Zolang in onze Grondwet staat dat Nederland een internationale rechtsorde nastreeft, mag revisionistische 'Groot-Israel' zionist Geert Wilders geen deel uitmaken van enig kabinet. 

Laat dat duidelijk zijn bij de komende verkiezingen voor de Tweede Kamer. Het nastreven van 

een Groot-Israel waar geen plaats is voor een soeverein Palestina met Oost-Jeruzalem als hoofdstad, is strijdig met alle VN/VR-resoluties terzake. 

Geert Wilders verklaarde op 8 mei 2008 - naar aanleiding van nieuwe mediaberichten over vrede tussen Israël en de Palestijnen - geheel achter de opvattingen van het revisionistisch zionisme te staan: :"Ze'ev Jabotinsky, tegenstander van Ben-Goerion, had gelijk".^[201] Naast sympathisant van Jabotinsky en tegenstander van het gedeeltelijk teruggeven van land aan de Palestijnen voor een onafhankelijke staat Palestina, verklaarde Wilders nogmaals, dat de westerse vrije volken „diepe dankbaarheid” tegenover Israël zouden moeten tonen.^[202]

Uit: Wikipedia

Geert Wilders' anti-islamitisme gebaseerd op politiek zionisme en populistische xenofobie

Nog machtiger dan de Amerikaanse Groot-Israel lobby kan die van de Amerikaanse hoogste militaire leiding zijn, dat lijkt de Israelische regering niet te hebben voorzien bij de voortzetting van haar annexatie- en bezettingsbeleid. 

Die militaire top begint duidelijk genoeg te krijgen van dat beleid, want het brengt de levens van Amerikaanse militairen in het Midden-Oosten,Irak en Afghanistan in gevaar. En dan hebben we het hier nog niet eens over het probleem van een nucleair bewapend Iran waartegen Israel de steun van Amerika niet kan ontberen. 

Israel is empowering al Qaeda, Petraeus warns (War in Context)

As erupting violence in Jerusalem suggests a third intifada may soon take hold, the CENTCOM commander Gen David Petraeus, testifying before the US Senate Armed Services Committee today, gave a grave warning about the wider impact of a conflict that has been the epicenter of Middle East hostilities ever since the creation of Israel.

In issuing his warning, Petraeus — arguably the most influential even if not the highest ranking member of the US military — was reiterating a statement he made almost a year ago. The only difference between what he said in April 2009 and what he said today, was that he now acknowledges al Qaeda is being strengthened by the conflict.

He  now says:

The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR [CENTCOM's area of responsibility]. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.

“This is Starting to Get Dangerous”

(By Scott Horton in Harpers Magazine, March 15)

Last week, Vice President Joe Biden was publicly slapped in the face by the Netanyahu government during his trip to Jerusalem. The Israeli government used the occasion to announce the settlement of 1,600 Israelis in Arab East Jerusalem, in defiance of America’s calls for a freeze on settlements. According to a report inYedioth Ahronoth, Biden responded: “This is starting to get dangerous for us. What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.”

Now in a fascinating briefing note at Foreign Policy, Mark Perry gives us a clearer sense of what Biden was thinking:..

Perry sees this as a struggle between two “lobbies,” namely the Israel lobby and the U.S. military. The Israel lobby is very powerful, he says, but how can it compete with the U.S. military asserting the imperative interest in the security of U.S. troops? The Netanyahu government’s recent dealings reflect contempt for the Obama Administration and indifference at best for its position in the Middle East. These steps seem perfectly coordinated with neoconservatives in the United States, as shown in the “apology” offered on their behalf by Washington Post editorial writerJackson Diehl (“Biden flunked,” he concludes, applying typically obtuse reasoning). The question is whether a close ally can throw juvenile tantrums and abuse its protector indefinitely without consequences. So far the answer appears to be: yes it can..

U.S.-Israel rift undermining some long-standing taboos (Salon)

The rather extraordinary dust-up between the U.S. and Israel has, among other benefits, shined a light on two of the most taboo yet self-evidently true propositions:   (1) our joined-at-the-hip relationship with Israel is a significant cause of anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, fuels attacks on Americans, and entails a very high price for the U.S. on multiple levels; and (2) many American neoconservatives have their political beliefs shaped by allegiance to Israel.

