINDABAD!
FOR A SOUTH ASIAN UNION! ONE ASIA - UNITED ASIA!
Address: c/o – Room No. 3, Plot No. 108, Borgaonkar Plot, Siddharth Clny, Swastik Nagar, Chembur, Mumbai.
=================================================================
Subject: "HEADLEY & 26/11 : U.S. PLAYS DIRTY ON INDIA" - B.RAMAN (Ex-Director of RAW)
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers38%5Cpaper3722.html
Paper no. 3722
18 - Mar - 2010
Headley & 26/11: US Plays Dirty on India - International Terrorism Monitor --- Paper No. 632
By B. Raman
Ever since the case of David Coleman Headley broke out in October, 2009, I have been repeatedly pointing out the following in my articles and TV interviews:
* Headley was a quadruple agent, who was working for the USA's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET).
* The FBI has already reached a plea bargain with him in order to avoid any formal production of evidence against him in the court which might result in details regarding his links with the US intelligence coming out.
* The FBI would not extradite him to India and would not allow the Indian agencies to have access to him in order to prevent the Indian agencies from questioning him about his links with the US intelligence on the one side and with the Pakistani intelligence on the other.
2. Extracts from two articles on this subject written by me on December 12 and 16, 2009, are annexed. What I have been writing and what I have been saying for the last five months has proved correct. The media has reported on the morning of March 18, 2010, thatHeadley was going to plead guilty to some charges as part of a plea bargain process entered into by him with the FBI. What does it mean? Firstly, there will be no formal introduction of the evidence against him and no cross-examination. Secondly, the relatives of the 166 innocent persons killed in the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist strikes cannot seek the permission of the court to be represented by a lawyer to question him on the details of his involvement in the 26/11 terrorist strikes. Thirdly, the details of his links with the US intelligence community will be covered up. Fourthly, the two Pakistani nationals living in Pakistan----Ilyas Kashmiri of the 313 Brigade, who had threatened terrorist strikes in India during the major sports events of this year, and Maj. (retd) Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha of the Pakistan Army, who have been cited as co-accused in the FBI case against Headleybecause of their role as his handling officers, will escape prosecution.
3. Unless one is naive beyond redemption, it was clear from the beginning that the Obama Administration and its FBI were trying frantically to prevent the truth regardingHeadley from coming out. I wrote on December 12, 2009: "Senior officials of the White House and the FBI have been taking close and unusual interest in the investigation and prosecution. The Director of the FBI himself was reported to have visited Chicago beforeHeadley was produced before the court. Many in India have analysed this as indicative of the close interest taken by President Obama in counter-terrorism co-operation with India.A more plausible explanation is that this is indicative of the concerns in the White House and the FBI that if the prosecution is not properly handled, the case could result in a bombshell if it emerges that one of the active conspirators of 26/11 was an agent of a US agency. This could lead to suits for heavy damages against the US Government from the relatives of the Americans, Israelis and other foreigners killed."
4. Headley will be protected. The FBI will be protected. The US administration will be protected. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) will be protected. The Pakistani Government and its Army will be protected.
5. Only we poor Indians will remain unprotected because the Govt. of India headed by Dr.Manmohan Singh cannot protect us.
6. What naivete, Mr.Prime Minister! What naivete!
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. )
E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com
ANNEXURE I
(Extracts from my article of December 12,2009, titled " FBI Avoiding Focus onHeadley’s Links With Narcotics Control Agency" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3545.html)
Sections of the US media have pointed out that the fact that the report filed against him by the FBI in the court on December 7 was called a Criminal Information Report and not an indictment indicates that the FBI has already reached a plea bargain deal with him under which as a quid pro quo for his admitting some charges when the trial formally commences next month, the FBI will not press other charges against him. His admitting some charges and the FBI dropping other charges will obviate the need for an elaborate trial with the introduction of detailed evidence.
This would prevent any deliberate or inadvertent disclosure by him of his work in the Af-Pak region for the DEA, which works in close co-operation with its Pakistani counterpart. The two have many joint operations.
It is very likely that the US will not allow his independent interrogation by Indian investigators and that it will not agree to his extradition to India as that might result in the Indian authorities coming to know not only of his contacts with Pakistani agencies, but also with the DEA.
Senior officials of the White House and the FBI have been taking close and unusual interest in the investigation and prosecution. The Director of the FBI himself was reported to have visited Chicago before Headley was produced before the court. Many in India have analysed this as indicative of the close interest taken by President Obama in counter-terrorism co-operation with India. A more plausible explanation is that this is indicative of the concerns in the White House and the FBI that if the prosecution is not properly handled, the case could result in a bombshell if it emerges that one of the active conspirators of 26/11 was an agent of a US agency. This could lead to suits for heavy damages against the US Government from the relatives of the Americans, Israelis and other foreigners killed.
ANNEXURE II
( Extracts from my article of December 16,2009, titled " "Headley: A Quadruple Agent" -
at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3552.html )
By studying these extracts submitted by the FBI along with other FBI documents submitted by the FBI to the court and US media reports about Headley’s links with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),one can make the following assessment:
a. Headley was not a double agent, but a quadruple agent. He initially started working for the DEA around 1998. Even if one presumes that initially the FBI and the CIA were not aware of this, they should have become aware of this by 2004 when the National Counter-Terrorism Centre with a common charter and a common data-base was set up by the Bush Administration under the newly-created post of Director National Intelligence (DNI).
b. He started working for the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) sometime in 2005. It is not clear whether he joined the LET at his own instance or at the instance of the FBI or the CIA or both in order to penetrate it. He was already visiting Pakistan at the instance of the DEA since 1998. Since 2006, he started visiting India too. The DEA and the FBI would have been aware of his visits since every time a conscious agent of an agency travels abroad his passport is scrutinized by the controlling agency on his return. This is a security precaution followed by all intelligence agencies.
c. He started working for the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri towards the end of 2008 and agreed to visit Copenhagen to collect operational information for a possible terrorist attack. This was probably not at the instance of the FBI, which came to know accidentally of Headley volunteering himself to undertake a task in Copenhagen while monitoring the chat room of the old students of the Army Cadet School at Hasan Abdal. Both Headley and Rana studied in the school. The FBI putHeadley under electronic surveillance after obtaining orders of a relevant court.
d. While doing the electronic surveillance to monitor his involvement in the Northern or Copenhagen or Micky Mouse project for the 313 Brigade, the FBI came across a series of E-mail intercepts in July and August, 2009, which showed that Headley had helped the LET in preparing itself for the 26/11 terrorist strikes and had agreed to help the LET in carrying out another terrorist strike in India for which he was to visit India. The FBI started monitoring the meetings and conversations of Headley and Rana and recorded their conversation of September 7, 2009, in a car which clearly indicated their involvement in the 26/11 terrorist strike.
e. The communications between Headley and his LET handler intercepted by the FBI in July and August also indicated that he was planning to visit India in October to prepare the ground for another terrorist strike. The FBI had two options---either allow him to go to India, alert the Indian intelligence and keep him under surveillance or arrest him before he left for Pakistan and India. If he had been allowed to go to India, watched there and arrested by the Indian intelligence, his past contacts with the US agencies and his role in 26/11 would have come to the notice of the Indian authorities. There is no evidence so far to show that till July 2009 the FBI was aware of his active role in 26/11. They were probably only aware of his frequent visits to Pakistan and India on behalf of the DEA operations. The FBI arrested him when he was about to leave for Pakistan and India on October 3.
=======================
J osy Joseph / DNATuesday, November 17, 2009 0:50 IST
New Delhi: Call it a bizarre coincidence but investigators are beginning to suspect an eerie connection between the timing of David Coleman Headley's India visits and the series of bomb blasts and terror strikes that rocked the country between 2006 and 2008.
A majority of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative's visits to India coincided with the attacks, which took place either just after he left the country, or just prior to his arrival. He was in the country in 2008, when bomb blasts had rocked Ahmedabad and Bangalore.
Sources say that many within the establishment are beginning to wonder why immigration authorities did not question Headley's movements at the time. He had often entered India through, as well as exited from the country to, Pakistan. His immigration forms were not properly filled on some occasions while, on others, his place of stay was marked incorrectly. "All this should have raised questions. But I suppose his American name was a great cover," says one officer.
The bomb blasts in New Delhi on the eve of Diwali in 2005 seemed to have been the starting point for a series of terror strikes in major cities in India. Subsequently, the number of major attacks outside of Jammu & Kashmir began to gain momentum and peaked with the Mumbai attacks last year in November.
Now, almost a year after the 26/11 carnage, and with several new angles to LeT operations emerging afresh after the arrest ofHeadley and his associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana, sources are beginning to take a deeper look into the movements of the duo in South Asia.
Headley's first trip to India was on a US passport 097536400, after he changed his name from Daood Gilani, on September 14. He came in from Karachi to Mumbai, and stayed for three months.
Six days before he landed, Malegaon was ripped apart by a series of blasts that killed 37 people. The police claim it was a LeT-SIMI plot.
The next time Headley landed in Mumbai was on February 22, 2007, just three days after the Samjhauta Express train blast. While the perpetrators of the blast remain a mystery, there has been evidence to point fingers at both Islamic terrorists as well as Hindu fringe groups.
His next visit lasted 53 days, after he landed in Mumbai from Colombo. Headley thereafter returned to Mumbai from Dubai on May 17. A day after he left, a blast took place at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad during Friday prayers.
In May-June 2007, Headley spent 18 days in Mumbai, coming in via Dubai. There were no immediate attacks but, three months later, Hyderabad is hit again, this time with three explosions that kill over 40 people. Intelligence agencies had then pointed fingers at the LeT-HUJI network in which Hyderabad resident Shahid Bilal was a key player. A few years before the blast, Bilal had gone to Pakistan where he emerged as a key terror player and helped LeT-HUJI recruit youngsters from Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere. Bilal was mysteriously shot dead a few months later in Karachi.
Headley visited Mumbai twice in the September-November 2007 period. Once, he came in from Dubai and the second time from Lahore to Delhi, and returning to Lahore subsequently. Investigators believe that it was during those trips that Headley may have started recording the targets and making other preparations for the 26/11 attacks - that is, if he was a part of the conspiracy.
Increasingly, Headley had also started coming into India directly from Pakistan, not via Dubai or any other stop.
Headley next arrived in Mumbai in April 2008, just for six days. Within a month of his leaving, serial blasts rocked Jaipur on May 13.
The next trip, lasting a month in July 2008, saw two serial blasts rocking the country. First, on July 25, a series of small bombs rock Bangalore, and the attack remained a mystery for long. In recent times, the Bangalore police have claimed that it was the handiwork of a group of Islamic terrorists and was planned in Kerala.
A day later, over 15 bombs went off in Ahmedabad, killing almost 50 people. The Indian Mujahideen, a shadow terror group, challenged the government to stop them in an email sent minutes before the attack.
Two months later, Delhi was shaken by serial blasts on September 13.
Months later, Tahawwur Hussain Rana landed in India, on November 12, 2008 on a business visa that was valid until the 30th of last month. He and his wife visited Kochi among other places and left via Dubai for Chicago on November 21. Five days later, the 10 terrorists landed in Mumbai to carry out the 26/11 mayhem.
Sources in the security establishment are still struggling to figure out what exactly were Rana and Headley up to. Was is just a reccee or were they recruiting foot-soldiers for terrorist strikes?
think........
"Mumbai 26/11 Truth": Kissinger in Mumbai a week before 26/11
Question- WAS HENRY KISSINGER'S VISIT TO MUMBAI SAME WEEK APPEARING ON NATIONAL TV AND TALK SHOWS PRAISING INDIA'S
ROLE IN THE WAR ON TERROR A MERE COINCIDENCE ?
Debbie Menon
Question- WAS HENRY KISSINGER'S VISIT TO MUMBAI SAME WEEK APPEARING ON NATIONAL TV AND TALK SHOWS PRAISING INDIA'S
ROLE IN THE WAR ON TERROR A MERE COINCIDENCE ?
Debbie Menon
Extradite CIA Agent Headley: March to American Centre, Churchgate Stn (E), 29/03/10, 4.30pm
BHARAT -BACHAO -ANDOLAN
"FOR A NATIONAL STRUGGLE AGAINST IMPERIALISM, ZIONISM & BRAHMANISM"
:DEFEND THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION - DEFEND DEMOCRACY:
"DEADLY-HEADLEY = CIA / FBI = MUMBAI 26/11 TERROR ATTACK"
"CIA AGENT HEADLEY: PROVES AMERICAN COMPLICITY
IN MUMBAI 26/11 TERROR ATTACK"
"EXTRADITE DAVID HEADLEY TO INDIA"
"AMERICAN-ISRAELI IMPERIALISTS - QUIT INDIA"
:PROGRAMME:
MARCH TO THE AMERICAN (TERROR) CENTRE, NEW MARINE LINES.
WE WILL CONGREGATE AT CHURCHGATE RLY STN (EAST),
ON THE LARGE FOOTPATH & THEN MARCH ON . . .
DATE: 29TH MARCH, 2010 (MONDAY) / TIME: 4.30pm ONWARDS . . . .
===============================
DAVIS COLEMAN HEADLEY IS A CIA-FBI AGENT &
COMPLICIT IN THE MUMBAI 26/11 TERROR ATTACKS!!
The Government should be ashamed at the treatment being meted out to India by the US administration. It is clear that Headley is a mass murderer & is being protected & shielded by the Obama Administration. Leave alone being extradited, now Attorney-General Eric Holder tells us that that our security agencies will have no direct access to Headley at all as . This is very clear from the statements of Timothy J. Roemer (US Ambassador) who stated that “no decision on direct access for India to David Headley has been made.”
It is clear to all who are sound if mind, as undoubtedly David Coleman Headley is a CIA-FBI operative whose task was to organize & expedite the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks. Thus the role of the CIA, FBI & Mossad in fomenting & planning the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks are proved beyond doubt & need to be investigated by the patriotic elements within the security apparatus & the media. Only the naive & corrupt can continue to deny this fact, more so to the detriment of our national sovereignty & security.
David Headley is a CIA asset & they have invested a lot of their precious resources in training him & therefore they are going to atrocious levels to protect him. Thus under the cover of the American Judicial system, Headley will disappear into the prisons, soon acquire a new identity, new papers & documents, passports & Visas, Credit Cards & Bank Accounts . . . & will resurface, doing what he is best at, a terrorist-drug dealer-mercenary.
Undoubtedly, the CIA-FBI, which are the world’s leading mercenary agencies, whose forte is too engineer assassinations, terror & wars, has infiltrated sections of the Indian political leadership & our internal security, as it has the Pakistani ISI, Military & Political establishment.
Thus now the US intervention & occupation of the South Asian region is deepening by the day, as it keeps on increasing the tensions between India & Pakistan as well as China. It is an old imperial ploy of divide & rule along religious & sectarian lines as well as between nations.
The terror attack Mumbai 26/11, was directed at all of South Asia & this point must be understood by all those who are committed to the cause of South Asia.
The 26/11 terror attack has only aided the US/Israeli effort to create an atmosphere conducive to increasing its pervasive & corrupting influence in determining both our National & International policies. Very true indeed!!
Now the newspapers are clearly raising the issue of Headley being a CIA-FBI operative, a fact that we had stated initially as soon as the story appeared. The reports also state that the CIA was aware about the Headley-Rana linkage! Indian authorities had suspected that Headley was a CIA agent. There are taped conversations between Headley & Rana.
Moreover, the simple fact of the matter is that Headley is involved in the terror attack & should be immediately extradited to the Indian authorities for interrogation & should be tried & sentenced like Kasab (who is a mere foot-soldier & his trial is a contrived circus, despite all the media attention)
In the news report that appeared in the Indian Express (pg 5, 10/12/09), the hotel owner is openly blaming the police for having 'misplaced' Headley's 'C-form' & has filed a complaint on the matter. The hotel owner in his complaint to the Ajmer Superintendent of Police, has stated that he had also submitted the C-forms of two other Israelis along with that of Headley.
So why was Headley arrested by the FBI? The answer to that is that Indian Intel was hard on the heels of Headley & were about to arrest him. It was then that the FBI whisked away Headley to protect him. Now that he has been subjected to the laws of the US judicial system, he is beyond our reach. Leave alone a trial for Headley's central role in the 26/11 attacks, we do not even have the right to interrogate him.
In fact it is suspected that, it was Headley who was the CIA mole in the LeT, who was passing out information on the coming 26/11 terror attack. This was partly shared by the CIA with the Indian authorities & had specifically mentioned the Taj & that the attack would come by sea.
There are two significant points to note:
1) How much information did the CIA actually divulge to India - very very meagre it is clear.
2) More intriguingly with the Pakistani authorities & it's friends in the ISI & the Military with which the CIA has a very deep & intimate relationship, stretching over 6 decades - it supposedly shared none !!!
Any moron is full aware that a 26/11 style attack could lead to a war, in fact a nuclear war between India & Pakistan, then why did not the CIA warn it's friends on either side & thus prevent the attack ??
For the simple reason that it is in the strategic interests of the US & Israel to create a warlike situation across South Asia. The larger objective is for India to mobilise & deploy it's military into the war theatre in Afghanistan if required & later in the coming war on Iran, which is imminent. The tensions & warmongering has now fuelled an arms race & both the countries are amongst the top buyers of weapons, required to protect their half-starving masses.
Also do note that during the phase of the worst series of terror attacks between 2006-08, Headley was present in that period & was flying into India mainly from Pakistan. Yet our authorities did not once suspect or interrogate him?? Unfortunately the Indian People are not that naive. This clearly means that there are certain forces within the country that are allied to the US & Israel & working in tandem to foment terror attacks.
Do especially note the period between August 2007 & September 2008 as this was during which we passed through the worst national crisis over the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. The attacks coincide with Headleys' presence in India (Josy Joseph, 17/11/09, DNA ). The terror attacks in Hyderabad II (25/8/07), Bangalore (25/7/08), Ahmedabad & Surat (26/7/08) & Delhi (13/9/08). All these blasts made it easier for the pro-US elements to take the country into the American-Israeli strategic orbit in the name of fighting the global war on terror.
Again even the blasts that Shri Hemant Karkare has traced to the Abhinav Bharat, find a relation to Headley's footprints. Thus he is present during Malegaon (8/9/06), Samjhauta Express (19/2/07), Mecca Masjid, Hyderabad I (18/5/07).
Thus clearly Headley was also co-ordinating his attacks with the Abhinav Bharat & Sanatan Sanstha as well as with the Indian Mujahedeen (which is a creation of Intel services comprising criminals & informers from within the Muslim community).
We thus can infer the following from the latest revelation:
1) David Headley's trail as he traveled across the country to & identify the sites for terror attacks was & is being covered up by the police on the instructions of the pro-CIA/Mossad sections of the Intelligence Bureau.
2) This was the similar case in the city of Mumbai, where Headley's membership form at the 'Moksh Gymnasium' had both his photograph & signature 'missing'. The flat which he rented on Bridge Candy has no agreement papers & so is the case with his office in Tardeo.
3) The fact that the hotel owner also submitted two forms of Israeli's on that day, also could mean that Headley was also being guided by Mossad agents to identify Jewish targets, which they finally did & thus Nariman House.
4) Headley's very entry into the country has been managed with the connivance of the authorities at the highest levels. And thus even though Headley was a drug dealer having faced a jail sentence, Pakistani born, could still manage to get a clearance. Also do note that he was travelling directly via Pakistan into India. The clearance of his Visa from the Indian Consulate in Chicago actually requires criminal proceedings against the Indian Consul general, the Indian Ambassador & the Minister & the concerned officers in the Home Ministry in Delhi. That was the reason that the authorities panicked & said that Headley's papers at the Chicago Consulate had gone missing. They later found them. With changed signatures, we guess!
5) It is clear that after working for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Headley was later was recruited & trained by the CIA-FBI.
6) The CIA-FBI then used Headley in their plan to execute the 26/11 attack in Mumbai. Headley's task was to travel across the country, identify the targets & provide information to his CIA-FBI handlers. It was the CIA-FBI who then passed the information onto their ISI / LeT contacts in Pakistan.
7) Headley's role was also to draw in his LeT contacts to plan the 26/11 terror attacks.
8) The IB, that has been colluding with the CIA-FBI, instructed it's plants within the police force to cover Headley's trail, which they dutifully performed as is the case both in Mumbai & in Pushkar.
Thus as our inference on the Headley matter is the following:
a) It proves the fact that David Headley was a CIA-FBI agent sent to India to assist in the preparation & implementation of the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks.
b) The US intelligence, led by the CIA-FBI & the Israeli MOSSAD played a central role in co-ordinating the attack & America is complicit in the planning, financing & execution of the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks.
c) The CIA-FBI used their LeT / ISI agents in Pakistan to implement the same
d) Similarly the CIA-FBI along with certain elements & organizations within India were instrumental in fomenting the terror attack.
Undoubtedly the larger strategic objectives of the Imperial gameplan are being achieved, out of which one was to establish the CIA-FBI & Mossad as our allies & thus penetrate & undermine our external & internal security structures.
Just imagine, the CIA-FBI & Mossad are the sword arms of the Imperial project & not a whimper of protest from the secular-liberals or from the anti-Imperialist Left. Even the Obama Af-Pak surge has been barely opposed even though it deepens the US occupation of the South Asian region.
This only goes to prove as to how successful the Imperial strategy has been in creating an atmosphere for US meddling & intervention across South Asia & in neutralising the Left, Bahujans & the Muslim community by systematically promoting Islamophobia by deploying the weapon of terror.
But the Indian masses are far smarter & both the issues of the planned assassination of Shaheed Hemant Karakare & the Headley episode, have helped the People arrive at their own independent conclusions despite the disinformation campaigns unleashed by the pro-US/israeli elements within the Indian Government & the Corporate Media.
============================================
"SATYAMEV JAYATE - THE TRUTH WILL PREVAIL"
JAI HIND! JAI BHARAT! INQUILAB ZINDABAD!
FOR A SOUTH ASIAN UNION! ONE ASIA - UNITED ASIA!
================================================================
Feroze Mithiborwala (National President) -
Kishore Jagtap (National Convenor)
Madhu Shetye, Dinu Randive, Sagar Sarhadi, Arun Velaskar, Mukta Srivastava, Mulniwasi Mala, Sudhir Dhawale, Farid Khan, Bhagwan Kesbhat, Aslam Ghazi, S S Yadav, Jagdish Nagarkar, Uttam Gade, Simpreet Singh, Shyam Sonar, Yavar Ali Qazi,
Farrouk Mapkar,
Varsha V V, Sanjay Shinde, Shridhar Shirsagar, Sanjay Sakharkar, Pramod Shinde, Reshma Jagtap, Madhav Wagh, Baba Dalvi, Shravan Devre, Asif Khan, Valji Bhai, Abid Zaidi, Chetna Birje, Vilas Gaikwad, Avinash Kamble, Jyoti Badekar, Arif Kapadia, A. H. Faruqi, Aarti Bonkar, Ravi Joshi, Pooja Badekar, Munawwar Azad, Ghaza Azad, Manohar Rajguru, Munawwar Khan, Farid Batatawala, Mark Anthony, Winnie Eapen, Tito Eapen, Harshavardhan Vartak, Rahul Gupta, Shadab Sheikh, Dr. Ashwin Bhosle, Dr. Rizwan Sheikh, Santoash Khangaonkar & Sainath Shinde.
=====================================================================
:ORGANIZATIONS:
Awami Bharat , National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), Maratha Seva Sangh, Sambhaji Brigade, Trade Union Centre of India (TUCI), Indian Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), Qaumi Majlis-i-Shura, Aapli Mumbai, Safai Kaamgar Mazdoor Union, Republican Panther,
Phule-Ambedkari Vichar Manch, Jamaat-i-Islami-i-Hind, Aapli Mumbai, Marathi Bharati, All India Milli Council, National Minorities Federation,
OBC Parishad, Republican People of India, Marathi Bharti, Vidyarthi Bharti, Muslim Intellectual Forum, Gujarati Intellectual Forum,
Hindu Vikasini, Christian Panther, Yuva Sarkar, Ganai Sanskrutik Utthan
==================================================================
Contact: 98208 97517 / 93245 14101 / 93237 03158 / 99693 63065
JAI HIND! JAI BHARAT! INQUILAB ZINDABAD!
FOR A SOUTH ASIAN UNION! ONE ASIA - UNITED ASIA!
Address: c/o – Room No. 3, Plot No. 108, Borgaonkar Plot, Siddharth Clny, Swastik Nagar, Chembur, Mumbai.
=================================================================
Subject: "HEADLEY & 26/11 : U.S. PLAYS DIRTY ON INDIA" - B.RAMAN (Ex-Director of RAW)
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers38%5Cpaper3722.html
Paper no. 3722
18 - Mar - 2010
Headley & 26/11: US Plays Dirty on India - International Terrorism Monitor --- Paper No. 632
By B. Raman
Ever since the case of David Coleman Headley broke out in October, 2009, I have been repeatedly pointing out the following in my articles and TV interviews:
* Headley was a quadruple agent, who was working for the USA's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET).
* The FBI has already reached a plea bargain with him in order to avoid any formal production of evidence against him in the court which might result in details regarding his links with the US intelligence coming out.
* The FBI would not extradite him to India and would not allow the Indian agencies to have access to him in order to prevent the Indian agencies from questioning him about his links with the US intelligence on the one side and with the Pakistani intelligence on the other.
2. Extracts from two articles on this subject written by me on December 12 and 16, 2009, are annexed. What I have been writing and what I have been saying for the last five months has proved correct. The media has reported on the morning of March 18, 2010, thatHeadley was going to plead guilty to some charges as part of a plea bargain process entered into by him with the FBI. What does it mean? Firstly, there will be no formal introduction of the evidence against him and no cross-examination. Secondly, the relatives of the 166 innocent persons killed in the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist strikes cannot seek the permission of the court to be represented by a lawyer to question him on the details of his involvement in the 26/11 terrorist strikes. Thirdly, the details of his links with the US intelligence community will be covered up. Fourthly, the two Pakistani nationals living in Pakistan----Ilyas Kashmiri of the 313 Brigade, who had threatened terrorist strikes in India during the major sports events of this year, and Maj. (retd) Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha of the Pakistan Army, who have been cited as co-accused in the FBI case against Headleybecause of their role as his handling officers, will escape prosecution.
3. Unless one is naive beyond redemption, it was clear from the beginning that the Obama Administration and its FBI were trying frantically to prevent the truth regardingHeadley from coming out. I wrote on December 12, 2009: "Senior officials of the White House and the FBI have been taking close and unusual interest in the investigation and prosecution. The Director of the FBI himself was reported to have visited Chicago beforeHeadley was produced before the court. Many in India have analysed this as indicative of the close interest taken by President Obama in counter-terrorism co-operation with India.A more plausible explanation is that this is indicative of the concerns in the White House and the FBI that if the prosecution is not properly handled, the case could result in a bombshell if it emerges that one of the active conspirators of 26/11 was an agent of a US agency. This could lead to suits for heavy damages against the US Government from the relatives of the Americans, Israelis and other foreigners killed."
4. Headley will be protected. The FBI will be protected. The US administration will be protected. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) will be protected. The Pakistani Government and its Army will be protected.
5. Only we poor Indians will remain unprotected because the Govt. of India headed by Dr.Manmohan Singh cannot protect us.
6. What naivete, Mr.Prime Minister! What naivete!
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. )
E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com
ANNEXURE I
(Extracts from my article of December 12,2009, titled " FBI Avoiding Focus onHeadley’s Links With Narcotics Control Agency" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3545.html)
Sections of the US media have pointed out that the fact that the report filed against him by the FBI in the court on December 7 was called a Criminal Information Report and not an indictment indicates that the FBI has already reached a plea bargain deal with him under which as a quid pro quo for his admitting some charges when the trial formally commences next month, the FBI will not press other charges against him. His admitting some charges and the FBI dropping other charges will obviate the need for an elaborate trial with the introduction of detailed evidence.
This would prevent any deliberate or inadvertent disclosure by him of his work in the Af-Pak region for the DEA, which works in close co-operation with its Pakistani counterpart. The two have many joint operations.
It is very likely that the US will not allow his independent interrogation by Indian investigators and that it will not agree to his extradition to India as that might result in the Indian authorities coming to know not only of his contacts with Pakistani agencies, but also with the DEA.
Senior officials of the White House and the FBI have been taking close and unusual interest in the investigation and prosecution. The Director of the FBI himself was reported to have visited Chicago before Headley was produced before the court. Many in India have analysed this as indicative of the close interest taken by President Obama in counter-terrorism co-operation with India. A more plausible explanation is that this is indicative of the concerns in the White House and the FBI that if the prosecution is not properly handled, the case could result in a bombshell if it emerges that one of the active conspirators of 26/11 was an agent of a US agency. This could lead to suits for heavy damages against the US Government from the relatives of the Americans, Israelis and other foreigners killed.
ANNEXURE II
( Extracts from my article of December 16,2009, titled " "Headley: A Quadruple Agent" -
at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3552.html )
By studying these extracts submitted by the FBI along with other FBI documents submitted by the FBI to the court and US media reports about Headley’s links with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),one can make the following assessment:
a. Headley was not a double agent, but a quadruple agent. He initially started working for the DEA around 1998. Even if one presumes that initially the FBI and the CIA were not aware of this, they should have become aware of this by 2004 when the National Counter-Terrorism Centre with a common charter and a common data-base was set up by the Bush Administration under the newly-created post of Director National Intelligence (DNI).
b. He started working for the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) sometime in 2005. It is not clear whether he joined the LET at his own instance or at the instance of the FBI or the CIA or both in order to penetrate it. He was already visiting Pakistan at the instance of the DEA since 1998. Since 2006, he started visiting India too. The DEA and the FBI would have been aware of his visits since every time a conscious agent of an agency travels abroad his passport is scrutinized by the controlling agency on his return. This is a security precaution followed by all intelligence agencies.
c. He started working for the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri towards the end of 2008 and agreed to visit Copenhagen to collect operational information for a possible terrorist attack. This was probably not at the instance of the FBI, which came to know accidentally of Headley volunteering himself to undertake a task in Copenhagen while monitoring the chat room of the old students of the Army Cadet School at Hasan Abdal. Both Headley and Rana studied in the school. The FBI putHeadley under electronic surveillance after obtaining orders of a relevant court.
d. While doing the electronic surveillance to monitor his involvement in the Northern or Copenhagen or Micky Mouse project for the 313 Brigade, the FBI came across a series of E-mail intercepts in July and August, 2009, which showed that Headley had helped the LET in preparing itself for the 26/11 terrorist strikes and had agreed to help the LET in carrying out another terrorist strike in India for which he was to visit India. The FBI started monitoring the meetings and conversations of Headley and Rana and recorded their conversation of September 7, 2009, in a car which clearly indicated their involvement in the 26/11 terrorist strike.
e. The communications between Headley and his LET handler intercepted by the FBI in July and August also indicated that he was planning to visit India in October to prepare the ground for another terrorist strike. The FBI had two options---either allow him to go to India, alert the Indian intelligence and keep him under surveillance or arrest him before he left for Pakistan and India. If he had been allowed to go to India, watched there and arrested by the Indian intelligence, his past contacts with the US agencies and his role in 26/11 would have come to the notice of the Indian authorities. There is no evidence so far to show that till July 2009 the FBI was aware of his active role in 26/11. They were probably only aware of his frequent visits to Pakistan and India on behalf of the DEA operations. The FBI arrested him when he was about to leave for Pakistan and India on October 3.
=======================
J osy Joseph / DNATuesday, November 17, 2009 0:50 IST
New Delhi: Call it a bizarre coincidence but investigators are beginning to suspect an eerie connection between the timing of David Coleman Headley's India visits and the series of bomb blasts and terror strikes that rocked the country between 2006 and 2008.
A majority of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative's visits to India coincided with the attacks, which took place either just after he left the country, or just prior to his arrival. He was in the country in 2008, when bomb blasts had rocked Ahmedabad and Bangalore.
Sources say that many within the establishment are beginning to wonder why immigration authorities did not question Headley's movements at the time. He had often entered India through, as well as exited from the country to, Pakistan. His immigration forms were not properly filled on some occasions while, on others, his place of stay was marked incorrectly. "All this should have raised questions. But I suppose his American name was a great cover," says one officer.
The bomb blasts in New Delhi on the eve of Diwali in 2005 seemed to have been the starting point for a series of terror strikes in major cities in India. Subsequently, the number of major attacks outside of Jammu & Kashmir began to gain momentum and peaked with the Mumbai attacks last year in November.
Now, almost a year after the 26/11 carnage, and with several new angles to LeT operations emerging afresh after the arrest ofHeadley and his associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana, sources are beginning to take a deeper look into the movements of the duo in South Asia.
Headley's first trip to India was on a US passport 097536400, after he changed his name from Daood Gilani, on September 14. He came in from Karachi to Mumbai, and stayed for three months.
Six days before he landed, Malegaon was ripped apart by a series of blasts that killed 37 people. The police claim it was a LeT-SIMI plot.
The next time Headley landed in Mumbai was on February 22, 2007, just three days after the Samjhauta Express train blast. While the perpetrators of the blast remain a mystery, there has been evidence to point fingers at both Islamic terrorists as well as Hindu fringe groups.
His next visit lasted 53 days, after he landed in Mumbai from Colombo. Headley thereafter returned to Mumbai from Dubai on May 17. A day after he left, a blast took place at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad during Friday prayers.
In May-June 2007, Headley spent 18 days in Mumbai, coming in via Dubai. There were no immediate attacks but, three months later, Hyderabad is hit again, this time with three explosions that kill over 40 people. Intelligence agencies had then pointed fingers at the LeT-HUJI network in which Hyderabad resident Shahid Bilal was a key player. A few years before the blast, Bilal had gone to Pakistan where he emerged as a key terror player and helped LeT-HUJI recruit youngsters from Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere. Bilal was mysteriously shot dead a few months later in Karachi.
Headley visited Mumbai twice in the September-November 2007 period. Once, he came in from Dubai and the second time from Lahore to Delhi, and returning to Lahore subsequently. Investigators believe that it was during those trips that Headley may have started recording the targets and making other preparations for the 26/11 attacks - that is, if he was a part of the conspiracy.
Increasingly, Headley had also started coming into India directly from Pakistan, not via Dubai or any other stop.
Headley next arrived in Mumbai in April 2008, just for six days. Within a month of his leaving, serial blasts rocked Jaipur on May 13.
The next trip, lasting a month in July 2008, saw two serial blasts rocking the country. First, on July 25, a series of small bombs rock Bangalore, and the attack remained a mystery for long. In recent times, the Bangalore police have claimed that it was the handiwork of a group of Islamic terrorists and was planned in Kerala.
A day later, over 15 bombs went off in Ahmedabad, killing almost 50 people. The Indian Mujahideen, a shadow terror group, challenged the government to stop them in an email sent minutes before the attack.
Two months later, Delhi was shaken by serial blasts on September 13.
Months later, Tahawwur Hussain Rana landed in India, on November 12, 2008 on a business visa that was valid until the 30th of last month. He and his wife visited Kochi among other places and left via Dubai for Chicago on November 21. Five days later, the 10 terrorists landed in Mumbai to carry out the 26/11 mayhem.
Sources in the security establishment are still struggling to figure out what exactly were Rana and Headley up to. Was is just a reccee or were they recruiting foot-soldiers for terrorist strikes?
"FOR A NATIONAL STRUGGLE AGAINST IMPERIALISM, ZIONISM & BRAHMANISM"
:DEFEND THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION - DEFEND DEMOCRACY:
"DEADLY-HEADLEY = CIA / FBI = MUMBAI 26/11 TERROR ATTACK"
"CIA AGENT HEADLEY: PROVES AMERICAN COMPLICITY
IN MUMBAI 26/11 TERROR ATTACK"
"EXTRADITE DAVID HEADLEY TO INDIA"
"AMERICAN-ISRAELI IMPERIALISTS - QUIT INDIA"
:PROGRAMME:
MARCH TO THE AMERICAN (TERROR) CENTRE, NEW MARINE LINES.
WE WILL CONGREGATE AT CHURCHGATE RLY STN (EAST),
ON THE LARGE FOOTPATH & THEN MARCH ON . . .
DATE: 29TH MARCH, 2010 (MONDAY) / TIME: 4.30pm ONWARDS . . . .
===============================
DAVIS COLEMAN HEADLEY IS A CIA-FBI AGENT &
COMPLICIT IN THE MUMBAI 26/11 TERROR ATTACKS!!
The Government should be ashamed at the treatment being meted out to India by the US administration. It is clear that Headley is a mass murderer & is being protected & shielded by the Obama Administration. Leave alone being extradited, now Attorney-General Eric Holder tells us that that our security agencies will have no direct access to Headley at all as . This is very clear from the statements of Timothy J. Roemer (US Ambassador) who stated that “no decision on direct access for India to David Headley has been made.”
It is clear to all who are sound if mind, as undoubtedly David Coleman Headley is a CIA-FBI operative whose task was to organize & expedite the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks. Thus the role of the CIA, FBI & Mossad in fomenting & planning the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks are proved beyond doubt & need to be investigated by the patriotic elements within the security apparatus & the media. Only the naive & corrupt can continue to deny this fact, more so to the detriment of our national sovereignty & security.
David Headley is a CIA asset & they have invested a lot of their precious resources in training him & therefore they are going to atrocious levels to protect him. Thus under the cover of the American Judicial system, Headley will disappear into the prisons, soon acquire a new identity, new papers & documents, passports & Visas, Credit Cards & Bank Accounts . . . & will resurface, doing what he is best at, a terrorist-drug dealer-mercenary.
Undoubtedly, the CIA-FBI, which are the world’s leading mercenary agencies, whose forte is too engineer assassinations, terror & wars, has infiltrated sections of the Indian political leadership & our internal security, as it has the Pakistani ISI, Military & Political establishment.
Thus now the US intervention & occupation of the South Asian region is deepening by the day, as it keeps on increasing the tensions between India & Pakistan as well as China. It is an old imperial ploy of divide & rule along religious & sectarian lines as well as between nations.
The terror attack Mumbai 26/11, was directed at all of South Asia & this point must be understood by all those who are committed to the cause of South Asia.
The 26/11 terror attack has only aided the US/Israeli effort to create an atmosphere conducive to increasing its pervasive & corrupting influence in determining both our National & International policies. Very true indeed!!
Now the newspapers are clearly raising the issue of Headley being a CIA-FBI operative, a fact that we had stated initially as soon as the story appeared. The reports also state that the CIA was aware about the Headley-Rana linkage! Indian authorities had suspected that Headley was a CIA agent. There are taped conversations between Headley & Rana.
Moreover, the simple fact of the matter is that Headley is involved in the terror attack & should be immediately extradited to the Indian authorities for interrogation & should be tried & sentenced like Kasab (who is a mere foot-soldier & his trial is a contrived circus, despite all the media attention)
In the news report that appeared in the Indian Express (pg 5, 10/12/09), the hotel owner is openly blaming the police for having 'misplaced' Headley's 'C-form' & has filed a complaint on the matter. The hotel owner in his complaint to the Ajmer Superintendent of Police, has stated that he had also submitted the C-forms of two other Israelis along with that of Headley.
So why was Headley arrested by the FBI? The answer to that is that Indian Intel was hard on the heels of Headley & were about to arrest him. It was then that the FBI whisked away Headley to protect him. Now that he has been subjected to the laws of the US judicial system, he is beyond our reach. Leave alone a trial for Headley's central role in the 26/11 attacks, we do not even have the right to interrogate him.
In fact it is suspected that, it was Headley who was the CIA mole in the LeT, who was passing out information on the coming 26/11 terror attack. This was partly shared by the CIA with the Indian authorities & had specifically mentioned the Taj & that the attack would come by sea.
There are two significant points to note:
1) How much information did the CIA actually divulge to India - very very meagre it is clear.
2) More intriguingly with the Pakistani authorities & it's friends in the ISI & the Military with which the CIA has a very deep & intimate relationship, stretching over 6 decades - it supposedly shared none !!!
Any moron is full aware that a 26/11 style attack could lead to a war, in fact a nuclear war between India & Pakistan, then why did not the CIA warn it's friends on either side & thus prevent the attack ??
For the simple reason that it is in the strategic interests of the US & Israel to create a warlike situation across South Asia. The larger objective is for India to mobilise & deploy it's military into the war theatre in Afghanistan if required & later in the coming war on Iran, which is imminent. The tensions & warmongering has now fuelled an arms race & both the countries are amongst the top buyers of weapons, required to protect their half-starving masses.
Also do note that during the phase of the worst series of terror attacks between 2006-08, Headley was present in that period & was flying into India mainly from Pakistan. Yet our authorities did not once suspect or interrogate him?? Unfortunately the Indian People are not that naive. This clearly means that there are certain forces within the country that are allied to the US & Israel & working in tandem to foment terror attacks.
Do especially note the period between August 2007 & September 2008 as this was during which we passed through the worst national crisis over the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. The attacks coincide with Headleys' presence in India (Josy Joseph, 17/11/09, DNA ). The terror attacks in Hyderabad II (25/8/07), Bangalore (25/7/08), Ahmedabad & Surat (26/7/08) & Delhi (13/9/08). All these blasts made it easier for the pro-US elements to take the country into the American-Israeli strategic orbit in the name of fighting the global war on terror.
Again even the blasts that Shri Hemant Karkare has traced to the Abhinav Bharat, find a relation to Headley's footprints. Thus he is present during Malegaon (8/9/06), Samjhauta Express (19/2/07), Mecca Masjid, Hyderabad I (18/5/07).
Thus clearly Headley was also co-ordinating his attacks with the Abhinav Bharat & Sanatan Sanstha as well as with the Indian Mujahedeen (which is a creation of Intel services comprising criminals & informers from within the Muslim community).
We thus can infer the following from the latest revelation:
1) David Headley's trail as he traveled across the country to & identify the sites for terror attacks was & is being covered up by the police on the instructions of the pro-CIA/Mossad sections of the Intelligence Bureau.
2) This was the similar case in the city of Mumbai, where Headley's membership form at the 'Moksh Gymnasium' had both his photograph & signature 'missing'. The flat which he rented on Bridge Candy has no agreement papers & so is the case with his office in Tardeo.
3) The fact that the hotel owner also submitted two forms of Israeli's on that day, also could mean that Headley was also being guided by Mossad agents to identify Jewish targets, which they finally did & thus Nariman House.
4) Headley's very entry into the country has been managed with the connivance of the authorities at the highest levels. And thus even though Headley was a drug dealer having faced a jail sentence, Pakistani born, could still manage to get a clearance. Also do note that he was travelling directly via Pakistan into India. The clearance of his Visa from the Indian Consulate in Chicago actually requires criminal proceedings against the Indian Consul general, the Indian Ambassador & the Minister & the concerned officers in the Home Ministry in Delhi. That was the reason that the authorities panicked & said that Headley's papers at the Chicago Consulate had gone missing. They later found them. With changed signatures, we guess!