Israel moet actief streven naar vrede in het Midden-Oosten 

'Een Iraanse kernbom is niet erg' (Martin van Crefeld in NRC H)

Israel moet stoppen met het uitbreiden van nederzettingen in bezet Palestijns gebied en

streven naar directe vredesonderhandelingen om een einde te maken aan het conflict, meent

Haaretz.

Een derde intifada dreigt en het aanzien van Israel in de wereld is gekelderd.

De recente 'ridicule' oproepen van de regering aan Israeli's om het 'andere' Israel aan de wereld uit te leggen, kunnen een serieus beleid gericht op een doorbraak in het vredesproces niet vervangen.

Een mening waarin elke onbevooroordeelde waarnemer zich in kan vinden, denk ik.

Maar zij is tegengesteld aan die van zionisten in Israel en de 'Israel lobby', die streven naar

Eretz Yisrael=Groot Israel. Daarin is geen plaats voor een Palestijnse staat, laat staan een met Oost Jeruzalem als hoofdstad. Hun 'Hasbara'-propaganda werkt niet meer.

Secret Israeli report: U.S. cozying up to Palestinians (Haaretz)

The U.S. administration will not put a lot of effort into the upcoming indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, opting instead to focus on the November Congressional elections, according to an internal Foreign Ministry report that was distributed to Israeli diplomatic missions abroad. 

The classified report claims that in the preparatory discussions for the Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks the Obama administration adopted positions that are closer to Palestinian demands. 

"The recent American statements point to the adoption of wording in line, even if partially and cautiously, with Palestinian demands in regard to the framework and structure of negotiations," the report stated. "Still, the [U.S.] administration is making sure to avoid commenting on its position on core issues." 

U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell arrived in Israel last night for what is expected to be a final series of talks before the official announcement of the resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, in an indirect format. 

The proximity talks are to continue for four months. They will involve Mitchell going between Jerusalem and Ramallah, relaying messages and responses, or, alternatively, talks in either Washington or Europe. ..

Editorial / U.S. is proving it wants Mideast peace - now it's Israel's turn (Haaretz Editorial)

The visit to Israel this week by U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, along with American Middle East envoy George Mitchell's meetings here, testify to the United States' readiness to not miss the opportunity to advance the peace process. The latest American diplomatic effort comes on the heels of the Arab League granting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas qualified "permission" to conduct indirect talks with Israel - which also represents an important gesture on the part of those countries that have signed on to the Arab peace initiative. 

On the other hand, a recent Israeli Foreign Ministry report indicates that the U.S. administration has no intention of expending too great an effort to achieve a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that the Obama administration's positions are closer to those held by the Palestinians than to Israel's stance. 

Israel and the Palestinians must decide which of the two perspectives they will embrace: either the view that hope is still not abandoned, or the one that dampens expectations entirely. If Israel intends to do nothing more than evade responsibility for the failure of the peace process and placate the U.S. administration until the expiration of the settlement construction freeze, it would be better not to launch the indirect talks at all. Every past diplomatic step that turned out to be nothing more than another exercise in evasion only served to push the peace process several substantial steps backward, leaving in its wake great despair and frustration that gave rise to more violence.

Israël medeschuldig aan slechte imago wereldwijd (Reformatorisch Dagblad)

Israël is medeschuldig aan de slechte pers die het land wereldwijd krijgt, vindt Bert de Bruin. Zolang de regering haar beleid niet serieus verandert, zal het imago van Israël ook niet beter worden.

Netanyahu's rhetoric over policy is jeopardizing Israel (Haaretz Editorial)

The Israeli prime minister apparently believed that by conducting two-track negotiations he could make things coalition-friendly: to both espouse the slogan "two states for two peoples" and sabotage the Palestinians' ability to set up their state; to both embrace Vice President Joe Biden and give the U.S. administration the finger; to both ask the administration to get Mahmoud Abbas back to the negotiating table and put thumbtacks on his seat once he's there. 

Judging by the statements of Benjamin Netanyahu and his associates, even now that the American flamethrower is aimed right at him and Israel, he still believes that everything was a misunderstanding, and if he asks nicely to be forgiven or launches an inquiry into what happened, all his transgressions will be absolved...