5) It is clear that after working for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Headley was later was recruited & trained by the CIA-FBI.
6) The CIA-FBI then used Headley in their plan to execute the 26/11 attack in Mumbai. Headley's task was to travel across the country, identify the targets & provide information to his CIA-FBI handlers. It was the CIA-FBI who then passed the information onto their ISI / LeT contacts in Pakistan.
7) Headley's role was also to draw in his LeT contacts to plan the 26/11 terror attacks.
8) The IB, that has been colluding with the CIA-FBI, instructed it's plants within the police force to cover Headley's trail, which they dutifully performed as is the case both in Mumbai & in Pushkar.
Thus as our inference on the Headley matter is the following:
a) It proves the fact that David Headley was a CIA-FBI agent sent to India to assist in the preparation & implementation of the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks.
b) The US intelligence, led by the CIA-FBI & the Israeli MOSSAD played a central role in co-ordinating the attack & America is complicit in the planning, financing & execution of the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks.
c) The CIA-FBI used their LeT / ISI agents in Pakistan to implement the same
d) Similarly the CIA-FBI along with certain elements & organizations within India were instrumental in fomenting the terror attack.
Undoubtedly the larger strategic objectives of the Imperial gameplan are being achieved, out of which one was to establish the CIA-FBI & Mossad as our allies & thus penetrate & undermine our external & internal security structures.
Just imagine, the CIA-FBI & Mossad are the sword arms of the Imperial project & not a whimper of protest from the secular-liberals or from the anti-Imperialist Left. Even the Obama Af-Pak surge has been barely opposed even though it deepens the US occupation of the South Asian region.
This only goes to prove as to how successful the Imperial strategy has been in creating an atmosphere for US meddling & intervention across South Asia & in neutralising the Left, Bahujans & the Muslim community by systematically promoting Islamophobia by deploying the weapon of terror.
But the Indian masses are far smarter & both the issues of the planned assassination of Shaheed Hemant Karakare & the Headley episode, have helped the People arrive at their own independent conclusions despite the disinformation campaigns unleashed by the pro-US/israeli elements within the Indian Government & the Corporate Media.
============================================
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Subject: "HEADLEY & 26/11 : U.S. PLAYS DIRTY ON INDIA" - B.RAMAN (Ex-Director of RAW)
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers38%5Cpaper3722.html
Paper no. 3722
18 - Mar - 2010
Headley & 26/11: US Plays Dirty on India - International Terrorism Monitor --- Paper No. 632
By B. Raman
Ever since the case of David Coleman Headley broke out in October, 2009, I have been repeatedly pointing out the following in my articles and TV interviews:
* Headley was a quadruple agent, who was working for the USA's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET).
* The FBI has already reached a plea bargain with him in order to avoid any formal production of evidence against him in the court which might result in details regarding his links with the US intelligence coming out.
* The FBI would not extradite him to India and would not allow the Indian agencies to have access to him in order to prevent the Indian agencies from questioning him about his links with the US intelligence on the one side and with the Pakistani intelligence on the other.
2. Extracts from two articles on this subject written by me on December 12 and 16, 2009, are annexed. What I have been writing and what I have been saying for the last five months has proved correct. The media has reported on the morning of March 18, 2010, thatHeadley was going to plead guilty to some charges as part of a plea bargain process entered into by him with the FBI. What does it mean? Firstly, there will be no formal introduction of the evidence against him and no cross-examination. Secondly, the relatives of the 166 innocent persons killed in the Mumbai 26/11 terrorist strikes cannot seek the permission of the court to be represented by a lawyer to question him on the details of his involvement in the 26/11 terrorist strikes. Thirdly, the details of his links with the US intelligence community will be covered up. Fourthly, the two Pakistani nationals living in Pakistan----Ilyas Kashmiri of the 313 Brigade, who had threatened terrorist strikes in India during the major sports events of this year, and Maj. (retd) Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha of the Pakistan Army, who have been cited as co-accused in the FBI case against Headleybecause of their role as his handling officers, will escape prosecution.
3. Unless one is naive beyond redemption, it was clear from the beginning that the Obama Administration and its FBI were trying frantically to prevent the truth regardingHeadley from coming out. I wrote on December 12, 2009: "Senior officials of the White House and the FBI have been taking close and unusual interest in the investigation and prosecution. The Director of the FBI himself was reported to have visited Chicago beforeHeadley was produced before the court. Many in India have analysed this as indicative of the close interest taken by President Obama in counter-terrorism co-operation with India.A more plausible explanation is that this is indicative of the concerns in the White House and the FBI that if the prosecution is not properly handled, the case could result in a bombshell if it emerges that one of the active conspirators of 26/11 was an agent of a US agency. This could lead to suits for heavy damages against the US Government from the relatives of the Americans, Israelis and other foreigners killed."
4. Headley will be protected. The FBI will be protected. The US administration will be protected. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) will be protected. The Pakistani Government and its Army will be protected.
5. Only we poor Indians will remain unprotected because the Govt. of India headed by Dr.Manmohan Singh cannot protect us.
6. What naivete, Mr.Prime Minister! What naivete!
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. )
E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com
ANNEXURE I
(Extracts from my article of December 12,2009, titled " FBI Avoiding Focus onHeadley’s Links With Narcotics Control Agency" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3545.html)
Sections of the US media have pointed out that the fact that the report filed against him by the FBI in the court on December 7 was called a Criminal Information Report and not an indictment indicates that the FBI has already reached a plea bargain deal with him under which as a quid pro quo for his admitting some charges when the trial formally commences next month, the FBI will not press other charges against him. His admitting some charges and the FBI dropping other charges will obviate the need for an elaborate trial with the introduction of detailed evidence.
This would prevent any deliberate or inadvertent disclosure by him of his work in the Af-Pak region for the DEA, which works in close co-operation with its Pakistani counterpart. The two have many joint operations.
It is very likely that the US will not allow his independent interrogation by Indian investigators and that it will not agree to his extradition to India as that might result in the Indian authorities coming to know not only of his contacts with Pakistani agencies, but also with the DEA.
Senior officials of the White House and the FBI have been taking close and unusual interest in the investigation and prosecution. The Director of the FBI himself was reported to have visited Chicago before Headley was produced before the court. Many in India have analysed this as indicative of the close interest taken by President Obama in counter-terrorism co-operation with India. A more plausible explanation is that this is indicative of the concerns in the White House and the FBI that if the prosecution is not properly handled, the case could result in a bombshell if it emerges that one of the active conspirators of 26/11 was an agent of a US agency. This could lead to suits for heavy damages against the US Government from the relatives of the Americans, Israelis and other foreigners killed.
ANNEXURE II
( Extracts from my article of December 16,2009, titled " "Headley: A Quadruple Agent" -
at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers36/paper3552.html )
By studying these extracts submitted by the FBI along with other FBI documents submitted by the FBI to the court and US media reports about Headley’s links with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),one can make the following assessment:
a. Headley was not a double agent, but a quadruple agent. He initially started working for the DEA around 1998. Even if one presumes that initially the FBI and the CIA were not aware of this, they should have become aware of this by 2004 when the National Counter-Terrorism Centre with a common charter and a common data-base was set up by the Bush Administration under the newly-created post of Director National Intelligence (DNI).
b. He started working for the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) sometime in 2005. It is not clear whether he joined the LET at his own instance or at the instance of the FBI or the CIA or both in order to penetrate it. He was already visiting Pakistan at the instance of the DEA since 1998. Since 2006, he started visiting India too. The DEA and the FBI would have been aware of his visits since every time a conscious agent of an agency travels abroad his passport is scrutinized by the controlling agency on his return. This is a security precaution followed by all intelligence agencies.
c. He started working for the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri towards the end of 2008 and agreed to visit Copenhagen to collect operational information for a possible terrorist attack. This was probably not at the instance of the FBI, which came to know accidentally of Headley volunteering himself to undertake a task in Copenhagen while monitoring the chat room of the old students of the Army Cadet School at Hasan Abdal. Both Headley and Rana studied in the school. The FBI putHeadley under electronic surveillance after obtaining orders of a relevant court.
d. While doing the electronic surveillance to monitor his involvement in the Northern or Copenhagen or Micky Mouse project for the 313 Brigade, the FBI came across a series of E-mail intercepts in July and August, 2009, which showed that Headley had helped the LET in preparing itself for the 26/11 terrorist strikes and had agreed to help the LET in carrying out another terrorist strike in India for which he was to visit India. The FBI started monitoring the meetings and conversations of Headley and Rana and recorded their conversation of September 7, 2009, in a car which clearly indicated their involvement in the 26/11 terrorist strike.
e. The communications between Headley and his LET handler intercepted by the FBI in July and August also indicated that he was planning to visit India in October to prepare the ground for another terrorist strike. The FBI had two options---either allow him to go to India, alert the Indian intelligence and keep him under surveillance or arrest him before he left for Pakistan and India. If he had been allowed to go to India, watched there and arrested by the Indian intelligence, his past contacts with the US agencies and his role in 26/11 would have come to the notice of the Indian authorities. There is no evidence so far to show that till July 2009 the FBI was aware of his active role in 26/11. They were probably only aware of his frequent visits to Pakistan and India on behalf of the DEA operations. The FBI arrested him when he was about to leave for Pakistan and India on October 3.
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J osy Joseph / DNATuesday, November 17, 2009 0:50 IST
New Delhi: Call it a bizarre coincidence but investigators are beginning to suspect an eerie connection between the timing of David Coleman Headley's India visits and the series of bomb blasts and terror strikes that rocked the country between 2006 and 2008.
A majority of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative's visits to India coincided with the attacks, which took place either just after he left the country, or just prior to his arrival. He was in the country in 2008, when bomb blasts had rocked Ahmedabad and Bangalore.
Sources say that many within the establishment are beginning to wonder why immigration authorities did not question Headley's movements at the time. He had often entered India through, as well as exited from the country to, Pakistan. His immigration forms were not properly filled on some occasions while, on others, his place of stay was marked incorrectly. "All this should have raised questions. But I suppose his American name was a great cover," says one officer.
The bomb blasts in New Delhi on the eve of Diwali in 2005 seemed to have been the starting point for a series of terror strikes in major cities in India. Subsequently, the number of major attacks outside of Jammu & Kashmir began to gain momentum and peaked with the Mumbai attacks last year in November.
Now, almost a year after the 26/11 carnage, and with several new angles to LeT operations emerging afresh after the arrest ofHeadley and his associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana, sources are beginning to take a deeper look into the movements of the duo in South Asia.
Headley's first trip to India was on a US passport 097536400, after he changed his name from Daood Gilani, on September 14. He came in from Karachi to Mumbai, and stayed for three months.
Six days before he landed, Malegaon was ripped apart by a series of blasts that killed 37 people. The police claim it was a LeT-SIMI plot.
The next time Headley landed in Mumbai was on February 22, 2007, just three days after the Samjhauta Express train blast. While the perpetrators of the blast remain a mystery, there has been evidence to point fingers at both Islamic terrorists as well as Hindu fringe groups.
His next visit lasted 53 days, after he landed in Mumbai from Colombo. Headley thereafter returned to Mumbai from Dubai on May 17. A day after he left, a blast took place at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad during Friday prayers.
In May-June 2007, Headley spent 18 days in Mumbai, coming in via Dubai. There were no immediate attacks but, three months later, Hyderabad is hit again, this time with three explosions that kill over 40 people. Intelligence agencies had then pointed fingers at the LeT-HUJI network in which Hyderabad resident Shahid Bilal was a key player. A few years before the blast, Bilal had gone to Pakistan where he emerged as a key terror player and helped LeT-HUJI recruit youngsters from Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere. Bilal was mysteriously shot dead a few months later in Karachi.
Headley visited Mumbai twice in the September-November 2007 period. Once, he came in from Dubai and the second time from Lahore to Delhi, and returning to Lahore subsequently. Investigators believe that it was during those trips that Headley may have started recording the targets and making other preparations for the 26/11 attacks - that is, if he was a part of the conspiracy.
Increasingly, Headley had also started coming into India directly from Pakistan, not via Dubai or any other stop.
Headley next arrived in Mumbai in April 2008, just for six days. Within a month of his leaving, serial blasts rocked Jaipur on May 13.
The next trip, lasting a month in July 2008, saw two serial blasts rocking the country. First, on July 25, a series of small bombs rock Bangalore, and the attack remained a mystery for long. In recent times, the Bangalore police have claimed that it was the handiwork of a group of Islamic terrorists and was planned in Kerala.
A day later, over 15 bombs went off in Ahmedabad, killing almost 50 people. The Indian Mujahideen, a shadow terror group, challenged the government to stop them in an email sent minutes before the attack.
Two months later, Delhi was shaken by serial blasts on September 13.
Months later, Tahawwur Hussain Rana landed in India, on November 12, 2008 on a business visa that was valid until the 30th of last month. He and his wife visited Kochi among other places and left via Dubai for Chicago on November 21. Five days later, the 10 terrorists landed in Mumbai to carry out the 26/11 mayhem.
Sources in the security establishment are still struggling to figure out what exactly were Rana and Headley up to. Was is just a reccee or were they recruiting foot-soldiers for terrorist strikes?
The Israel Lobby
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.
Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.
Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. This largesse is especially striking since Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to that of South Korea or Spain.
Other recipients get their money in quarterly installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year and can thus earn interest on it. Most recipients of aid given for military purposes are required to spend all of it in the US, but Israel is allowed to use roughly 25 per cent of its allocation to subsidise its own defence industry. It is the only recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, which makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the US opposes, such as building settlements on the West Bank. Moreover, the US has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and given it access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters and F-16 jets. Finally, the US gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its Nato allies and has turned a blind eye to Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Washington also provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It blocks the efforts of Arab states to put Israel’s nuclear arsenal on the IAEA’s agenda. The US comes to the rescue in wartime and takes Israel’s side when negotiating peace. The Nixon administration protected it from the threat of Soviet intervention and resupplied it during the October War. Washington was deeply involved in the negotiations that ended that war, as well as in the lengthy ‘step-by-step’ process that followed, just as it played a key role in the negotiations that preceded and followed the 1993 Oslo Accords. In each case there was occasional friction between US and Israeli officials, but the US consistently supported the Israeli position. One American participant at Camp David in 2000 later said: ‘Far too often, we functioned … as Israel’s lawyer.’ Finally, the Bush administration’s ambition to transform the Middle East is at least partly aimed at improving Israel’s strategic situation.
This extraordinary generosity might be understandable if Israel were a vital strategic asset or if there were a compelling moral case for US backing. But neither explanation is convincing. One might argue that Israel was an asset during the Cold War. By serving as America’s proxy after 1967, it helped contain Soviet expansion in the region and inflicted humiliating defeats on Soviet clients like Egypt and Syria. It occasionally helped protect other US allies (like King Hussein of Jordan) and its military prowess forced Moscow to spend more on backing its own client states. It also provided useful intelligence about Soviet capabilities.
Backing Israel was not cheap, however, and it complicated America’s relations with the Arab world. For example, the decision to give $2.2 billion in emergency military aid during the October War triggered an Opec oil embargo that inflicted considerable damage on Western economies. For all that, Israel’s armed forces were not in a position to protect US interests in the region. The US could not, for example, rely on Israel when the Iranian Revolution in 1979 raised concerns about the security of oil supplies, and had to create its own Rapid Deployment Force instead.
The first Gulf War revealed the extent to which Israel was becoming a strategic burden. The US could not use Israeli bases without rupturing the anti-Iraq coalition, and had to divert resources (e.g. Patriot missile batteries) to prevent Tel Aviv doing anything that might harm the alliance against Saddam Hussein. History repeated itself in 2003: although Israel was eager for the US to attack Iraq, Bush could not ask it to help without triggering Arab opposition. So Israel stayed on the sidelines once again.
Beginning in the 1990s, and even more after 9/11, US support has been justified by the claim that both states are threatened by terrorist groups originating in the Arab and Muslim world, and by ‘rogue states’ that back these groups and seek weapons of mass destruction. This is taken to mean not only that Washington should give Israel a free hand in dealing with the Palestinians and not press it to make concessions until all Palestinian terrorists are imprisoned or dead, but that the US should go after countries like Iran and Syria. Israel is thus seen as a crucial ally in the war on terror, because its enemies are America’s enemies. In fact, Israel is a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states.
‘Terrorism’ is not a single adversary, but a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups. The terrorist organisations that threaten Israel do not threaten the United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982). Moreover, Palestinian terrorism is not random violence directed against Israel or ‘the West’; it is largely a response to Israel’s prolonged campaign to colonise the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
More important, saying that Israel and the US are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around. Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult. There is no question that many al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel’s presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular support and to attract recruits.
As for so-called rogue states in the Middle East, they are not a dire threat to vital US interests, except inasmuch as they are a threat to Israel. Even if these states acquire nuclear weapons – which is obviously undesirable – neither America nor Israel could be blackmailed, because the blackmailer could not carry out the threat without suffering overwhelming retaliation. The danger of a nuclear handover to terrorists is equally remote, because a rogue state could not be sure the transfer would go undetected or that it would not be blamed and punished afterwards. The relationship with Israel actually makes it harder for the US to deal with these states. Israel’s nuclear arsenal is one reason some of its neighbours want nuclear weapons, and threatening them with regime change merely increases that desire.
A final reason to question Israel’s strategic value is that it does not behave like a loyal ally. Israeli officials frequently ignore US requests and renege on promises (including pledges to stop building settlements and to refrain from ‘targeted assassinations’ of Palestinian leaders). Israel has provided sensitive military technology to potential rivals like China, in what the State Department inspector-general called ‘a systematic and growing pattern of unauthorised transfers’. According to the General Accounting Office, Israel also ‘conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the US of any ally’. In addition to the case of Jonathan Pollard, who gave Israel large quantities of classified material in the early 1980s (which it reportedly passed on to the Soviet Union in return for more exit visas for Soviet Jews), a new controversy erupted in 2004 when it was revealed that a key Pentagon official called Larry Franklin had passed classified information to an Israeli diplomat. Israel is hardly the only country that spies on the US, but its willingness to spy on its principal patron casts further doubt on its strategic value.
Israel’s strategic value isn’t the only issue. Its backers also argue that it deserves unqualified support because it is weak and surrounded by enemies; it is a democracy; the Jewish people have suffered from past crimes and therefore deserve special treatment; and Israel’s conduct has been morally superior to that of its adversaries. On close inspection, none of these arguments is persuasive. There is a strong moral case for supporting Israel’s existence, but that is not in jeopardy. Viewed objectively, its past and present conduct offers no moral basis for privileging it over the Palestinians.
Israel is often portrayed as David confronted by Goliath, but the converse is closer to the truth. Contrary to popular belief, the Zionists had larger, better equipped and better led forces during the 1947-49 War of Independence, and the Israel Defence Forces won quick and easy victories against Egypt in 1956 and against Egypt, Jordan and Syria in 1967 – all of this before large-scale US aid began flowing. Today, Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East. Its conventional forces are far superior to those of its neighbours and it is the only state in the region with nuclear weapons. Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with it, and Saudi Arabia has offered to do so. Syria has lost its Soviet patron, Iraq has been devastated by three disastrous wars and Iran is hundreds of miles away. The Palestinians barely have an effective police force, let alone an army that could pose a threat to Israel. According to a 2005 assessment by Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies, ‘the strategic balance decidedly favours Israel, which has continued to widen the qualitative gap between its own military capability and deterrence powers and those of its neighbours.’ If backing the underdog were a compelling motive, the United States would be supporting Israel’s opponents.
That Israel is a fellow democracy surrounded by hostile dictatorships cannot account for the current level of aid: there are many democracies around the world, but none receives the same lavish support. The US has overthrown democratic governments in the past and supported dictators when this was thought to advance its interests – it has good relations with a number of dictatorships today.
Some aspects of Israeli democracy are at odds with core American values. Unlike the US, where people are supposed to enjoy equal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens, or that a recent Israeli government commission found that Israel behaves in a ‘neglectful and discriminatory’ manner towards them. Its democratic status is also undermined by its refusal to grant the Palestinians a viable state of their own or full political rights.
A third justification is the history of Jewish suffering in the Christian West, especially during the Holocaust. Because Jews were persecuted for centuries and could feel safe only in a Jewish homeland, many people now believe that Israel deserves special treatment from the United States. The country’s creation was undoubtedly an appropriate response to the long record of crimes against Jews, but it also brought about fresh crimes against a largely innocent third party: the Palestinians.
This was well understood by Israel’s early leaders. David Ben-Gurion told Nahum Goldmann, the president of the World Jewish Congress:
If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country … We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?
Since then, Israeli leaders have repeatedly sought to deny the Palestinians’ national ambitions. When she was prime minister, Golda Meir famously remarked that ‘there is no such thing as a Palestinian.’ Pressure from extremist violence and Palestinian population growth has forced subsequent Israeli leaders to disengage from the Gaza Strip and consider other territorial compromises, but not even Yitzhak Rabin was willing to offer the Palestinians a viable state. Ehud Barak’s purportedly generous offer at Camp David would have given them only a disarmed set of Bantustans under de facto Israeli control. The tragic history of the Jewish people does not obligate the US to help Israel today no matter what it does.
Israel’s backers also portray it as a country that has sought peace at every turn and shown great restraint even when provoked. The Arabs, by contrast, are said to have acted with great wickedness. Yet on the ground, Israel’s record is not distinguishable from that of its opponents. Ben-Gurion acknowledged that the early Zionists were far from benevolent towards the Palestinian Arabs, who resisted their encroachments – which is hardly surprising, given that the Zionists were trying to create their own state on Arab land. In the same way, the creation of Israel in 1947-48 involved acts of ethnic cleansing, including executions, massacres and rapes by Jews, and Israel’s subsequent conduct has often been brutal, belying any claim to moral superiority. Between 1949 and 1956, for example, Israeli security forces killed between 2700 and 5000 Arab infiltrators, the overwhelming majority of them unarmed. The IDF murdered hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war in both the 1956 and 1967 wars, while in 1967, it expelled between 100,000 and 260,000 Palestinians from the newly conquered West Bank, and drove 80,000 Syrians from the Golan Heights.
During the first intifada, the IDF distributed truncheons to its troops and encouraged them to break the bones of Palestinian protesters. The Swedish branch of Save the Children estimated that ‘23,600 to 29,900 children required medical treatment for their beating injuries in the first two years of the intifada.’ Nearly a third of them were aged ten or under. The response to the second intifada has been even more violent, leading Ha’aretz to declare that ‘the IDF … is turning into a killing machine whose efficiency is awe-inspiring, yet shocking.’ The IDF fired one million bullets in the first days of the uprising. Since then, for every Israeli lost, Israel has killed 3.4 Palestinians, the majority of whom have been innocent bystanders; the ratio of Palestinian to Israeli children killed is even higher (5.7:1). It is also worth bearing in mind that the Zionists relied on terrorist bombs to drive the British from Palestine, and that Yitzhak Shamir, once a terrorist and later prime minister, declared that ‘neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat.’
The Palestinian resort to terrorism is wrong but it isn’t surprising. The Palestinians believe they have no other way to force Israeli concessions. As Ehud Barak once admitted, had he been born a Palestinian, he ‘would have joined a terrorist organisation’.
So if neither strategic nor moral arguments can account for America’s support for Israel, how are we to explain it?
The explanation is the unmatched power of the Israel Lobby. We use ‘the Lobby’ as shorthand for the loose coalition of individuals and organisations who actively work to steer US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. This is not meant to suggest that ‘the Lobby’ is a unified movement with a central leadership, or that individuals within it do not disagree on certain issues. Not all Jewish Americans are part of the Lobby, because Israel is not a salient issue for many of them. In a 2004 survey, for example, roughly 36 per cent of American Jews said they were either ‘not very’ or ‘not at all’ emotionally attached to Israel.
Jewish Americans also differ on specific Israeli policies. Many of the key organisations in the Lobby, such as the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organisations, are run by hardliners who generally support the Likud Party’s expansionist policies, including its hostility to the Oslo peace process. The bulk of US Jewry, meanwhile, is more inclined to make concessions to the Palestinians, and a few groups – such as Jewish Voice for Peace – strongly advocate such steps. Despite these differences, moderates and hardliners both favour giving steadfast support to Israel.
Not surprisingly, American Jewish leaders often consult Israeli officials, to make sure that their actions advance Israeli goals. As one activist from a major Jewish organisation wrote, ‘it is routine for us to say: “This is our policy on a certain issue, but we must check what the Israelis think.” We as a community do it all the time.’ There is a strong prejudice against criticising Israeli policy, and putting pressure on Israel is considered out of order. Edgar Bronfman Sr, the president of the World Jewish Congress, was accused of ‘perfidy’ when he wrote a letter to President Bush in mid-2003 urging him to persuade Israel to curb construction of its controversial ‘security fence’. His critics said that ‘it would be obscene at any time for the president of the World Jewish Congress to lobby the president of the United States to resist policies being promoted by the government of Israel.’
Similarly, when the president of the Israel Policy Forum, Seymour Reich, advised Condoleezza Rice in November 2005 to ask Israel to reopen a critical border crossing in the Gaza Strip, his action was denounced as ‘irresponsible’: ‘There is,’ his critics said, ‘absolutely no room in the Jewish mainstream for actively canvassing against the security-related policies … of Israel.’ Recoiling from these attacks, Reich announced that ‘the word “pressure” is not in my vocabulary when it comes to Israel.’
Jewish Americans have set up an impressive array of organisations to influence American foreign policy, of which AIPAC is the most powerful and best known. In 1997, Fortune magazine asked members of Congress and their staffs to list the most powerful lobbies in Washington. AIPAC was ranked second behind the American Association of Retired People, but ahead of the AFL-CIO and the National Rifle Association. A National Journal study in March 2005 reached a similar conclusion, placing AIPAC in second place (tied with AARP) in the Washington ‘muscle rankings’.
The Lobby also includes prominent Christian evangelicals like Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, as well as Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, former majority leaders in the House of Representatives, all of whom believe Israel’s rebirth is the fulfilment of biblical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda; to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary to God’s will. Neo-conservative gentiles such as John Bolton; Robert Bartley, the former Wall Street Journal editor; William Bennett, the former secretary of education; Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former UN ambassador; and the influential columnist George Will are also steadfast supporters.
The US form of government offers activists many ways of influencing the policy process. Interest groups can lobby elected representatives and members of the executive branch, make campaign contributions, vote in elections, try to mould public opinion etc. They enjoy a disproportionate amount of influence when they are committed to an issue to which the bulk of the population is indifferent. Policymakers will tend to accommodate those who care about the issue, even if their numbers are small, confident that the rest of the population will not penalise them for doing so.
In its basic operations, the Israel Lobby is no different from the farm lobby, steel or textile workers’ unions, or other ethnic lobbies. There is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian allies attempting to sway US policy: the Lobby’s activities are not a conspiracy of the sort depicted in tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For the most part, the individuals and groups that comprise it are only doing what other special interest groups do, but doing it very much better. By contrast, pro-Arab interest groups, in so far as they exist at all, are weak, which makes the Israel Lobby’s task even easier.
The Lobby pursues two broad strategies. First, it wields its significant influence in Washington, pressuring both Congress and the executive branch. Whatever an individual lawmaker or policymaker’s own views may be, the Lobby tries to make supporting Israel the ‘smart’ choice. Second, it strives to ensure that public discourse portrays Israel in a positive light, by repeating myths about its founding and by promoting its point of view in policy debates. The goal is to prevent critical comments from getting a fair hearing in the political arena. Controlling the debate is essential to guaranteeing US support, because a candid discussion of US-Israeli relations might lead Americans to favour a different policy.
A key pillar of the Lobby’s effectiveness is its influence in Congress, where Israel is virtually immune from criticism. This in itself is remarkable, because Congress rarely shies away from contentious issues. Where Israel is concerned, however, potential critics fall silent. One reason is that some key members are Christian Zionists like Dick Armey, who said in September 2002: ‘My No. 1 priority in foreign policy is to protect Israel.’ One might think that the No. 1 priority for any congressman would be to protect America. There are also Jewish senators and congressmen who work to ensure that US foreign policy supports Israel’s interests.
Another source of the Lobby’s power is its use of pro-Israel congressional staffers. As Morris Amitay, a former head of AIPAC, once admitted, ‘there are a lot of guys at the working level up here’ – on Capitol Hill – ‘who happen to be Jewish, who are willing … to look at certain issues in terms of their Jewishness … These are all guys who are in a position to make the decision in these areas for those senators … You can get an awful lot done just at the staff level.’
AIPAC itself, however, forms the core of the Lobby’s influence in Congress. Its success is due to its ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it. Money is critical to US elections (as the scandal over the lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s shady dealings reminds us), and AIPAC makes sure that its friends get strong financial support from the many pro-Israel political action committees. Anyone who is seen as hostile to Israel can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions to his or her political opponents. AIPAC also organises letter-writing campaigns and encourages newspaper editors to endorse pro-Israel candidates.
There is no doubt about the efficacy of these tactics. Here is one example: in the 1984 elections, AIPAC helped defeat Senator Charles Percy from Illinois, who, according to a prominent Lobby figure, had ‘displayed insensitivity and even hostility to our concerns’. Thomas Dine, the head of AIPAC at the time, explained what happened: ‘All the Jews in America, from coast to coast, gathered to oust Percy. And the American politicians – those who hold public positions now, and those who aspire – got the message.’
AIPAC’s influence on Capitol Hill goes even further. According to Douglas Bloomfield, a former AIPAC staff member, ‘it is common for members of Congress and their staffs to turn to AIPAC first when they need information, before calling the Library of Congress, the Congressional Research Service, committee staff or administration experts.’ More important, he notes that AIPAC is ‘often called on to draft speeches, work on legislation, advise on tactics, perform research, collect co-sponsors and marshal votes’.
The bottom line is that AIPAC, a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on Congress, with the result that US policy towards Israel is not debated there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world. In other words, one of the three main branches of the government is firmly committed to supporting Israel. As one former Democratic senator, Ernest Hollings, noted on leaving office, ‘you can’t have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here.’ Or as Ariel Sharon once told an American audience, ‘when people ask me how they can help Israel, I tell them: “Help AIPAC.”’
Thanks in part to the influence Jewish voters have on presidential elections, the Lobby also has significant leverage over the executive branch. Although they make up fewer than 3 per cent of the population, they make large campaign donations to candidates from both parties. The Washington Post once estimated that Democratic presidential candidates ‘depend on Jewish supporters to supply as much as 60 per cent of the money’. And because Jewish voters have high turn-out rates and are concentrated in key states like California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania, presidential candidates go to great lengths not to antagonise them.
Key organisations in the Lobby make it their business to ensure that critics of Israel do not get important foreign policy jobs. Jimmy Carter wanted to make George Ball his first secretary of state, but knew that Ball was seen as critical of Israel and that the Lobby would oppose the appointment. In this way any aspiring policymaker is encouraged to become an overt supporter of Israel, which is why public critics of Israeli policy have become an endangered species in the foreign policy establishment.
When Howard Dean called for the United States to take a more ‘even-handed role’ in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Senator Joseph Lieberman accused him of selling Israel down the river and said his statement was ‘irresponsible’. Virtually all the top Democrats in the House signed a letter criticising Dean’s remarks, and the Chicago Jewish Starreported that ‘anonymous attackers … are clogging the email inboxes of Jewish leaders around the country, warning – without much evidence – that Dean would somehow be bad for Israel.’
This worry was absurd; Dean is in fact quite hawkish on Israel: his campaign co-chair was a former AIPAC president, and Dean said his own views on the Middle East more closely reflected those of AIPAC than those of the more moderate Americans for Peace Now. He had merely suggested that to ‘bring the sides together’, Washington should act as an honest broker. This is hardly a radical idea, but the Lobby doesn’t tolerate even-handedness.
During the Clinton administration, Middle Eastern policy was largely shaped by officials with close ties to Israel or to prominent pro-Israel organisations; among them, Martin Indyk, the former deputy director of research at AIPAC and co-founder of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP); Dennis Ross, who joined WINEP after leaving government in 2001; and Aaron Miller, who has lived in Israel and often visits the country. These men were among Clinton’s closest advisers at the Camp David summit in July 2000. Although all three supported the Oslo peace process and favoured the creation of a Palestinian state, they did so only within the limits of what would be acceptable to Israel. The American delegation took its cues from Ehud Barak, co-ordinated its negotiating positions with Israel in advance, and did not offer independent proposals. Not surprisingly, Palestinian negotiators complained that they were ‘negotiating with two Israeli teams – one displaying an Israeli flag, and one an American flag’.
The situation is even more pronounced in the Bush administration, whose ranks have included such fervent advocates of the Israeli cause as Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, I. Lewis (‘Scooter’) Libby, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and David Wurmser. As we shall see, these officials have consistently pushed for policies favoured by Israel and backed by organisations in the Lobby.
The Lobby doesn’t want an open debate, of course, because that might lead Americans to question the level of support they provide. Accordingly, pro-Israel organisations work hard to influence the institutions that do most to shape popular opinion.
The Lobby’s perspective prevails in the mainstream media: the debate among Middle East pundits, the journalist Eric Alterman writes, is ‘dominated by people who cannot imagine criticising Israel’. He lists 61 ‘columnists and commentators who can be counted on to support Israel reflexively and without qualification’. Conversely, he found just five pundits who consistently criticise Israeli actions or endorse Arab positions. Newspapers occasionally publish guest op-eds challenging Israeli policy, but the balance of opinion clearly favours the other side. It is hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States publishing a piece like this one.
‘Shamir, Sharon, Bibi – whatever those guys want is pretty much fine by me,’ Robert Bartley once remarked. Not surprisingly, his newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, along with other prominent papers like the Chicago Sun-Times and the Washington Times, regularly runs editorials that strongly support Israel. Magazines likeCommentary, the New Republic and the Weekly Standard defend Israel at every turn.
Editorial bias is also found in papers like the New York Times, which occasionally criticises Israeli policies and sometimes concedes that the Palestinians have legitimate grievances, but is not even-handed. In his memoirs the paper’s former executive editor Max Frankel acknowledges the impact his own attitude had on his editorial decisions: ‘I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert … Fortified by my knowledge of Israel and my friendships there, I myself wrote most of our Middle East commentaries. As more Arab than Jewish readers recognised, I wrote them from a pro-Israel perspective.’
News reports are more even-handed, in part because reporters strive to be objective, but also because it is difficult to cover events in the Occupied Territories without acknowledging Israel’s actions on the ground. To discourage unfavourable reporting, the Lobby organises letter-writing campaigns, demonstrations and boycotts of news outlets whose content it considers anti-Israel. One CNN executive has said that he sometimes gets 6000 email messages in a single day complaining about a story. In May 2003, the pro-Israel Committee for Accurate Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) organised demonstrations outside National Public Radio stations in 33 cities; it also tried to persuade contributors to withhold support from NPR until its Middle East coverage becomes more sympathetic to Israel. Boston’s NPR station, WBUR, reportedly lost more than $1 million in contributions as a result of these efforts. Further pressure on NPR has come from Israel’s friends in Congress, who have asked for an internal audit of its Middle East coverage as well as more oversight.
The Israeli side also dominates the think tanks which play an important role in shaping public debate as well as actual policy. The Lobby created its own think tank in 1985, when Martin Indyk helped to found WINEP. Although WINEP plays down its links to Israel, claiming instead to provide a ‘balanced and realistic’ perspective on Middle East issues, it is funded and run by individuals deeply committed to advancing Israel’s agenda.
The Lobby’s influence extends well beyond WINEP, however. Over the past 25 years, pro-Israel forces have established a commanding presence at the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Security Policy, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). These think tanks employ few, if any, critics of US support for Israel.
Take the Brookings Institution. For many years, its senior expert on the Middle East was William Quandt, a former NSC official with a well-deserved reputation for even-handedness. Today, Brookings’s coverage is conducted through the Saban Center for Middle East Studies, which is financed by Haim Saban, an Israeli-American businessman and ardent Zionist. The centre’s director is the ubiquitous Martin Indyk. What was once a non-partisan policy institute is now part of the pro-Israel chorus.
Where the Lobby has had the most difficulty is in stifling debate on university campuses. In the 1990s, when the Oslo peace process was underway, there was only mild criticism of Israel, but it grew stronger with Oslo’s collapse and Sharon’s access to power, becoming quite vociferous when the IDF reoccupied the West Bank in spring 2002 and employed massive force to subdue the second intifada.
The Lobby moved immediately to ‘take back the campuses’. New groups sprang up, like the Caravan for Democracy, which brought Israeli speakers to US colleges. Established groups like the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Hillel joined in, and a new group, the Israel on Campus Coalition, was formed to co-ordinate the many bodies that now sought to put Israel’s case. Finally, AIPAC more than tripled its spending on programmes to monitor university activities and to train young advocates, in order to ‘vastly expand the number of students involved on campus … in the national pro-Israel effort’.
The Lobby also monitors what professors write and teach. In September 2002, Martin Kramer and Daniel Pipes, two passionately pro-Israel neo-conservatives, established a website (Campus Watch) that posted dossiers on suspect academics and encouraged students to report remarks or behaviour that might be considered hostile to Israel. This transparent attempt to blacklist and intimidate scholars provoked a harsh reaction and Pipes and Kramer later removed the dossiers, but the website still invites students to report ‘anti-Israel’ activity.
Groups within the Lobby put pressure on particular academics and universities. Columbia has been a frequent target, no doubt because of the presence of the late Edward Said on its faculty. ‘One can be sure that any public statement in support of the Palestinian people by the pre-eminent literary critic Edward Said will elicit hundreds of emails, letters and journalistic accounts that call on us to denounce Said and to either sanction or fire him,’ Jonathan Cole, its former provost, reported. When Columbia recruited the historian Rashid Khalidi from Chicago, the same thing happened. It was a problem Princeton also faced a few years later when it considered wooing Khalidi away from Columbia.
A classic illustration of the effort to police academia occurred towards the end of 2004, when the David Project produced a film alleging that faculty members of Columbia’s Middle East Studies programme were anti-semitic and were intimidating Jewish students who stood up for Israel. Columbia was hauled over the coals, but a faculty committee which was assigned to investigate the charges found no evidence of anti-semitism and the only incident possibly worth noting was that one professor had ‘responded heatedly’ to a student’s question. The committee also discovered that the academics in question had themselves been the target of an overt campaign of intimidation.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of all this is the efforts Jewish groups have made to push Congress into establishing mechanisms to monitor what professors say. If they manage to get this passed, universities judged to have an anti-Israel bias would be denied federal funding. Their efforts have not yet succeeded, but they are an indication of the importance placed on controlling debate.
A number of Jewish philanthropists have recently established Israel Studies programmes (in addition to the roughly 130 Jewish Studies programmes already in existence) so as to increase the number of Israel-friendly scholars on campus. In May 2003, NYU announced the establishment of the Taub Center for Israel Studies; similar programmes have been set up at Berkeley, Brandeis and Emory. Academic administrators emphasise their pedagogical value, but the truth is that they are intended in large part to promote Israel’s image. Fred Laffer, the head of the Taub Foundation, makes it clear that his foundation funded the NYU centre to help counter the ‘Arabic [sic] point of view’ that he thinks is prevalent in NYU’s Middle East programmes.
No discussion of the Lobby would be complete without an examination of one of its most powerful weapons: the charge of anti-semitism. Anyone who criticises Israel’s actions or argues that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over US Middle Eastern policy – an influence AIPAC celebrates – stands a good chance of being labelled an anti-semite. Indeed, anyone who merely claims that there is an Israel Lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-semitism, even though the Israeli media refer to America’s ‘Jewish Lobby’. In other words, the Lobby first boasts of its influence and then attacks anyone who calls attention to it. It’s a very effective tactic: anti-semitism is something no one wants to be accused of.
Europeans have been more willing than Americans to criticise Israeli policy, which some people attribute to a resurgence of anti-semitism in Europe. We are ‘getting to a point’, the US ambassador to the EU said in early 2004, ‘where it is as bad as it was in the 1930s’. Measuring anti-semitism is a complicated matter, but the weight of evidence points in the opposite direction. In the spring of 2004, when accusations of European anti-semitism filled the air in America, separate surveys of European public opinion conducted by the US-based Anti-Defamation League and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that it was in fact declining. In the 1930s, by contrast, anti-semitism was not only widespread among Europeans of all classes but considered quite acceptable.
The Lobby and its friends often portray France as the most anti-semitic country in Europe. But in 2003, the head of the French Jewish community said that ‘France is not more anti-semitic than America.’ According to a recent article in Ha’aretz, the French police have reported that anti-semitic incidents declined by almost 50 per cent in 2005; and this even though France has the largest Muslim population of any European country. Finally, when a French Jew was murdered in Paris last month by a Muslim gang, tens of thousands of demonstrators poured into the streets to condemn anti-semitism. Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin both attended the victim’s memorial service to show their solidarity.
No one would deny that there is anti-semitism among European Muslims, some of it provoked by Israel’s conduct towards the Palestinians and some of it straightforwardly racist. But this is a separate matter with little bearing on whether or not Europe today is like Europe in the 1930s. Nor would anyone deny that there are still some virulent autochthonous anti-semites in Europe (as there are in the United States) but their numbers are small and their views are rejected by the vast majority of Europeans.
Israel’s advocates, when pressed to go beyond mere assertion, claim that there is a ‘new anti-semitism’, which they equate with criticism of Israel. In other words, criticise Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite. When the synod of the Church of England recently voted to divest from Caterpillar Inc on the grounds that it manufactures the bulldozers used by the Israelis to demolish Palestinian homes, the Chief Rabbi complained that this would ‘have the most adverse repercussions on … Jewish-Christian relations in Britain’, while Rabbi Tony Bayfield, the head of the Reform movement, said: ‘There is a clear problem of anti-Zionist – verging on anti-semitic – attitudes emerging in the grass-roots, and even in the middle ranks of the Church.’ But the Church was guilty merely of protesting against Israeli government policy.
Critics are also accused of holding Israel to an unfair standard or questioning its right to exist. But these are bogus charges too. Western critics of Israel hardly ever question its right to exist: they question its behaviour towards the Palestinians, as do Israelis themselves. Nor is Israel being judged unfairly. Israeli treatment of the Palestinians elicits criticism because it is contrary to widely accepted notions of human rights, to international law and to the principle of national self-determination. And it is hardly the only state that has faced sharp criticism on these grounds.