The government headed by Netanyahu is now emerging as a strategic threat. It is essential to remove that threat by adopting an open and responsible policy that will include an undertaking to withdraw from the territories and a total freeze on construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. We must also set a final date for the conclusion of negotiations.

Israel envoy: U.S. ties at their lowest ebb in 35 years

Reactie op het artikel “Ludo Abicht schetst de stand van zaken” in De Standaard van 13/03/2010.

Ludo Abicht merkt terecht op dat Israël er niet aan denkt op te gaan in een binationale staat. Ook de Palestijnen zijn kwasi unaniem om niet samen te leven in één staat met moordenaars en kolonisten die hen al decennia het leven zuur maken...

A Matter of Timing - Uri Avnery's Column 

It’s all a matter of timing. The Government of Israel has insulted the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, one of the greatest “friends” of Israel (meaning: somebody totally subservient to AIPAC) and spat in the face of President Barack Obama. So what? It’s all a matter of timing.

If the government had announced the building of 1600 new housing units in East Jerusalem a day earlier, it would have been OK. If it had announced it three days later, it would have been wonderful. But doing it exactly when Joe Biden was about to have dinner with Bibi and Sarah’le – that was really bad timing.

The matter itself is not important. Another thousand housing units in East Jerusalem, or 10 thousand, or 100 thousand – what different does it make? The only thing that matters is the timing.

As the Frenchman said: It’s worse than criminal, it’s stupid...

IN MEMORIAM:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rachel Aliene Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) was an American member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who was killed by a bulldozer operated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while attempting to prevent IDF forces from demolishing the home of local Palestinian pharmacist Samir Nasrallah. According to the New York Times, Corrie and others were acting as "human shields." A student at the Evergreen State College, she had taken a year off and traveled to the Gaza Strip during theSecond Intifada.^[1] The details of the events surrounding Corrie's death are still disputed.

De zionistische (Groot-)'Israel lobby' in Nederland: een noodzakelijke inventarisatie

Complimenten voor Thomas von der Dunk's artikel 'Leef je in je tegenstander' in de Volkskrant van vanmorgen. Zijn beoordeling van het rapport Het nieuwe Strategisch Concept van de NAVO  van de Adviesraad Internationale Vraagstukken (AIV) begint positief maar eindigt met het (ook) terecht signaleren van het gebrek aan 'een basaal besef van de eigen westerse rol bij het ontstaan van bepaalde problemen in verleden en heden', en een pleidooi voor een goede analyse 'die begint met een verklaring van waarom de tegenstander zo denkt als hij denkt – en waarom dat ook logisch is'.

De beantwoording van zijn vraag: 'wat zouden wij in hun positie, met hun wereldbeeld en hun verleden, hebben gedaan? Kortom: proberen te kijken door de ogen van de tegenstander, of dat nu Poetin of Peking betreft', ontbreekt niet alleen in het AIV-rapport maar ook in alle andere voorbereidingen van het nieuwe Strategisch Concept.

Zo is het bijv. volstrekt begrijpelijk dat Iran (mogelijk) streeft naar een militair-nucleaire capaciteit gezien zijn omsingeling door (potentiele) tegenstanders. "En eerlijk gezegd zou ik, als ik in hun schoenen stond, precies hetzelfde doen", schreef onlangs de Israelische krijgskundige Martin van Crefeld in NRC.

En waarom haten de Palestijnen de Israeliers (en 'het Westen') eigenlijk zo?

In hoeverre is het conflict tussen Israel en de Palestijnen oorzaak van de verwijdering tussen 'het Westen' en de moslimwereld?

Zouden er NAVO-leiders zijn die de Amerikanen waarschuwen dat zij grotendeels zelf schuldig zijn aan een mogelijke nieuwe Koude Oorlog met Rusland?
 
Het is van vitaal belang om de juiste lessen uit de Koude Oorlog te trekken. (Potentiele) crises om de Kaukasus, het Midden-Oosten, Irak, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Noord-Korea en mondiaal moslimextremisme, vereisen dat 'het Westen' zich  verdiept in de visie van de (potentiele) tegenstanders. Hoe zien deze ons en in hoeverre hebben zij eventueel gerechtvaardigde grieven en/of angsten?

Het stellen van deze vragen zou een belangrijk onderdeel moeten zijn van de voorbereidingen van het nieuwe Strategisch Concept van de NAVO.

Dit is geen populaire bezigheid. 
Ik heb, omstreeks 1975, deelgenomen aan de enige NAVO-studie naar het beeld dat de Sovjet-Unie van de NAVO had . De resultaten waren zodanig ontnuchterend - bijv. de nog bestaande, en historisch gezien begrijpelijke, angst voor Duitsland - , dat de studie zo snel als mogelijk in de onderste la is weggemoffeld.

Het is goed dat Von der Dunk op dit 'perceptie van de tegenstander'-manco wijst.

De jaarlijkse (ongeclassificeerde) 'Threat Assessment' van de gezamenlijke Amerikaanse inlichtingendiensten geeft een goede indruk van hoe zij diverse dreigingen beoordelen.

Deze omvatten, naast evaluaties van landen, regio's en terroristische bewegingen:  

Far-Reaching Impact of the Cyber Threat, The Changing Threat of the Global Economy, Globalisation Challenges [= financiele crisis], Global Energy Security Challenges, Growing Proliferation Threat, Climate Change, Strategic Health Challenges and Threats, State and Non-State Intelligence, Growing Threat from Interational Organized Crime.

Hoewel niet echt diepgaand, toch belangwekkend voor geinteresseerden. 

Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Amerikaans buitenlands beleid op mijn blogsite

Israel's toepassen van massaal militair geweld tegen de militair (oneindig) veel zwakkere, maar politiek moeilijk te onderwerpen, verzetsbeweging Hamas in Gaza, paste in haar nieuwe 'Dahiyah Doctrine'. Volgens deze doctrine mogen bijv. dorpen van waaruit op Israel of Israeliers wordt geschoten, als vijandelijke stellingen worden aangevallen zonder onderscheid te maken tussen militaire- en burgerdoelen.

Feitelijk berust deze doctrine op de 'Military Activism' strategie van David Ben Gurion, die ook massaal geweld propageerde als meest effectieve verdediging en afschrikking. 

Deze doctrine is onrechtmatig volgens huidig oorlogsrecht vanwege haar disproportionaliteit en het overtreden van de verbodsregels tegen het gebruik van geweld tegen burgers en civiele infrastructuur. Israel meent echter dat nieuwe soorten van oorlog ook nieuwe rechtsregels vergen. Interessante materie voor rechtsgeleerden, maar ondertussen zit men in Gaza letterlijk met de brokken - die ze van Israel niet mogen opruimen. Ongetwijfeld zal deze methode van oorlog voeren onderwerp zijn van verdere debatten over het Goldstone-rapport.

In Afghanistan zijn de Amerikanen en NAVO gaan inzien dat de 'nevenschade' van burgerslachtoffers, de bevolking zodanig verbittert, dat het beoogde nuttig politiek effect van militaire acties verloren gaat. 

De Zionistische Reut Institute in Tel Aviv levert in deze, ook voor buitenstaanders, belangwekkende analyses t.b.v. Israelische beleidsmakers.

Our Vision – 21st Century Zionism

The vision that drives the Reut Institute is one of a secure State of Israel, in Eretz Yisrael, serving as the center of the Jewish world. Its Jewishness synergizes with its democratic values and prosperity, as well as with its role as a leader among the family of nations. This is, to us, 21st Century Zionism and our vision..

The Dahiyah Doctrine

The Dahiyah Doctrine refers to an IDF military strategy developed in the aftermath of the Second Lebanon war that focuses on using disproportionate air power and artillery against a seemingly new type of fighting model of non-state terrorist and guerilla organizations...

Israel's Gaza Dilemma: Military Logic Undermines National Security

The operation in the Beit Hanun area in the Northern Gaza Strip highlights the strategic dilemma facing Israel. In Gaza, we are fighting a war that we cannot win. The reason is that a military victory may be a major setback to our national security..