In the autumn of 2001, and especially in the spring of 2002, the Bush administration tried to reduce anti-American sentiment in the Arab world and undermine support for terrorist groups like al-Qaida by halting Israel’s expansionist policies in the Occupied Territories and advocating the creation of a Palestinian state. Bush had very significant means of persuasion at his disposal. He could have threatened to reduce economic and diplomatic support for Israel, and the American people would almost certainly have supported him. A May 2003 poll reported that more than 60 per cent of Americans were willing to withhold aid if Israel resisted US pressure to settle the conflict, and that number rose to 70 per cent among the ‘politically active’. Indeed, 73 per cent said that the United States should not favour either side.
Yet the administration failed to change Israeli policy, and Washington ended up backing it. Over time, the administration also adopted Israel’s own justifications of its position, so that US rhetoric began to mimic Israeli rhetoric. By February 2003, aWashington Post headline summarised the situation: ‘Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical on Mideast Policy.’ The main reason for this switch was the Lobby.
The story begins in late September 2001, when Bush began urging Sharon to show restraint in the Occupied Territories. He also pressed him to allow Israel’s foreign minister, Shimon Peres, to meet with Yasser Arafat, even though he (Bush) was highly critical of Arafat’s leadership. Bush even said publicly that he supported the creation of a Palestinian state. Alarmed, Sharon accused him of trying ‘to appease the Arabs at our expense’, warning that Israel ‘will not be Czechoslovakia’.
Bush was reportedly furious at being compared to Chamberlain, and the White House press secretary called Sharon’s remarks ‘unacceptable’. Sharon offered a pro forma apology, but quickly joined forces with the Lobby to persuade the administration and the American people that the United States and Israel faced a common threat from terrorism. Israeli officials and Lobby representatives insisted that there was no real difference between Arafat and Osama bin Laden: the United States and Israel, they said, should isolate the Palestinians’ elected leader and have nothing to do with him.
The Lobby also went to work in Congress. On 16 November, 89 senators sent Bush a letter praising him for refusing to meet with Arafat, but also demanding that the US not restrain Israel from retaliating against the Palestinians; the administration, they wrote, must state publicly that it stood behind Israel. According to the New York Times, the letter ‘stemmed’ from a meeting two weeks before between ‘leaders of the American Jewish community and key senators’, adding that AIPAC was ‘particularly active in providing advice on the letter’.
By late November, relations between Tel Aviv and Washington had improved considerably. This was thanks in part to the Lobby’s efforts, but also to America’s initial victory in Afghanistan, which reduced the perceived need for Arab support in dealing with al-Qaida. Sharon visited the White House in early December and had a friendly meeting with Bush.
In April 2002 trouble erupted again, after the IDF launched Operation Defensive Shield and resumed control of virtually all the major Palestinian areas on the West Bank. Bush knew that Israel’s actions would damage America’s image in the Islamic world and undermine the war on terrorism, so he demanded that Sharon ‘halt the incursions and begin withdrawal’. He underscored this message two days later, saying he wanted Israel to ‘withdraw without delay’. On 7 April, Condoleezza Rice, then Bush’s national security adviser, told reporters: ‘“Without delay” means without delay. It means now.’ That same day Colin Powell set out for the Middle East to persuade all sides to stop fighting and start negotiating.
Israel and the Lobby swung into action. Pro-Israel officials in the vice-president’s office and the Pentagon, as well as neo-conservative pundits like Robert Kagan and William Kristol, put the heat on Powell. They even accused him of having ‘virtually obliterated the distinction between terrorists and those fighting terrorists’. Bush himself was being pressed by Jewish leaders and Christian evangelicals. Tom DeLay and Dick Armey were especially outspoken about the need to support Israel, and DeLay and the Senate minority leader, Trent Lott, visited the White House and warned Bush to back off.
The first sign that Bush was caving in came on 11 April – a week after he told Sharon to withdraw his forces – when the White House press secretary said that the president believed Sharon was ‘a man of peace’. Bush repeated this statement publicly on Powell’s return from his abortive mission, and told reporters that Sharon had responded satisfactorily to his call for a full and immediate withdrawal. Sharon had done no such thing, but Bush was no longer willing to make an issue of it.
Meanwhile, Congress was also moving to back Sharon. On 2 May, it overrode the administration’s objections and passed two resolutions reaffirming support for Israel. (The Senate vote was 94 to 2; the House of Representatives version passed 352 to 21.) Both resolutions held that the United States ‘stands in solidarity with Israel’ and that the two countries were, to quote the House resolution, ‘now engaged in a common struggle against terrorism’. The House version also condemned ‘the ongoing support and co-ordination of terror by Yasser Arafat’, who was portrayed as a central part of the terrorism problem. Both resolutions were drawn up with the help of the Lobby. A few days later, a bipartisan congressional delegation on a fact-finding mission to Israel stated that Sharon should resist US pressure to negotiate with Arafat. On 9 May, a House appropriations subcommittee met to consider giving Israel an extra $200 million to fight terrorism. Powell opposed the package, but the Lobby backed it and Powell lost.
In short, Sharon and the Lobby took on the president of the United States and triumphed. Hemi Shalev, a journalist on the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, reported that Sharon’s aides ‘could not hide their satisfaction in view of Powell’s failure. Sharon saw the whites of President Bush’s eyes, they bragged, and the president blinked first.’ But it was Israel’s champions in the United States, not Sharon or Israel, that played the key role in defeating Bush.
The situation has changed little since then. The Bush administration refused ever again to have dealings with Arafat. After his death, it embraced the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, but has done little to help him. Sharon continued to develop his plan to impose a unilateral settlement on the Palestinians, based on ‘disengagement’ from Gaza coupled with continued expansion on the West Bank. By refusing to negotiate with Abbas and making it impossible for him to deliver tangible benefits to the Palestinian people, Sharon’s strategy contributed directly to Hamas’s electoral victory. With Hamas in power, however, Israel has another excuse not to negotiate. The US administration has supported Sharon’s actions (and those of his successor, Ehud Olmert). Bush has even endorsed unilateral Israeli annexations in the Occupied Territories, reversing the stated policy of every president since Lyndon Johnson.
US officials have offered mild criticisms of a few Israeli actions, but have done little to help create a viable Palestinian state. Sharon has Bush ‘wrapped around his little finger’, the former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft said in October 2004. If Bush tries to distance the US from Israel, or even criticises Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories, he is certain to face the wrath of the Lobby and its supporters in Congress. Democratic presidential candidates understand that these are facts of life, which is the reason John Kerry went to great lengths to display unalloyed support for Israel in 2004, and why Hillary Clinton is doing the same thing today.
Maintaining US support for Israel’s policies against the Palestinians is essential as far as the Lobby is concerned, but its ambitions do not stop there. It also wants America to help Israel remain the dominant regional power. The Israeli government and pro-Israel groups in the United States have worked together to shape the administration’s policy towards Iraq, Syria and Iran, as well as its grand scheme for reordering the Middle East.
Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure. According to Philip Zelikow, a former member of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and now a counsellor to Condoleezza Rice, the ‘real threat’ from Iraq was not a threat to the United States. The ‘unstated threat’ was the ‘threat against Israel’, Zelikow told an audience at the University of Virginia in September 2002. ‘The American government,’ he added, ‘doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.’
On 16 August 2002, 11 days before Dick Cheney kicked off the campaign for war with a hardline speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Washington Post reported that ‘Israel is urging US officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.’ By this point, according to Sharon, strategic co-ordination between Israel and the US had reached ‘unprecedented dimensions’, and Israeli intelligence officials had given Washington a variety of alarming reports about Iraq’s WMD programmes. As one retired Israeli general later put it, ‘Israeli intelligence was a full partner to the picture presented by American and British intelligence regarding Iraq’s non-conventional capabilities.’
Israeli leaders were deeply distressed when Bush decided to seek Security Council authorisation for war, and even more worried when Saddam agreed to let UN inspectors back in. ‘The campaign against Saddam Hussein is a must,’ Shimon Peres told reporters in September 2002. ‘Inspections and inspectors are good for decent people, but dishonest people can overcome easily inspections and inspectors.’
At the same time, Ehud Barak wrote a New York Times op-ed warning that ‘the greatest risk now lies in inaction.’ His predecessor as prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, published a similar piece in the Wall Street Journal, entitled: ‘The Case for Toppling Saddam’. ‘Today nothing less than dismantling his regime will do,’ he declared. ‘I believe I speak for the overwhelming majority of Israelis in supporting a pre-emptive strike against Saddam’s regime.’ Or as Ha’aretz reported in February 2003, ‘the military and political leadership yearns for war in Iraq.’
As Netanyahu suggested, however, the desire for war was not confined to Israel’s leaders. Apart from Kuwait, which Saddam invaded in 1990, Israel was the only country in the world where both politicians and public favoured war. As the journalist Gideon Levy observed at the time, ‘Israel is the only country in the West whose leaders support the war unreservedly and where no alternative opinion is voiced.’ In fact, Israelis were so gung-ho that their allies in America told them to damp down their rhetoric, or it would look as if the war would be fought on Israel’s behalf.
Within the US, the main driving force behind the war was a small band of neo-conservatives, many with ties to Likud. But leaders of the Lobby’s major organisations lent their voices to the campaign. ‘As President Bush attempted to sell the … war in Iraq,’ the Forward reported, ‘America’s most important Jewish organisations rallied as one to his defence. In statement after statement community leaders stressed the need to rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.’ The editorial goes on to say that ‘concern for Israel’s safety rightfully factored into the deliberations of the main Jewish groups.’
Although neo-conservatives and other Lobby leaders were eager to invade Iraq, the broader American Jewish community was not. Just after the war started, Samuel Freedman reported that ‘a compilation of nationwide opinion polls by the Pew Research Center shows that Jews are less supportive of the Iraq war than the population at large, 52 per cent to 62 per cent.’ Clearly, it would be wrong to blame the war in Iraq on ‘Jewish influence’. Rather, it was due in large part to the Lobby’s influence, especially that of the neo-conservatives within it.
The neo-conservatives had been determined to topple Saddam even before Bush became president. They caused a stir early in 1998 by publishing two open letters to Clinton, calling for Saddam’s removal from power. The signatories, many of whom had close ties to pro-Israel groups like JINSA or WINEP, and who included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, had little trouble persuading the Clinton administration to adopt the general goal of ousting Saddam. But they were unable to sell a war to achieve that objective. They were no more able to generate enthusiasm for invading Iraq in the early months of the Bush administration. They needed help to achieve their aim. That help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the events of that day led Bush and Cheney to reverse course and become strong proponents of a preventive war.
At a key meeting with Bush at Camp David on 15 September, Wolfowitz advocated attacking Iraq before Afghanistan, even though there was no evidence that Saddam was involved in the attacks on the US and bin Laden was known to be in Afghanistan. Bush rejected his advice and chose to go after Afghanistan instead, but war with Iraq was now regarded as a serious possibility and on 21 November the president charged military planners with developing concrete plans for an invasion.
Other neo-conservatives were meanwhile at work in the corridors of power. We don’t have the full story yet, but scholars like Bernard Lewis of Princeton and Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins reportedly played important roles in persuading Cheney that war was the best option, though neo-conservatives on his staff – Eric Edelman, John Hannah and Scooter Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff and one of the most powerful individuals in the administration – also played their part. By early 2002 Cheney had persuaded Bush; and with Bush and Cheney on board, war was inevitable.
Outside the administration, neo-conservative pundits lost no time in making the case that invading Iraq was essential to winning the war on terrorism. Their efforts were designed partly to keep up the pressure on Bush, and partly to overcome opposition to the war inside and outside the government. On 20 September, a group of prominent neo-conservatives and their allies published another open letter: ‘Even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack,’ it read, ‘any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.’ The letter also reminded Bush that ‘Israel has been and remains America’s staunchest ally against international terrorism.’ In the 1 October issue of the Weekly Standard, Robert Kagan and William Kristol called for regime change in Iraq as soon as the Taliban was defeated. That same day, Charles Krauthammer argued in the Washington Post that after the US was done with Afghanistan, Syria should be next, followed by Iran and Iraq: ‘The war on terrorism will conclude in Baghdad,’ when we finish off ‘the most dangerous terrorist regime in the world’.
This was the beginning of an unrelenting public relations campaign to win support for an invasion of Iraq, a crucial part of which was the manipulation of intelligence in such a way as to make it seem as if Saddam posed an imminent threat. For example, Libby pressured CIA analysts to find evidence supporting the case for war and helped prepare Colin Powell’s now discredited briefing to the UN Security Council. Within the Pentagon, the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group was charged with finding links between al-Qaida and Iraq that the intelligence community had supposedly missed. Its two key members were David Wurmser, a hard-core neo-conservative, and Michael Maloof, a Lebanese-American with close ties to Perle. Another Pentagon group, the so-called Office of Special Plans, was given the task of uncovering evidence that could be used to sell the war. It was headed by Abram Shulsky, a neo-conservative with long-standing ties to Wolfowitz, and its ranks included recruits from pro-Israel think tanks. Both these organisations were created after 9/11 and reported directly to Douglas Feith.
Like virtually all the neo-conservatives, Feith is deeply committed to Israel; he also has long-term ties to Likud. He wrote articles in the 1990s supporting the settlements and arguing that Israel should retain the Occupied Territories. More important, along with Perle and Wurmser, he wrote the famous ‘Clean Break’ report in June 1996 for Netanyahu, who had just become prime minister. Among other things, it recommended that Netanyahu ‘focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right’. It also called for Israel to take steps to reorder the entire Middle East. Netanyahu did not follow their advice, but Feith, Perle and Wurmser were soon urging the Bush administration to pursue those same goals. The Ha’aretz columnist Akiva Eldar warned that Feith and Perle ‘are walking a fine line between their loyalty to American governments … and Israeli interests’.
Wolfowitz is equally committed to Israel. The Forward once described him as ‘the most hawkishly pro-Israel voice in the administration’, and selected him in 2002 as first among 50 notables who ‘have consciously pursued Jewish activism’. At about the same time, JINSA gave Wolfowitz its Henry M. Jackson Distinguished Service Award for promoting a strong partnership between Israel and the United States; and theJerusalem Post, describing him as ‘devoutly pro-Israel’, named him ‘Man of the Year’ in 2003.
Finally, a brief word is in order about the neo-conservatives’ prewar support of Ahmed Chalabi, the unscrupulous Iraqi exile who headed the Iraqi National Congress. They backed Chalabi because he had established close ties with Jewish-American groups and had pledged to foster good relations with Israel once he gained power. This was precisely what pro-Israel proponents of regime change wanted to hear. Matthew Berger laid out the essence of the bargain in the Jewish Journal: ‘The INC saw improved relations as a way to tap Jewish influence in Washington and Jerusalem and to drum up increased support for its cause. For their part, the Jewish groups saw an opportunity to pave the way for better relations between Israel and Iraq, if and when the INC is involved in replacing Saddam Hussein’s regime.’
Given the neo-conservatives’ devotion to Israel, their obsession with Iraq, and their influence in the Bush administration, it isn’t surprising that many Americans suspected that the war was designed to further Israeli interests. Last March, Barry Jacobs of the American Jewish Committee acknowledged that the belief that Israel and the neo-conservatives had conspired to get the US into a war in Iraq was ‘pervasive’ in the intelligence community. Yet few people would say so publicly, and most of those who did – including Senator Ernest Hollings and Representative James Moran – were condemned for raising the issue. Michael Kinsley wrote in late 2002 that ‘the lack of public discussion about the role of Israel … is the proverbial elephant in the room.’ The reason for the reluctance to talk about it, he observed, was fear of being labelled an anti-semite. There is little doubt that Israel and the Lobby were key factors in the decision to go to war. It’s a decision the US would have been far less likely to take without their efforts. And the war itself was intended to be only the first step. A front-page headline in the Wall Street Journal shortly after the war began says it all: ‘President’s Dream: Changing Not Just Regime but a Region: A Pro-US, Democratic Area Is a Goal that Has Israeli and Neo-Conservative Roots.’
Pro-Israel forces have long been interested in getting the US military more directly involved in the Middle East. But they had limited success during the Cold War, because America acted as an ‘off-shore balancer’ in the region. Most forces designated for the Middle East, like the Rapid Deployment Force, were kept ‘over the horizon’ and out of harm’s way. The idea was to play local powers off against each other – which is why the Reagan administration supported Saddam against revolutionary Iran during the Iran-Iraq War – in order to maintain a balance favourable to the US.
This policy changed after the first Gulf War, when the Clinton administration adopted a strategy of ‘dual containment’. Substantial US forces would be stationed in the region in order to contain both Iran and Iraq, instead of one being used to check the other. The father of dual containment was none other than Martin Indyk, who first outlined the strategy in May 1993 at WINEP and then implemented it as director for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council.
By the mid-1990s there was considerable dissatisfaction with dual containment, because it made the United States the mortal enemy of two countries that hated each other, and forced Washington to bear the burden of containing both. But it was a strategy the Lobby favoured and worked actively in Congress to preserve. Pressed by AIPAC and other pro-Israel forces, Clinton toughened up the policy in the spring of 1995 by imposing an economic embargo on Iran. But AIPAC and the others wanted more. The result was the 1996 Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which imposed sanctions on any foreign companies investing more than $40 million to develop petroleum resources in Iran or Libya. As Ze’ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Ha’aretz, noted at the time, ‘Israel is but a tiny element in the big scheme, but one should not conclude that it cannot influence those within the Beltway.’
By the late 1990s, however, the neo-conservatives were arguing that dual containment was not enough and that regime change in Iraq was essential. By toppling Saddam and turning Iraq into a vibrant democracy, they argued, the US would trigger a far-reaching process of change throughout the Middle East. The same line of thinking was evident in the ‘Clean Break’ study the neo-conservatives wrote for Netanyahu. By 2002, when an invasion of Iraq was on the front-burner, regional transformation was an article of faith in neo-conservative circles.
Charles Krauthammer describes this grand scheme as the brainchild of Natan Sharansky, but Israelis across the political spectrum believed that toppling Saddam would alter the Middle East to Israel’s advantage. Aluf Benn reported in Ha’aretz (17 February 2003):
Senior IDF officers and those close to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, such as National Security Adviser Ephraim Halevy, paint a rosy picture of the wonderful future Israel can expect after the war. They envision a domino effect, with the fall of Saddam Hussein followed by that of Israel’s other enemies … Along with these leaders will disappear terror and weapons of mass destruction.
Once Baghdad fell in mid-April 2003, Sharon and his lieutenants began urging Washington to target Damascus. On 16 April, Sharon, interviewed in Yedioth Ahronoth, called for the United States to put ‘very heavy’ pressure on Syria, while Shaul Mofaz, his defence minister, interviewed in Ma’ariv, said: ‘We have a long list of issues that we are thinking of demanding of the Syrians and it is appropriate that it should be done through the Americans.’ Ephraim Halevy told a WINEP audience that it was now important for the US to get rough with Syria, and the Washington Postreported that Israel was ‘fuelling the campaign’ against Syria by feeding the US intelligence reports about the actions of Bashar Assad, the Syrian president.
Prominent members of the Lobby made the same arguments. Wolfowitz declared that ‘there has got to be regime change in Syria,’ and Richard Perle told a journalist that ‘a short message, a two-worded message’ could be delivered to other hostile regimes in the Middle East: ‘You’re next.’ In early April, WINEP released a bipartisan report stating that Syria ‘should not miss the message that countries that pursue Saddam’s reckless, irresponsible and defiant behaviour could end up sharing his fate’. On 15 April, Yossi Klein Halevi wrote a piece in the Los Angeles Times entitled ‘Next, Turn the Screws on Syria’, while the following day Zev Chafets wrote an article for the New York Daily News entitled ‘Terror-Friendly Syria Needs a Change, Too’. Not to be outdone, Lawrence Kaplan wrote in the New Republic on 21 April that Assad was a serious threat to America.
Back on Capitol Hill, Congressman Eliot Engel had reintroduced the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. It threatened sanctions against Syria if it did not withdraw from Lebanon, give up its WMD and stop supporting terrorism, and it also called for Syria and Lebanon to take concrete steps to make peace with Israel. This legislation was strongly endorsed by the Lobby – by AIPAC especially – and ‘framed’, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency, ‘by some of Israel’s best friends in Congress’. The Bush administration had little enthusiasm for it, but the anti-Syrian act passed overwhelmingly (398 to 4 in the House; 89 to 4 in the Senate), and Bush signed it into law on 12 December 2003.
The administration itself was still divided about the wisdom of targeting Syria. Although the neo-conservatives were eager to pick a fight with Damascus, the CIA and the State Department were opposed to the idea. And even after Bush signed the new law, he emphasised that he would go slowly in implementing it. His ambivalence is understandable. First, the Syrian government had not only been providing important intelligence about al-Qaida since 9/11: it had also warned Washington about a planned terrorist attack in the Gulf and given CIA interrogators access to Mohammed Zammar, the alleged recruiter of some of the 9/11 hijackers. Targeting the Assad regime would jeopardise these valuable connections, and thereby undermine the larger war on terrorism.
Second, Syria had not been on bad terms with Washington before the Iraq war (it had even voted for UN Resolution 1441), and was itself no threat to the United States. Playing hardball with it would make the US look like a bully with an insatiable appetite for beating up Arab states. Third, putting Syria on the hit list would give Damascus a powerful incentive to cause trouble in Iraq. Even if one wanted to bring pressure to bear, it made good sense to finish the job in Iraq first. Yet Congress insisted on putting the screws on Damascus, largely in response to pressure from Israeli officials and groups like AIPAC. If there were no Lobby, there would have been no Syria Accountability Act, and US policy towards Damascus would have been more in line with the national interest.
Israelis tend to describe every threat in the starkest terms, but Iran is widely seen as their most dangerous enemy because it is the most likely to acquire nuclear weapons. Virtually all Israelis regard an Islamic country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons as a threat to their existence. ‘Iraq is a problem … But you should understand, if you ask me, today Iran is more dangerous than Iraq,’ the defence minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, remarked a month before the Iraq war.
Sharon began pushing the US to confront Iran in November 2002, in an interview in the Times. Describing Iran as the ‘centre of world terror’, and bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, he declared that the Bush administration should put the strong arm on Iran ‘the day after’ it conquered Iraq. In late April 2003, Ha’aretz reported that the Israeli ambassador in Washington was calling for regime change in Iran. The overthrow of Saddam, he noted, was ‘not enough’. In his words, America ‘has to follow through. We still have great threats of that magnitude coming from Syria, coming from Iran.’
The neo-conservatives, too, lost no time in making the case for regime change in Tehran. On 6 May, the AEI co-sponsored an all-day conference on Iran with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute, both champions of Israel. The speakers were all strongly pro-Israel, and many called for the US to replace the Iranian regime with a democracy. As usual, a bevy of articles by prominent neo-conservatives made the case for going after Iran. ‘The liberation of Iraq was the first great battle for the future of the Middle East … But the next great battle – not, we hope, a military battle – will be for Iran,’ William Kristol wrote in the Weekly Standardon 12 May.
The administration has responded to the Lobby’s pressure by working overtime to shut down Iran’s nuclear programme. But Washington has had little success, and Iran seems determined to create a nuclear arsenal. As a result, the Lobby has intensified its pressure. Op-eds and other articles now warn of imminent dangers from a nuclear Iran, caution against any appeasement of a ‘terrorist’ regime, and hint darkly of preventive action should diplomacy fail. The Lobby is pushing Congress to approve the Iran Freedom Support Act, which would expand existing sanctions. Israeli officials also warn they may take pre-emptive action should Iran continue down the nuclear road, threats partly intended to keep Washington’s attention on the issue.
One might argue that Israel and the Lobby have not had much influence on policy towards Iran, because the US has its own reasons for keeping Iran from going nuclear. There is some truth in this, but Iran’s nuclear ambitions do not pose a direct threat to the US. If Washington could live with a nuclear Soviet Union, a nuclear China or even a nuclear North Korea, it can live with a nuclear Iran. And that is why the Lobby must keep up constant pressure on politicians to confront Tehran. Iran and the US would hardly be allies if the Lobby did not exist, but US policy would be more temperate and preventive war would not be a serious option.
It is not surprising that Israel and its American supporters want the US to deal with any and all threats to Israel’s security. If their efforts to shape US policy succeed, Israel’s enemies will be weakened or overthrown, Israel will get a free hand with the Palestinians, and the US will do most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding and paying. But even if the US fails to transform the Middle East and finds itself in conflict with an increasingly radicalised Arab and Islamic world, Israel will end up protected by the world’s only superpower. This is not a perfect outcome from the Lobby’s point of view, but it is obviously preferable to Washington distancing itself, or using its leverage to force Israel to make peace with the Palestinians.
Can the Lobby’s power be curtailed? One would like to think so, given the Iraq debacle, the obvious need to rebuild America’s image in the Arab and Islamic world, and the recent revelations about AIPAC officials passing US government secrets to Israel. One might also think that Arafat’s death and the election of the more moderate Mahmoud Abbas would cause Washington to press vigorously and even-handedly for a peace agreement. In short, there are ample grounds for leaders to distance themselves from the Lobby and adopt a Middle East policy more consistent with broader US interests. In particular, using American power to achieve a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians would help advance the cause of democracy in the region.
But that is not going to happen – not soon anyway. AIPAC and its allies (including Christian Zionists) have no serious opponents in the lobbying world. They know it has become more difficult to make Israel’s case today, and they are responding by taking on staff and expanding their activities. Besides, American politicians remain acutely sensitive to campaign contributions and other forms of political pressure, and major media outlets are likely to remain sympathetic to Israel no matter what it does.
The Lobby’s influence causes trouble on several fronts. It increases the terrorist danger that all states face – including America’s European allies. It has made it impossible to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a situation that gives extremists a powerful recruiting tool, increases the pool of potential terrorists and sympathisers, and contributes to Islamic radicalism in Europe and Asia.
Equally worrying, the Lobby’s campaign for regime change in Iran and Syria could lead the US to attack those countries, with potentially disastrous effects. We don’t need another Iraq. At a minimum, the Lobby’s hostility towards Syria and Iran makes it almost impossible for Washington to enlist them in the struggle against al-Qaida and the Iraqi insurgency, where their help is badly needed.
There is a moral dimension here as well. Thanks to the Lobby, the United States has become the de facto enabler of Israeli expansion in the Occupied Territories, making it complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians. This situation undercuts Washington’s efforts to promote democracy abroad and makes it look hypocritical when it presses other states to respect human rights. US efforts to limit nuclear proliferation appear equally hypocritical given its willingness to accept Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which only encourages Iran and others to seek a similar capability.
Besides, the Lobby’s campaign to quash debate about Israel is unhealthy for democracy. Silencing sceptics by organising blacklists and boycotts – or by suggesting that critics are anti-semites – violates the principle of open debate on which democracy depends. The inability of Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these important issues paralyses the entire process of democratic deliberation. Israel’s backers should be free to make their case and to challenge those who disagree with them, but efforts to stifle debate by intimidation must be roundly condemned.
Finally, the Lobby’s influence has been bad for Israel. Its ability to persuade Washington to support an expansionist agenda has discouraged Israel from seizing opportunities – including a peace treaty with Syria and a prompt and full implementation of the Oslo Accords – that would have saved Israeli lives and shrunk the ranks of Palestinian extremists. Denying the Palestinians their legitimate political rights certainly has not made Israel more secure, and the long campaign to kill or marginalise a generation of Palestinian leaders has empowered extremist groups like Hamas, and reduced the number of Palestinian leaders who would be willing to accept a fair settlement and able to make it work. Israel itself would probably be better off if the Lobby were less powerful and US policy more even-handed.
There is a ray of hope, however. Although the Lobby remains a powerful force, the adverse effects of its influence are increasingly difficult to hide. Powerful states can maintain flawed policies for quite some time, but reality cannot be ignored for ever. What is needed is a candid discussion of the Lobby’s influence and a more open debate about US interests in this vital region. Israel’s well-being is one of those interests, but its continued occupation of the West Bank and its broader regional agenda are not. Open debate will expose the limits of the strategic and moral case for one-sided US support and could move the US to a position more consistent with its own national interest, with the interests of the other states in the region, and with Israel’s long-term interests as well.
An unedited version of this article is available athttp://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011, or athttp://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=891198.--
Feroze Mithiborwala
For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.
Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.
Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. This largesse is especially striking since Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to that of South Korea or Spain.
Other recipients get their money in quarterly installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year and can thus earn interest on it. Most recipients of aid given for military purposes are required to spend all of it in the US, but Israel is allowed to use roughly 25 per cent of its allocation to subsidise its own defence industry. It is the only recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, which makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the US opposes, such as building settlements on the West Bank. Moreover, the US has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and given it access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters and F-16 jets. Finally, the US gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its Nato allies and has turned a blind eye to Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Washington also provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It blocks the efforts of Arab states to put Israel’s nuclear arsenal on the IAEA’s agenda. The US comes to the rescue in wartime and takes Israel’s side when negotiating peace. The Nixon administration protected it from the threat of Soviet intervention and resupplied it during the October War. Washington was deeply involved in the negotiations that ended that war, as well as in the lengthy ‘step-by-step’ process that followed, just as it played a key role in the negotiations that preceded and followed the 1993 Oslo Accords. In each case there was occasional friction between US and Israeli officials, but the US consistently supported the Israeli position. One American participant at Camp David in 2000 later said: ‘Far too often, we functioned … as Israel’s lawyer.’ Finally, the Bush administration’s ambition to transform the Middle East is at least partly aimed at improving Israel’s strategic situation.
This extraordinary generosity might be understandable if Israel were a vital strategic asset or if there were a compelling moral case for US backing. But neither explanation is convincing. One might argue that Israel was an asset during the Cold War. By serving as America’s proxy after 1967, it helped contain Soviet expansion in the region and inflicted humiliating defeats on Soviet clients like Egypt and Syria. It occasionally helped protect other US allies (like King Hussein of Jordan) and its military prowess forced Moscow to spend more on backing its own client states. It also provided useful intelligence about Soviet capabilities.
Backing Israel was not cheap, however, and it complicated America’s relations with the Arab world. For example, the decision to give $2.2 billion in emergency military aid during the October War triggered an Opec oil embargo that inflicted considerable damage on Western economies. For all that, Israel’s armed forces were not in a position to protect US interests in the region. The US could not, for example, rely on Israel when the Iranian Revolution in 1979 raised concerns about the security of oil supplies, and had to create its own Rapid Deployment Force instead.
The first Gulf War revealed the extent to which Israel was becoming a strategic burden. The US could not use Israeli bases without rupturing the anti-Iraq coalition, and had to divert resources (e.g. Patriot missile batteries) to prevent Tel Aviv doing anything that might harm the alliance against Saddam Hussein. History repeated itself in 2003: although Israel was eager for the US to attack Iraq, Bush could not ask it to help without triggering Arab opposition. So Israel stayed on the sidelines once again.
Beginning in the 1990s, and even more after 9/11, US support has been justified by the claim that both states are threatened by terrorist groups originating in the Arab and Muslim world, and by ‘rogue states’ that back these groups and seek weapons of mass destruction. This is taken to mean not only that Washington should give Israel a free hand in dealing with the Palestinians and not press it to make concessions until all Palestinian terrorists are imprisoned or dead, but that the US should go after countries like Iran and Syria. Israel is thus seen as a crucial ally in the war on terror, because its enemies are America’s enemies. In fact, Israel is a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states.
‘Terrorism’ is not a single adversary, but a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups. The terrorist organisations that threaten Israel do not threaten the United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982). Moreover, Palestinian terrorism is not random violence directed against Israel or ‘the West’; it is largely a response to Israel’s prolonged campaign to colonise the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
More important, saying that Israel and the US are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around. Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult. There is no question that many al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel’s presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular support and to attract recruits.
As for so-called rogue states in the Middle East, they are not a dire threat to vital US interests, except inasmuch as they are a threat to Israel. Even if these states acquire nuclear weapons – which is obviously undesirable – neither America nor Israel could be blackmailed, because the blackmailer could not carry out the threat without suffering overwhelming retaliation. The danger of a nuclear handover to terrorists is equally remote, because a rogue state could not be sure the transfer would go undetected or that it would not be blamed and punished afterwards. The relationship with Israel actually makes it harder for the US to deal with these states. Israel’s nuclear arsenal is one reason some of its neighbours want nuclear weapons, and threatening them with regime change merely increases that desire.
A final reason to question Israel’s strategic value is that it does not behave like a loyal ally. Israeli officials frequently ignore US requests and renege on promises (including pledges to stop building settlements and to refrain from ‘targeted assassinations’ of Palestinian leaders). Israel has provided sensitive military technology to potential rivals like China, in what the State Department inspector-general called ‘a systematic and growing pattern of unauthorised transfers’. According to the General Accounting Office, Israel also ‘conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the US of any ally’. In addition to the case of Jonathan Pollard, who gave Israel large quantities of classified material in the early 1980s (which it reportedly passed on to the Soviet Union in return for more exit visas for Soviet Jews), a new controversy erupted in 2004 when it was revealed that a key Pentagon official called Larry Franklin had passed classified information to an Israeli diplomat. Israel is hardly the only country that spies on the US, but its willingness to spy on its principal patron casts further doubt on its strategic value.
Israel’s strategic value isn’t the only issue. Its backers also argue that it deserves unqualified support because it is weak and surrounded by enemies; it is a democracy; the Jewish people have suffered from past crimes and therefore deserve special treatment; and Israel’s conduct has been morally superior to that of its adversaries. On close inspection, none of these arguments is persuasive. There is a strong moral case for supporting Israel’s existence, but that is not in jeopardy. Viewed objectively, its past and present conduct offers no moral basis for privileging it over the Palestinians.
Israel is often portrayed as David confronted by Goliath, but the converse is closer to the truth. Contrary to popular belief, the Zionists had larger, better equipped and better led forces during the 1947-49 War of Independence, and the Israel Defence Forces won quick and easy victories against Egypt in 1956 and against Egypt, Jordan and Syria in 1967 – all of this before large-scale US aid began flowing. Today, Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East. Its conventional forces are far superior to those of its neighbours and it is the only state in the region with nuclear weapons. Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with it, and Saudi Arabia has offered to do so. Syria has lost its Soviet patron, Iraq has been devastated by three disastrous wars and Iran is hundreds of miles away. The Palestinians barely have an effective police force, let alone an army that could pose a threat to Israel. According to a 2005 assessment by Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies, ‘the strategic balance decidedly favours Israel, which has continued to widen the qualitative gap between its own military capability and deterrence powers and those of its neighbours.’ If backing the underdog were a compelling motive, the United States would be supporting Israel’s opponents.
That Israel is a fellow democracy surrounded by hostile dictatorships cannot account for the current level of aid: there are many democracies around the world, but none receives the same lavish support. The US has overthrown democratic governments in the past and supported dictators when this was thought to advance its interests – it has good relations with a number of dictatorships today.
Some aspects of Israeli democracy are at odds with core American values. Unlike the US, where people are supposed to enjoy equal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens, or that a recent Israeli government commission found that Israel behaves in a ‘neglectful and discriminatory’ manner towards them. Its democratic status is also undermined by its refusal to grant the Palestinians a viable state of their own or full political rights.
A third justification is the history of Jewish suffering in the Christian West, especially during the Holocaust. Because Jews were persecuted for centuries and could feel safe only in a Jewish homeland, many people now believe that Israel deserves special treatment from the United States. The country’s creation was undoubtedly an appropriate response to the long record of crimes against Jews, but it also brought about fresh crimes against a largely innocent third party: the Palestinians.
This was well understood by Israel’s early leaders. David Ben-Gurion told Nahum Goldmann, the president of the World Jewish Congress:
If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country … We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?
Since then, Israeli leaders have repeatedly sought to deny the Palestinians’ national ambitions. When she was prime minister, Golda Meir famously remarked that ‘there is no such thing as a Palestinian.’ Pressure from extremist violence and Palestinian population growth has forced subsequent Israeli leaders to disengage from the Gaza Strip and consider other territorial compromises, but not even Yitzhak Rabin was willing to offer the Palestinians a viable state. Ehud Barak’s purportedly generous offer at Camp David would have given them only a disarmed set of Bantustans under de facto Israeli control. The tragic history of the Jewish people does not obligate the US to help Israel today no matter what it does.
Israel’s backers also portray it as a country that has sought peace at every turn and shown great restraint even when provoked. The Arabs, by contrast, are said to have acted with great wickedness. Yet on the ground, Israel’s record is not distinguishable from that of its opponents. Ben-Gurion acknowledged that the early Zionists were far from benevolent towards the Palestinian Arabs, who resisted their encroachments – which is hardly surprising, given that the Zionists were trying to create their own state on Arab land. In the same way, the creation of Israel in 1947-48 involved acts of ethnic cleansing, including executions, massacres and rapes by Jews, and Israel’s subsequent conduct has often been brutal, belying any claim to moral superiority. Between 1949 and 1956, for example, Israeli security forces killed between 2700 and 5000 Arab infiltrators, the overwhelming majority of them unarmed. The IDF murdered hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war in both the 1956 and 1967 wars, while in 1967, it expelled between 100,000 and 260,000 Palestinians from the newly conquered West Bank, and drove 80,000 Syrians from the Golan Heights.
During the first intifada, the IDF distributed truncheons to its troops and encouraged them to break the bones of Palestinian protesters. The Swedish branch of Save the Children estimated that ‘23,600 to 29,900 children required medical treatment for their beating injuries in the first two years of the intifada.’ Nearly a third of them were aged ten or under. The response to the second intifada has been even more violent, leading Ha’aretz to declare that ‘the IDF … is turning into a killing machine whose efficiency is awe-inspiring, yet shocking.’ The IDF fired one million bullets in the first days of the uprising. Since then, for every Israeli lost, Israel has killed 3.4 Palestinians, the majority of whom have been innocent bystanders; the ratio of Palestinian to Israeli children killed is even higher (5.7:1). It is also worth bearing in mind that the Zionists relied on terrorist bombs to drive the British from Palestine, and that Yitzhak Shamir, once a terrorist and later prime minister, declared that ‘neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat.’
The Palestinian resort to terrorism is wrong but it isn’t surprising. The Palestinians believe they have no other way to force Israeli concessions. As Ehud Barak once admitted, had he been born a Palestinian, he ‘would have joined a terrorist organisation’.
So if neither strategic nor moral arguments can account for America’s support for Israel, how are we to explain it?
The explanation is the unmatched power of the Israel Lobby. We use ‘the Lobby’ as shorthand for the loose coalition of individuals and organisations who actively work to steer US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. This is not meant to suggest that ‘the Lobby’ is a unified movement with a central leadership, or that individuals within it do not disagree on certain issues. Not all Jewish Americans are part of the Lobby, because Israel is not a salient issue for many of them. In a 2004 survey, for example, roughly 36 per cent of American Jews said they were either ‘not very’ or ‘not at all’ emotionally attached to Israel.
Jewish Americans also differ on specific Israeli policies. Many of the key organisations in the Lobby, such as the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organisations, are run by hardliners who generally support the Likud Party’s expansionist policies, including its hostility to the Oslo peace process. The bulk of US Jewry, meanwhile, is more inclined to make concessions to the Palestinians, and a few groups – such as Jewish Voice for Peace – strongly advocate such steps. Despite these differences, moderates and hardliners both favour giving steadfast support to Israel.
Not surprisingly, American Jewish leaders often consult Israeli officials, to make sure that their actions advance Israeli goals. As one activist from a major Jewish organisation wrote, ‘it is routine for us to say: “This is our policy on a certain issue, but we must check what the Israelis think.” We as a community do it all the time.’ There is a strong prejudice against criticising Israeli policy, and putting pressure on Israel is considered out of order. Edgar Bronfman Sr, the president of the World Jewish Congress, was accused of ‘perfidy’ when he wrote a letter to President Bush in mid-2003 urging him to persuade Israel to curb construction of its controversial ‘security fence’. His critics said that ‘it would be obscene at any time for the president of the World Jewish Congress to lobby the president of the United States to resist policies being promoted by the government of Israel.’
Similarly, when the president of the Israel Policy Forum, Seymour Reich, advised Condoleezza Rice in November 2005 to ask Israel to reopen a critical border crossing in the Gaza Strip, his action was denounced as ‘irresponsible’: ‘There is,’ his critics said, ‘absolutely no room in the Jewish mainstream for actively canvassing against the security-related policies … of Israel.’ Recoiling from these attacks, Reich announced that ‘the word “pressure” is not in my vocabulary when it comes to Israel.’
Jewish Americans have set up an impressive array of organisations to influence American foreign policy, of which AIPAC is the most powerful and best known. In 1997, Fortune magazine asked members of Congress and their staffs to list the most powerful lobbies in Washington. AIPAC was ranked second behind the American Association of Retired People, but ahead of the AFL-CIO and the National Rifle Association. A National Journal study in March 2005 reached a similar conclusion, placing AIPAC in second place (tied with AARP) in the Washington ‘muscle rankings’.
The Lobby also includes prominent Christian evangelicals like Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, as well as Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, former majority leaders in the House of Representatives, all of whom believe Israel’s rebirth is the fulfilment of biblical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda; to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary to God’s will. Neo-conservative gentiles such as John Bolton; Robert Bartley, the former Wall Street Journal editor; William Bennett, the former secretary of education; Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former UN ambassador; and the influential columnist George Will are also steadfast supporters.
The US form of government offers activists many ways of influencing the policy process. Interest groups can lobby elected representatives and members of the executive branch, make campaign contributions, vote in elections, try to mould public opinion etc. They enjoy a disproportionate amount of influence when they are committed to an issue to which the bulk of the population is indifferent. Policymakers will tend to accommodate those who care about the issue, even if their numbers are small, confident that the rest of the population will not penalise them for doing so.
In its basic operations, the Israel Lobby is no different from the farm lobby, steel or textile workers’ unions, or other ethnic lobbies. There is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian allies attempting to sway US policy: the Lobby’s activities are not a conspiracy of the sort depicted in tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For the most part, the individuals and groups that comprise it are only doing what other special interest groups do, but doing it very much better. By contrast, pro-Arab interest groups, in so far as they exist at all, are weak, which makes the Israel Lobby’s task even easier.
The Lobby pursues two broad strategies. First, it wields its significant influence in Washington, pressuring both Congress and the executive branch. Whatever an individual lawmaker or policymaker’s own views may be, the Lobby tries to make supporting Israel the ‘smart’ choice. Second, it strives to ensure that public discourse portrays Israel in a positive light, by repeating myths about its founding and by promoting its point of view in policy debates. The goal is to prevent critical comments from getting a fair hearing in the political arena. Controlling the debate is essential to guaranteeing US support, because a candid discussion of US-Israeli relations might lead Americans to favour a different policy.
A key pillar of the Lobby’s effectiveness is its influence in Congress, where Israel is virtually immune from criticism. This in itself is remarkable, because Congress rarely shies away from contentious issues. Where Israel is concerned, however, potential critics fall silent. One reason is that some key members are Christian Zionists like Dick Armey, who said in September 2002: ‘My No. 1 priority in foreign policy is to protect Israel.’ One might think that the No. 1 priority for any congressman would be to protect America. There are also Jewish senators and congressmen who work to ensure that US foreign policy supports Israel’s interests.
Another source of the Lobby’s power is its use of pro-Israel congressional staffers. As Morris Amitay, a former head of AIPAC, once admitted, ‘there are a lot of guys at the working level up here’ – on Capitol Hill – ‘who happen to be Jewish, who are willing … to look at certain issues in terms of their Jewishness … These are all guys who are in a position to make the decision in these areas for those senators … You can get an awful lot done just at the staff level.’
AIPAC itself, however, forms the core of the Lobby’s influence in Congress. Its success is due to its ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it. Money is critical to US elections (as the scandal over the lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s shady dealings reminds us), and AIPAC makes sure that its friends get strong financial support from the many pro-Israel political action committees. Anyone who is seen as hostile to Israel can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions to his or her political opponents. AIPAC also organises letter-writing campaigns and encourages newspaper editors to endorse pro-Israel candidates.
There is no doubt about the efficacy of these tactics. Here is one example: in the 1984 elections, AIPAC helped defeat Senator Charles Percy from Illinois, who, according to a prominent Lobby figure, had ‘displayed insensitivity and even hostility to our concerns’. Thomas Dine, the head of AIPAC at the time, explained what happened: ‘All the Jews in America, from coast to coast, gathered to oust Percy. And the American politicians – those who hold public positions now, and those who aspire – got the message.’
AIPAC’s influence on Capitol Hill goes even further. According to Douglas Bloomfield, a former AIPAC staff member, ‘it is common for members of Congress and their staffs to turn to AIPAC first when they need information, before calling the Library of Congress, the Congressional Research Service, committee staff or administration experts.’ More important, he notes that AIPAC is ‘often called on to draft speeches, work on legislation, advise on tactics, perform research, collect co-sponsors and marshal votes’.
The bottom line is that AIPAC, a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on Congress, with the result that US policy towards Israel is not debated there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world. In other words, one of the three main branches of the government is firmly committed to supporting Israel. As one former Democratic senator, Ernest Hollings, noted on leaving office, ‘you can’t have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here.’ Or as Ariel Sharon once told an American audience, ‘when people ask me how they can help Israel, I tell them: “Help AIPAC.”’
Thanks in part to the influence Jewish voters have on presidential elections, the Lobby also has significant leverage over the executive branch. Although they make up fewer than 3 per cent of the population, they make large campaign donations to candidates from both parties. The Washington Post once estimated that Democratic presidential candidates ‘depend on Jewish supporters to supply as much as 60 per cent of the money’. And because Jewish voters have high turn-out rates and are concentrated in key states like California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania, presidential candidates go to great lengths not to antagonise them.
Key organisations in the Lobby make it their business to ensure that critics of Israel do not get important foreign policy jobs. Jimmy Carter wanted to make George Ball his first secretary of state, but knew that Ball was seen as critical of Israel and that the Lobby would oppose the appointment. In this way any aspiring policymaker is encouraged to become an overt supporter of Israel, which is why public critics of Israeli policy have become an endangered species in the foreign policy establishment.
When Howard Dean called for the United States to take a more ‘even-handed role’ in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Senator Joseph Lieberman accused him of selling Israel down the river and said his statement was ‘irresponsible’. Virtually all the top Democrats in the House signed a letter criticising Dean’s remarks, and the Chicago Jewish Starreported that ‘anonymous attackers … are clogging the email inboxes of Jewish leaders around the country, warning – without much evidence – that Dean would somehow be bad for Israel.’
This worry was absurd; Dean is in fact quite hawkish on Israel: his campaign co-chair was a former AIPAC president, and Dean said his own views on the Middle East more closely reflected those of AIPAC than those of the more moderate Americans for Peace Now. He had merely suggested that to ‘bring the sides together’, Washington should act as an honest broker. This is hardly a radical idea, but the Lobby doesn’t tolerate even-handedness.
During the Clinton administration, Middle Eastern policy was largely shaped by officials with close ties to Israel or to prominent pro-Israel organisations; among them, Martin Indyk, the former deputy director of research at AIPAC and co-founder of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP); Dennis Ross, who joined WINEP after leaving government in 2001; and Aaron Miller, who has lived in Israel and often visits the country. These men were among Clinton’s closest advisers at the Camp David summit in July 2000. Although all three supported the Oslo peace process and favoured the creation of a Palestinian state, they did so only within the limits of what would be acceptable to Israel. The American delegation took its cues from Ehud Barak, co-ordinated its negotiating positions with Israel in advance, and did not offer independent proposals. Not surprisingly, Palestinian negotiators complained that they were ‘negotiating with two Israeli teams – one displaying an Israeli flag, and one an American flag’.
The situation is even more pronounced in the Bush administration, whose ranks have included such fervent advocates of the Israeli cause as Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, I. Lewis (‘Scooter’) Libby, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and David Wurmser. As we shall see, these officials have consistently pushed for policies favoured by Israel and backed by organisations in the Lobby.
The Lobby doesn’t want an open debate, of course, because that might lead Americans to question the level of support they provide. Accordingly, pro-Israel organisations work hard to influence the institutions that do most to shape popular opinion.
The Lobby’s perspective prevails in the mainstream media: the debate among Middle East pundits, the journalist Eric Alterman writes, is ‘dominated by people who cannot imagine criticising Israel’. He lists 61 ‘columnists and commentators who can be counted on to support Israel reflexively and without qualification’. Conversely, he found just five pundits who consistently criticise Israeli actions or endorse Arab positions. Newspapers occasionally publish guest op-eds challenging Israeli policy, but the balance of opinion clearly favours the other side. It is hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States publishing a piece like this one.
‘Shamir, Sharon, Bibi – whatever those guys want is pretty much fine by me,’ Robert Bartley once remarked. Not surprisingly, his newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, along with other prominent papers like the Chicago Sun-Times and the Washington Times, regularly runs editorials that strongly support Israel. Magazines likeCommentary, the New Republic and the Weekly Standard defend Israel at every turn.
Editorial bias is also found in papers like the New York Times, which occasionally criticises Israeli policies and sometimes concedes that the Palestinians have legitimate grievances, but is not even-handed. In his memoirs the paper’s former executive editor Max Frankel acknowledges the impact his own attitude had on his editorial decisions: ‘I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert … Fortified by my knowledge of Israel and my friendships there, I myself wrote most of our Middle East commentaries. As more Arab than Jewish readers recognised, I wrote them from a pro-Israel perspective.’
News reports are more even-handed, in part because reporters strive to be objective, but also because it is difficult to cover events in the Occupied Territories without acknowledging Israel’s actions on the ground. To discourage unfavourable reporting, the Lobby organises letter-writing campaigns, demonstrations and boycotts of news outlets whose content it considers anti-Israel. One CNN executive has said that he sometimes gets 6000 email messages in a single day complaining about a story. In May 2003, the pro-Israel Committee for Accurate Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) organised demonstrations outside National Public Radio stations in 33 cities; it also tried to persuade contributors to withhold support from NPR until its Middle East coverage becomes more sympathetic to Israel. Boston’s NPR station, WBUR, reportedly lost more than $1 million in contributions as a result of these efforts. Further pressure on NPR has come from Israel’s friends in Congress, who have asked for an internal audit of its Middle East coverage as well as more oversight.
The Israeli side also dominates the think tanks which play an important role in shaping public debate as well as actual policy. The Lobby created its own think tank in 1985, when Martin Indyk helped to found WINEP. Although WINEP plays down its links to Israel, claiming instead to provide a ‘balanced and realistic’ perspective on Middle East issues, it is funded and run by individuals deeply committed to advancing Israel’s agenda.
The Lobby’s influence extends well beyond WINEP, however. Over the past 25 years, pro-Israel forces have established a commanding presence at the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Security Policy, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). These think tanks employ few, if any, critics of US support for Israel.
Take the Brookings Institution. For many years, its senior expert on the Middle East was William Quandt, a former NSC official with a well-deserved reputation for even-handedness. Today, Brookings’s coverage is conducted through the Saban Center for Middle East Studies, which is financed by Haim Saban, an Israeli-American businessman and ardent Zionist. The centre’s director is the ubiquitous Martin Indyk. What was once a non-partisan policy institute is now part of the pro-Israel chorus.
Where the Lobby has had the most difficulty is in stifling debate on university campuses. In the 1990s, when the Oslo peace process was underway, there was only mild criticism of Israel, but it grew stronger with Oslo’s collapse and Sharon’s access to power, becoming quite vociferous when the IDF reoccupied the West Bank in spring 2002 and employed massive force to subdue the second intifada.
The Lobby moved immediately to ‘take back the campuses’. New groups sprang up, like the Caravan for Democracy, which brought Israeli speakers to US colleges. Established groups like the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Hillel joined in, and a new group, the Israel on Campus Coalition, was formed to co-ordinate the many bodies that now sought to put Israel’s case. Finally, AIPAC more than tripled its spending on programmes to monitor university activities and to train young advocates, in order to ‘vastly expand the number of students involved on campus … in the national pro-Israel effort’.
The Lobby also monitors what professors write and teach. In September 2002, Martin Kramer and Daniel Pipes, two passionately pro-Israel neo-conservatives, established a website (Campus Watch) that posted dossiers on suspect academics and encouraged students to report remarks or behaviour that might be considered hostile to Israel. This transparent attempt to blacklist and intimidate scholars provoked a harsh reaction and Pipes and Kramer later removed the dossiers, but the website still invites students to report ‘anti-Israel’ activity.
Groups within the Lobby put pressure on particular academics and universities. Columbia has been a frequent target, no doubt because of the presence of the late Edward Said on its faculty. ‘One can be sure that any public statement in support of the Palestinian people by the pre-eminent literary critic Edward Said will elicit hundreds of emails, letters and journalistic accounts that call on us to denounce Said and to either sanction or fire him,’ Jonathan Cole, its former provost, reported. When Columbia recruited the historian Rashid Khalidi from Chicago, the same thing happened. It was a problem Princeton also faced a few years later when it considered wooing Khalidi away from Columbia.
A classic illustration of the effort to police academia occurred towards the end of 2004, when the David Project produced a film alleging that faculty members of Columbia’s Middle East Studies programme were anti-semitic and were intimidating Jewish students who stood up for Israel. Columbia was hauled over the coals, but a faculty committee which was assigned to investigate the charges found no evidence of anti-semitism and the only incident possibly worth noting was that one professor had ‘responded heatedly’ to a student’s question. The committee also discovered that the academics in question had themselves been the target of an overt campaign of intimidation.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of all this is the efforts Jewish groups have made to push Congress into establishing mechanisms to monitor what professors say. If they manage to get this passed, universities judged to have an anti-Israel bias would be denied federal funding. Their efforts have not yet succeeded, but they are an indication of the importance placed on controlling debate.
A number of Jewish philanthropists have recently established Israel Studies programmes (in addition to the roughly 130 Jewish Studies programmes already in existence) so as to increase the number of Israel-friendly scholars on campus. In May 2003, NYU announced the establishment of the Taub Center for Israel Studies; similar programmes have been set up at Berkeley, Brandeis and Emory. Academic administrators emphasise their pedagogical value, but the truth is that they are intended in large part to promote Israel’s image. Fred Laffer, the head of the Taub Foundation, makes it clear that his foundation funded the NYU centre to help counter the ‘Arabic [sic] point of view’ that he thinks is prevalent in NYU’s Middle East programmes.
No discussion of the Lobby would be complete without an examination of one of its most powerful weapons: the charge of anti-semitism. Anyone who criticises Israel’s actions or argues that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over US Middle Eastern policy – an influence AIPAC celebrates – stands a good chance of being labelled an anti-semite. Indeed, anyone who merely claims that there is an Israel Lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-semitism, even though the Israeli media refer to America’s ‘Jewish Lobby’. In other words, the Lobby first boasts of its influence and then attacks anyone who calls attention to it. It’s a very effective tactic: anti-semitism is something no one wants to be accused of.
Europeans have been more willing than Americans to criticise Israeli policy, which some people attribute to a resurgence of anti-semitism in Europe. We are ‘getting to a point’, the US ambassador to the EU said in early 2004, ‘where it is as bad as it was in the 1930s’. Measuring anti-semitism is a complicated matter, but the weight of evidence points in the opposite direction. In the spring of 2004, when accusations of European anti-semitism filled the air in America, separate surveys of European public opinion conducted by the US-based Anti-Defamation League and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that it was in fact declining. In the 1930s, by contrast, anti-semitism was not only widespread among Europeans of all classes but considered quite acceptable.
The Lobby and its friends often portray France as the most anti-semitic country in Europe. But in 2003, the head of the French Jewish community said that ‘France is not more anti-semitic than America.’ According to a recent article in Ha’aretz, the French police have reported that anti-semitic incidents declined by almost 50 per cent in 2005; and this even though France has the largest Muslim population of any European country. Finally, when a French Jew was murdered in Paris last month by a Muslim gang, tens of thousands of demonstrators poured into the streets to condemn anti-semitism. Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin both attended the victim’s memorial service to show their solidarity.
No one would deny that there is anti-semitism among European Muslims, some of it provoked by Israel’s conduct towards the Palestinians and some of it straightforwardly racist. But this is a separate matter with little bearing on whether or not Europe today is like Europe in the 1930s. Nor would anyone deny that there are still some virulent autochthonous anti-semites in Europe (as there are in the United States) but their numbers are small and their views are rejected by the vast majority of Europeans.
Israel’s advocates, when pressed to go beyond mere assertion, claim that there is a ‘new anti-semitism’, which they equate with criticism of Israel. In other words, criticise Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite. When the synod of the Church of England recently voted to divest from Caterpillar Inc on the grounds that it manufactures the bulldozers used by the Israelis to demolish Palestinian homes, the Chief Rabbi complained that this would ‘have the most adverse repercussions on … Jewish-Christian relations in Britain’, while Rabbi Tony Bayfield, the head of the Reform movement, said: ‘There is a clear problem of anti-Zionist – verging on anti-semitic – attitudes emerging in the grass-roots, and even in the middle ranks of the Church.’ But the Church was guilty merely of protesting against Israeli government policy.
Critics are also accused of holding Israel to an unfair standard or questioning its right to exist. But these are bogus charges too. Western critics of Israel hardly ever question its right to exist: they question its behaviour towards the Palestinians, as do Israelis themselves. Nor is Israel being judged unfairly. Israeli treatment of the Palestinians elicits criticism because it is contrary to widely accepted notions of human rights, to international law and to the principle of national self-determination. And it is hardly the only state that has faced sharp criticism on these grounds.
In the autumn of 2001, and especially in the spring of 2002, the Bush administration tried to reduce anti-American sentiment in the Arab world and undermine support for terrorist groups like al-Qaida by halting Israel’s expansionist policies in the Occupied Territories and advocating the creation of a Palestinian state. Bush had very significant means of persuasion at his disposal. He could have threatened to reduce economic and diplomatic support for Israel, and the American people would almost certainly have supported him. A May 2003 poll reported that more than 60 per cent of Americans were willing to withhold aid if Israel resisted US pressure to settle the conflict, and that number rose to 70 per cent among the ‘politically active’. Indeed, 73 per cent said that the United States should not favour either side.
Yet the administration failed to change Israeli policy, and Washington ended up backing it. Over time, the administration also adopted Israel’s own justifications of its position, so that US rhetoric began to mimic Israeli rhetoric. By February 2003, aWashington Post headline summarised the situation: ‘Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical on Mideast Policy.’ The main reason for this switch was the Lobby.
The story begins in late September 2001, when Bush began urging Sharon to show restraint in the Occupied Territories. He also pressed him to allow Israel’s foreign minister, Shimon Peres, to meet with Yasser Arafat, even though he (Bush) was highly critical of Arafat’s leadership. Bush even said publicly that he supported the creation of a Palestinian state. Alarmed, Sharon accused him of trying ‘to appease the Arabs at our expense’, warning that Israel ‘will not be Czechoslovakia’.
Bush was reportedly furious at being compared to Chamberlain, and the White House press secretary called Sharon’s remarks ‘unacceptable’. Sharon offered a pro forma apology, but quickly joined forces with the Lobby to persuade the administration and the American people that the United States and Israel faced a common threat from terrorism. Israeli officials and Lobby representatives insisted that there was no real difference between Arafat and Osama bin Laden: the United States and Israel, they said, should isolate the Palestinians’ elected leader and have nothing to do with him.
The Lobby also went to work in Congress. On 16 November, 89 senators sent Bush a letter praising him for refusing to meet with Arafat, but also demanding that the US not restrain Israel from retaliating against the Palestinians; the administration, they wrote, must state publicly that it stood behind Israel. According to the New York Times, the letter ‘stemmed’ from a meeting two weeks before between ‘leaders of the American Jewish community and key senators’, adding that AIPAC was ‘particularly active in providing advice on the letter’.
By late November, relations between Tel Aviv and Washington had improved considerably. This was thanks in part to the Lobby’s efforts, but also to America’s initial victory in Afghanistan, which reduced the perceived need for Arab support in dealing with al-Qaida. Sharon visited the White House in early December and had a friendly meeting with Bush.
In April 2002 trouble erupted again, after the IDF launched Operation Defensive Shield and resumed control of virtually all the major Palestinian areas on the West Bank. Bush knew that Israel’s actions would damage America’s image in the Islamic world and undermine the war on terrorism, so he demanded that Sharon ‘halt the incursions and begin withdrawal’. He underscored this message two days later, saying he wanted Israel to ‘withdraw without delay’. On 7 April, Condoleezza Rice, then Bush’s national security adviser, told reporters: ‘“Without delay” means without delay. It means now.’ That same day Colin Powell set out for the Middle East to persuade all sides to stop fighting and start negotiating.
Israel and the Lobby swung into action. Pro-Israel officials in the vice-president’s office and the Pentagon, as well as neo-conservative pundits like Robert Kagan and William Kristol, put the heat on Powell. They even accused him of having ‘virtually obliterated the distinction between terrorists and those fighting terrorists’. Bush himself was being pressed by Jewish leaders and Christian evangelicals. Tom DeLay and Dick Armey were especially outspoken about the need to support Israel, and DeLay and the Senate minority leader, Trent Lott, visited the White House and warned Bush to back off.
The first sign that Bush was caving in came on 11 April – a week after he told Sharon to withdraw his forces – when the White House press secretary said that the president believed Sharon was ‘a man of peace’. Bush repeated this statement publicly on Powell’s return from his abortive mission, and told reporters that Sharon had responded satisfactorily to his call for a full and immediate withdrawal. Sharon had done no such thing, but Bush was no longer willing to make an issue of it.
Meanwhile, Congress was also moving to back Sharon. On 2 May, it overrode the administration’s objections and passed two resolutions reaffirming support for Israel. (The Senate vote was 94 to 2; the House of Representatives version passed 352 to 21.) Both resolutions held that the United States ‘stands in solidarity with Israel’ and that the two countries were, to quote the House resolution, ‘now engaged in a common struggle against terrorism’. The House version also condemned ‘the ongoing support and co-ordination of terror by Yasser Arafat’, who was portrayed as a central part of the terrorism problem. Both resolutions were drawn up with the help of the Lobby. A few days later, a bipartisan congressional delegation on a fact-finding mission to Israel stated that Sharon should resist US pressure to negotiate with Arafat. On 9 May, a House appropriations subcommittee met to consider giving Israel an extra $200 million to fight terrorism. Powell opposed the package, but the Lobby backed it and Powell lost.
In short, Sharon and the Lobby took on the president of the United States and triumphed. Hemi Shalev, a journalist on the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, reported that Sharon’s aides ‘could not hide their satisfaction in view of Powell’s failure. Sharon saw the whites of President Bush’s eyes, they bragged, and the president blinked first.’ But it was Israel’s champions in the United States, not Sharon or Israel, that played the key role in defeating Bush.
The situation has changed little since then. The Bush administration refused ever again to have dealings with Arafat. After his death, it embraced the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, but has done little to help him. Sharon continued to develop his plan to impose a unilateral settlement on the Palestinians, based on ‘disengagement’ from Gaza coupled with continued expansion on the West Bank. By refusing to negotiate with Abbas and making it impossible for him to deliver tangible benefits to the Palestinian people, Sharon’s strategy contributed directly to Hamas’s electoral victory. With Hamas in power, however, Israel has another excuse not to negotiate. The US administration has supported Sharon’s actions (and those of his successor, Ehud Olmert). Bush has even endorsed unilateral Israeli annexations in the Occupied Territories, reversing the stated policy of every president since Lyndon Johnson.
US officials have offered mild criticisms of a few Israeli actions, but have done little to help create a viable Palestinian state. Sharon has Bush ‘wrapped around his little finger’, the former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft said in October 2004. If Bush tries to distance the US from Israel, or even criticises Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories, he is certain to face the wrath of the Lobby and its supporters in Congress. Democratic presidential candidates understand that these are facts of life, which is the reason John Kerry went to great lengths to display unalloyed support for Israel in 2004, and why Hillary Clinton is doing the same thing today.
Maintaining US support for Israel’s policies against the Palestinians is essential as far as the Lobby is concerned, but its ambitions do not stop there. It also wants America to help Israel remain the dominant regional power. The Israeli government and pro-Israel groups in the United States have worked together to shape the administration’s policy towards Iraq, Syria and Iran, as well as its grand scheme for reordering the Middle East.
Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure. According to Philip Zelikow, a former member of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and now a counsellor to Condoleezza Rice, the ‘real threat’ from Iraq was not a threat to the United States. The ‘unstated threat’ was the ‘threat against Israel’, Zelikow told an audience at the University of Virginia in September 2002. ‘The American government,’ he added, ‘doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.’
On 16 August 2002, 11 days before Dick Cheney kicked off the campaign for war with a hardline speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Washington Post reported that ‘Israel is urging US officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.’ By this point, according to Sharon, strategic co-ordination between Israel and the US had reached ‘unprecedented dimensions’, and Israeli intelligence officials had given Washington a variety of alarming reports about Iraq’s WMD programmes. As one retired Israeli general later put it, ‘Israeli intelligence was a full partner to the picture presented by American and British intelligence regarding Iraq’s non-conventional capabilities.’
Israeli leaders were deeply distressed when Bush decided to seek Security Council authorisation for war, and even more worried when Saddam agreed to let UN inspectors back in. ‘The campaign against Saddam Hussein is a must,’ Shimon Peres told reporters in September 2002. ‘Inspections and inspectors are good for decent people, but dishonest people can overcome easily inspections and inspectors.’
At the same time, Ehud Barak wrote a New York Times op-ed warning that ‘the greatest risk now lies in inaction.’ His predecessor as prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, published a similar piece in the Wall Street Journal, entitled: ‘The Case for Toppling Saddam’. ‘Today nothing less than dismantling his regime will do,’ he declared. ‘I believe I speak for the overwhelming majority of Israelis in supporting a pre-emptive strike against Saddam’s regime.’ Or as Ha’aretz reported in February 2003, ‘the military and political leadership yearns for war in Iraq.’
As Netanyahu suggested, however, the desire for war was not confined to Israel’s leaders. Apart from Kuwait, which Saddam invaded in 1990, Israel was the only country in the world where both politicians and public favoured war. As the journalist Gideon Levy observed at the time, ‘Israel is the only country in the West whose leaders support the war unreservedly and where no alternative opinion is voiced.’ In fact, Israelis were so gung-ho that their allies in America told them to damp down their rhetoric, or it would look as if the war would be fought on Israel’s behalf.
Within the US, the main driving force behind the war was a small band of neo-conservatives, many with ties to Likud. But leaders of the Lobby’s major organisations lent their voices to the campaign. ‘As President Bush attempted to sell the … war in Iraq,’ the Forward reported, ‘America’s most important Jewish organisations rallied as one to his defence. In statement after statement community leaders stressed the need to rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.’ The editorial goes on to say that ‘concern for Israel’s safety rightfully factored into the deliberations of the main Jewish groups.’
Although neo-conservatives and other Lobby leaders were eager to invade Iraq, the broader American Jewish community was not. Just after the war started, Samuel Freedman reported that ‘a compilation of nationwide opinion polls by the Pew Research Center shows that Jews are less supportive of the Iraq war than the population at large, 52 per cent to 62 per cent.’ Clearly, it would be wrong to blame the war in Iraq on ‘Jewish influence’. Rather, it was due in large part to the Lobby’s influence, especially that of the neo-conservatives within it.
The neo-conservatives had been determined to topple Saddam even before Bush became president. They caused a stir early in 1998 by publishing two open letters to Clinton, calling for Saddam’s removal from power. The signatories, many of whom had close ties to pro-Israel groups like JINSA or WINEP, and who included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, had little trouble persuading the Clinton administration to adopt the general goal of ousting Saddam. But they were unable to sell a war to achieve that objective. They were no more able to generate enthusiasm for invading Iraq in the early months of the Bush administration. They needed help to achieve their aim. That help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the events of that day led Bush and Cheney to reverse course and become strong proponents of a preventive war.
At a key meeting with Bush at Camp David on 15 September, Wolfowitz advocated attacking Iraq before Afghanistan, even though there was no evidence that Saddam was involved in the attacks on the US and bin Laden was known to be in Afghanistan. Bush rejected his advice and chose to go after Afghanistan instead, but war with Iraq was now regarded as a serious possibility and on 21 November the president charged military planners with developing concrete plans for an invasion.
Other neo-conservatives were meanwhile at work in the corridors of power. We don’t have the full story yet, but scholars like Bernard Lewis of Princeton and Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins reportedly played important roles in persuading Cheney that war was the best option, though neo-conservatives on his staff – Eric Edelman, John Hannah and Scooter Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff and one of the most powerful individuals in the administration – also played their part. By early 2002 Cheney had persuaded Bush; and with Bush and Cheney on board, war was inevitable.
Outside the administration, neo-conservative pundits lost no time in making the case that invading Iraq was essential to winning the war on terrorism. Their efforts were designed partly to keep up the pressure on Bush, and partly to overcome opposition to the war inside and outside the government. On 20 September, a group of prominent neo-conservatives and their allies published another open letter: ‘Even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack,’ it read, ‘any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.’ The letter also reminded Bush that ‘Israel has been and remains America’s staunchest ally against international terrorism.’ In the 1 October issue of the Weekly Standard, Robert Kagan and William Kristol called for regime change in Iraq as soon as the Taliban was defeated. That same day, Charles Krauthammer argued in the Washington Post that after the US was done with Afghanistan, Syria should be next, followed by Iran and Iraq: ‘The war on terrorism will conclude in Baghdad,’ when we finish off ‘the most dangerous terrorist regime in the world’.
This was the beginning of an unrelenting public relations campaign to win support for an invasion of Iraq, a crucial part of which was the manipulation of intelligence in such a way as to make it seem as if Saddam posed an imminent threat. For example, Libby pressured CIA analysts to find evidence supporting the case for war and helped prepare Colin Powell’s now discredited briefing to the UN Security Council. Within the Pentagon, the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group was charged with finding links between al-Qaida and Iraq that the intelligence community had supposedly missed. Its two key members were David Wurmser, a hard-core neo-conservative, and Michael Maloof, a Lebanese-American with close ties to Perle. Another Pentagon group, the so-called Office of Special Plans, was given the task of uncovering evidence that could be used to sell the war. It was headed by Abram Shulsky, a neo-conservative with long-standing ties to Wolfowitz, and its ranks included recruits from pro-Israel think tanks. Both these organisations were created after 9/11 and reported directly to Douglas Feith.
Like virtually all the neo-conservatives, Feith is deeply committed to Israel; he also has long-term ties to Likud. He wrote articles in the 1990s supporting the settlements and arguing that Israel should retain the Occupied Territories. More important, along with Perle and Wurmser, he wrote the famous ‘Clean Break’ report in June 1996 for Netanyahu, who had just become prime minister. Among other things, it recommended that Netanyahu ‘focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right’. It also called for Israel to take steps to reorder the entire Middle East. Netanyahu did not follow their advice, but Feith, Perle and Wurmser were soon urging the Bush administration to pursue those same goals. The Ha’aretz columnist Akiva Eldar warned that Feith and Perle ‘are walking a fine line between their loyalty to American governments … and Israeli interests’.
Wolfowitz is equally committed to Israel. The Forward once described him as ‘the most hawkishly pro-Israel voice in the administration’, and selected him in 2002 as first among 50 notables who ‘have consciously pursued Jewish activism’. At about the same time, JINSA gave Wolfowitz its Henry M. Jackson Distinguished Service Award for promoting a strong partnership between Israel and the United States; and theJerusalem Post, describing him as ‘devoutly pro-Israel’, named him ‘Man of the Year’ in 2003.
Finally, a brief word is in order about the neo-conservatives’ prewar support of Ahmed Chalabi, the unscrupulous Iraqi exile who headed the Iraqi National Congress. They backed Chalabi because he had established close ties with Jewish-American groups and had pledged to foster good relations with Israel once he gained power. This was precisely what pro-Israel proponents of regime change wanted to hear. Matthew Berger laid out the essence of the bargain in the Jewish Journal: ‘The INC saw improved relations as a way to tap Jewish influence in Washington and Jerusalem and to drum up increased support for its cause. For their part, the Jewish groups saw an opportunity to pave the way for better relations between Israel and Iraq, if and when the INC is involved in replacing Saddam Hussein’s regime.’
Given the neo-conservatives’ devotion to Israel, their obsession with Iraq, and their influence in the Bush administration, it isn’t surprising that many Americans suspected that the war was designed to further Israeli interests. Last March, Barry Jacobs of the American Jewish Committee acknowledged that the belief that Israel and the neo-conservatives had conspired to get the US into a war in Iraq was ‘pervasive’ in the intelligence community. Yet few people would say so publicly, and most of those who did – including Senator Ernest Hollings and Representative James Moran – were condemned for raising the issue. Michael Kinsley wrote in late 2002 that ‘the lack of public discussion about the role of Israel … is the proverbial elephant in the room.’ The reason for the reluctance to talk about it, he observed, was fear of being labelled an anti-semite. There is little doubt that Israel and the Lobby were key factors in the decision to go to war. It’s a decision the US would have been far less likely to take without their efforts. And the war itself was intended to be only the first step. A front-page headline in the Wall Street Journal shortly after the war began says it all: ‘President’s Dream: Changing Not Just Regime but a Region: A Pro-US, Democratic Area Is a Goal that Has Israeli and Neo-Conservative Roots.’
Pro-Israel forces have long been interested in getting the US military more directly involved in the Middle East. But they had limited success during the Cold War, because America acted as an ‘off-shore balancer’ in the region. Most forces designated for the Middle East, like the Rapid Deployment Force, were kept ‘over the horizon’ and out of harm’s way. The idea was to play local powers off against each other – which is why the Reagan administration supported Saddam against revolutionary Iran during the Iran-Iraq War – in order to maintain a balance favourable to the US.
This policy changed after the first Gulf War, when the Clinton administration adopted a strategy of ‘dual containment’. Substantial US forces would be stationed in the region in order to contain both Iran and Iraq, instead of one being used to check the other. The father of dual containment was none other than Martin Indyk, who first outlined the strategy in May 1993 at WINEP and then implemented it as director for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council.
By the mid-1990s there was considerable dissatisfaction with dual containment, because it made the United States the mortal enemy of two countries that hated each other, and forced Washington to bear the burden of containing both. But it was a strategy the Lobby favoured and worked actively in Congress to preserve. Pressed by AIPAC and other pro-Israel forces, Clinton toughened up the policy in the spring of 1995 by imposing an economic embargo on Iran. But AIPAC and the others wanted more. The result was the 1996 Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which imposed sanctions on any foreign companies investing more than $40 million to develop petroleum resources in Iran or Libya. As Ze’ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Ha’aretz, noted at the time, ‘Israel is but a tiny element in the big scheme, but one should not conclude that it cannot influence those within the Beltway.’
By the late 1990s, however, the neo-conservatives were arguing that dual containment was not enough and that regime change in Iraq was essential. By toppling Saddam and turning Iraq into a vibrant democracy, they argued, the US would trigger a far-reaching process of change throughout the Middle East. The same line of thinking was evident in the ‘Clean Break’ study the neo-conservatives wrote for Netanyahu. By 2002, when an invasion of Iraq was on the front-burner, regional transformation was an article of faith in neo-conservative circles.
Charles Krauthammer describes this grand scheme as the brainchild of Natan Sharansky, but Israelis across the political spectrum believed that toppling Saddam would alter the Middle East to Israel’s advantage. Aluf Benn reported in Ha’aretz (17 February 2003):
Senior IDF officers and those close to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, such as National Security Adviser Ephraim Halevy, paint a rosy picture of the wonderful future Israel can expect after the war. They envision a domino effect, with the fall of Saddam Hussein followed by that of Israel’s other enemies … Along with these leaders will disappear terror and weapons of mass destruction.
Once Baghdad fell in mid-April 2003, Sharon and his lieutenants began urging Washington to target Damascus. On 16 April, Sharon, interviewed in Yedioth Ahronoth, called for the United States to put ‘very heavy’ pressure on Syria, while Shaul Mofaz, his defence minister, interviewed in Ma’ariv, said: ‘We have a long list of issues that we are thinking of demanding of the Syrians and it is appropriate that it should be done through the Americans.’ Ephraim Halevy told a WINEP audience that it was now important for the US to get rough with Syria, and the Washington Postreported that Israel was ‘fuelling the campaign’ against Syria by feeding the US intelligence reports about the actions of Bashar Assad, the Syrian president.
Prominent members of the Lobby made the same arguments. Wolfowitz declared that ‘there has got to be regime change in Syria,’ and Richard Perle told a journalist that ‘a short message, a two-worded message’ could be delivered to other hostile regimes in the Middle East: ‘You’re next.’ In early April, WINEP released a bipartisan report stating that Syria ‘should not miss the message that countries that pursue Saddam’s reckless, irresponsible and defiant behaviour could end up sharing his fate’. On 15 April, Yossi Klein Halevi wrote a piece in the Los Angeles Times entitled ‘Next, Turn the Screws on Syria’, while the following day Zev Chafets wrote an article for the New York Daily News entitled ‘Terror-Friendly Syria Needs a Change, Too’. Not to be outdone, Lawrence Kaplan wrote in the New Republic on 21 April that Assad was a serious threat to America.
Back on Capitol Hill, Congressman Eliot Engel had reintroduced the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. It threatened sanctions against Syria if it did not withdraw from Lebanon, give up its WMD and stop supporting terrorism, and it also called for Syria and Lebanon to take concrete steps to make peace with Israel. This legislation was strongly endorsed by the Lobby – by AIPAC especially – and ‘framed’, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency, ‘by some of Israel’s best friends in Congress’. The Bush administration had little enthusiasm for it, but the anti-Syrian act passed overwhelmingly (398 to 4 in the House; 89 to 4 in the Senate), and Bush signed it into law on 12 December 2003.
The administration itself was still divided about the wisdom of targeting Syria. Although the neo-conservatives were eager to pick a fight with Damascus, the CIA and the State Department were opposed to the idea. And even after Bush signed the new law, he emphasised that he would go slowly in implementing it. His ambivalence is understandable. First, the Syrian government had not only been providing important intelligence about al-Qaida since 9/11: it had also warned Washington about a planned terrorist attack in the Gulf and given CIA interrogators access to Mohammed Zammar, the alleged recruiter of some of the 9/11 hijackers. Targeting the Assad regime would jeopardise these valuable connections, and thereby undermine the larger war on terrorism.
Second, Syria had not been on bad terms with Washington before the Iraq war (it had even voted for UN Resolution 1441), and was itself no threat to the United States. Playing hardball with it would make the US look like a bully with an insatiable appetite for beating up Arab states. Third, putting Syria on the hit list would give Damascus a powerful incentive to cause trouble in Iraq. Even if one wanted to bring pressure to bear, it made good sense to finish the job in Iraq first. Yet Congress insisted on putting the screws on Damascus, largely in response to pressure from Israeli officials and groups like AIPAC. If there were no Lobby, there would have been no Syria Accountability Act, and US policy towards Damascus would have been more in line with the national interest.
Israelis tend to describe every threat in the starkest terms, but Iran is widely seen as their most dangerous enemy because it is the most likely to acquire nuclear weapons. Virtually all Israelis regard an Islamic country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons as a threat to their existence. ‘Iraq is a problem … But you should understand, if you ask me, today Iran is more dangerous than Iraq,’ the defence minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, remarked a month before the Iraq war.
Sharon began pushing the US to confront Iran in November 2002, in an interview in the Times. Describing Iran as the ‘centre of world terror’, and bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, he declared that the Bush administration should put the strong arm on Iran ‘the day after’ it conquered Iraq. In late April 2003, Ha’aretz reported that the Israeli ambassador in Washington was calling for regime change in Iran. The overthrow of Saddam, he noted, was ‘not enough’. In his words, America ‘has to follow through. We still have great threats of that magnitude coming from Syria, coming from Iran.’
The neo-conservatives, too, lost no time in making the case for regime change in Tehran. On 6 May, the AEI co-sponsored an all-day conference on Iran with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute, both champions of Israel. The speakers were all strongly pro-Israel, and many called for the US to replace the Iranian regime with a democracy. As usual, a bevy of articles by prominent neo-conservatives made the case for going after Iran. ‘The liberation of Iraq was the first great battle for the future of the Middle East … But the next great battle – not, we hope, a military battle – will be for Iran,’ William Kristol wrote in the Weekly Standardon 12 May.
The administration has responded to the Lobby’s pressure by working overtime to shut down Iran’s nuclear programme. But Washington has had little success, and Iran seems determined to create a nuclear arsenal. As a result, the Lobby has intensified its pressure. Op-eds and other articles now warn of imminent dangers from a nuclear Iran, caution against any appeasement of a ‘terrorist’ regime, and hint darkly of preventive action should diplomacy fail. The Lobby is pushing Congress to approve the Iran Freedom Support Act, which would expand existing sanctions. Israeli officials also warn they may take pre-emptive action should Iran continue down the nuclear road, threats partly intended to keep Washington’s attention on the issue.
One might argue that Israel and the Lobby have not had much influence on policy towards Iran, because the US has its own reasons for keeping Iran from going nuclear. There is some truth in this, but Iran’s nuclear ambitions do not pose a direct threat to the US. If Washington could live with a nuclear Soviet Union, a nuclear China or even a nuclear North Korea, it can live with a nuclear Iran. And that is why the Lobby must keep up constant pressure on politicians to confront Tehran. Iran and the US would hardly be allies if the Lobby did not exist, but US policy would be more temperate and preventive war would not be a serious option.
It is not surprising that Israel and its American supporters want the US to deal with any and all threats to Israel’s security. If their efforts to shape US policy succeed, Israel’s enemies will be weakened or overthrown, Israel will get a free hand with the Palestinians, and the US will do most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding and paying. But even if the US fails to transform the Middle East and finds itself in conflict with an increasingly radicalised Arab and Islamic world, Israel will end up protected by the world’s only superpower. This is not a perfect outcome from the Lobby’s point of view, but it is obviously preferable to Washington distancing itself, or using its leverage to force Israel to make peace with the Palestinians.
Can the Lobby’s power be curtailed? One would like to think so, given the Iraq debacle, the obvious need to rebuild America’s image in the Arab and Islamic world, and the recent revelations about AIPAC officials passing US government secrets to Israel. One might also think that Arafat’s death and the election of the more moderate Mahmoud Abbas would cause Washington to press vigorously and even-handedly for a peace agreement. In short, there are ample grounds for leaders to distance themselves from the Lobby and adopt a Middle East policy more consistent with broader US interests. In particular, using American power to achieve a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians would help advance the cause of democracy in the region.
But that is not going to happen – not soon anyway. AIPAC and its allies (including Christian Zionists) have no serious opponents in the lobbying world. They know it has become more difficult to make Israel’s case today, and they are responding by taking on staff and expanding their activities. Besides, American politicians remain acutely sensitive to campaign contributions and other forms of political pressure, and major media outlets are likely to remain sympathetic to Israel no matter what it does.
The Lobby’s influence causes trouble on several fronts. It increases the terrorist danger that all states face – including America’s European allies. It has made it impossible to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a situation that gives extremists a powerful recruiting tool, increases the pool of potential terrorists and sympathisers, and contributes to Islamic radicalism in Europe and Asia.
Equally worrying, the Lobby’s campaign for regime change in Iran and Syria could lead the US to attack those countries, with potentially disastrous effects. We don’t need another Iraq. At a minimum, the Lobby’s hostility towards Syria and Iran makes it almost impossible for Washington to enlist them in the struggle against al-Qaida and the Iraqi insurgency, where their help is badly needed.
There is a moral dimension here as well. Thanks to the Lobby, the United States has become the de facto enabler of Israeli expansion in the Occupied Territories, making it complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians. This situation undercuts Washington’s efforts to promote democracy abroad and makes it look hypocritical when it presses other states to respect human rights. US efforts to limit nuclear proliferation appear equally hypocritical given its willingness to accept Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which only encourages Iran and others to seek a similar capability.
Besides, the Lobby’s campaign to quash debate about Israel is unhealthy for democracy. Silencing sceptics by organising blacklists and boycotts – or by suggesting that critics are anti-semites – violates the principle of open debate on which democracy depends. The inability of Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these important issues paralyses the entire process of democratic deliberation. Israel’s backers should be free to make their case and to challenge those who disagree with them, but efforts to stifle debate by intimidation must be roundly condemned.
Finally, the Lobby’s influence has been bad for Israel. Its ability to persuade Washington to support an expansionist agenda has discouraged Israel from seizing opportunities – including a peace treaty with Syria and a prompt and full implementation of the Oslo Accords – that would have saved Israeli lives and shrunk the ranks of Palestinian extremists. Denying the Palestinians their legitimate political rights certainly has not made Israel more secure, and the long campaign to kill or marginalise a generation of Palestinian leaders has empowered extremist groups like Hamas, and reduced the number of Palestinian leaders who would be willing to accept a fair settlement and able to make it work. Israel itself would probably be better off if the Lobby were less powerful and US policy more even-handed.
There is a ray of hope, however. Although the Lobby remains a powerful force, the adverse effects of its influence are increasingly difficult to hide. Powerful states can maintain flawed policies for quite some time, but reality cannot be ignored for ever. What is needed is a candid discussion of the Lobby’s influence and a more open debate about US interests in this vital region. Israel’s well-being is one of those interests, but its continued occupation of the West Bank and its broader regional agenda are not. Open debate will expose the limits of the strategic and moral case for one-sided US support and could move the US to a position more consistent with its own national interest, with the interests of the other states in the region, and with Israel’s long-term interests as well.
An unedited version of this article is available athttp://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011, or athttp://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=891198.--
Feroze Mithiborwala
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