..continued ineffectiveness of IDF operations in the Gaza Strip may be what will eventually bring about ripeness for a political move with the Palestinian side or with Syria. Israelis living through an episode of national security confusion and incoherence, which cannot last forever. Clarity can and should be expected.

Military Activism

Military Activism refers to an Israeli political-security approach developed in the 1950’s by David Ben Gurion which promoted disproportionate military retaliation as the most effective deterrence against Arab violence and viewed international opinion as peripheral to Israel’s vital interest..

Israel’s 'Dahiya Doctrine' of Destruction (by Jonathan Cook in Global Research.ca)

Dahiya doctrine (Wikipedia)

The Dahiya doctrine is a concept used in the Israel Defense Forces regarding asymmetric warfare in an urban setting, according to which a conventional army targets civilian infrastructure that is used by terrorists.^[1] It is named after a Hizbullah stronghold in Beirut with large apartment buildings doubling as Hizbullah command-and-control centers, which were bombed by the IDF during the 2006 Lebanon War.^[1]

Israeli journalist Yaron London opined in 2008 that the Dahiya strategy or doctrine "will become entrenched in our security discourse" following theIranian takeover of Lebanon and the mobilization of the latter country's entire social infrastructure in support of Hizbullah. London regretted that the doctrine had not taken hold following Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon or Israel's disengagement from Gaza. He also argued that the strategy "is the customary doctrine adopted by most Arabs," who view 'Zionists' as criminals, yet regard all of Israel’s citizens as 'Zionists.'^[2]

The 2009 Goldstone report argued that IDF Northern Command Chief Gadi Eisenkot "expressed the premise of the doctrine" in remarks made in 2008. He said: "What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. [...] We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases. [...] This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved."^[3][4]

Dahiya doctrine (Google Search)

The Delegitimization Challenge: Creating a Political Firewall (Reut Institute)

This report analyzes and provides a conceptual response to the erosion in Israel's diplomatic status over the past few years, which reached its peak with the Goldstone report . This attack possesses strategic significance, and may develop into a comprehensive existential threat within a few years..

REUT INSTITUTE MAPS ISRAEL’S INTELLIGENCE WAR AGAINST ENEMIES

Reading the summary of this report gives one the sense of listening in on a bunch of generals and intelligence officers plotting Israel’s global strategy against the bad guys.  Of course, the main problem is that the bad guys aren’t just the ones hiding in caves in Pakistan or building bombs to kill Israeli civilians.  For Reut, the bad guys are, well–you and me.  That’s what makes this report so monstrous.  Yes, I use that term deliberately because this isn’t some document produced by David Horowitz or Moshe Feiglin, a bunch of crazy loons no one takes seriously.  This is a manual for Israeli pols and spooks outlining how to fight the enemy.  And I gotta tell ya, when they say enemy, they mean it literally.  We are in the cross hairs along with all the usual suspects like Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.  This is pro-Israel paranoia and it strikes deep:

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your heart it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
Step out of line, the Man come and take you away.

–For What It’s Worth, Buffalo Springfield

Just like the IDF made no distinction between civilians and fighters in Gaza, the new tack by Reut seems to treat all Israel’s critics as, if not terrorist, then fellow travelers and accomplices.  The rhetoric is feverish, apocalyptic.  You’ll notice how many times the word “existential” is used in the Bibiesque context.

The only truth in the entire report is the introduction which posits that the greatest danger to Israel in the recent past has been the Gaza and Lebanon wars because they have served to unify Israel’s enemies as never before.  But every idea proceeding from this thesis is bogus starting here:..

Israel's looming war in Gaza: Can Obama stop it before it starts? (Haaretz)

Next week, or the week after, Barack Obama may well see intelligence reports of tank battalions moving south and west along Israeli highways, and whole infantry brigades setting up camp in the western Negev. 

The countdown to the Second Gaza War has begun in earnest. Date it, if you like, to Sunday, and a coolly terrifying analysis  by Yom Tov Samia, former overall Israeli military commander of the Gaza Strip and the adjacent Negev. 

Or date it, if you prefer, according to the axiom of contemporary Israeli history which reads: A future war becomes all but inevitable the moment a key IDF reserve major general declares  it so. 

Alternatively, date it from the moment that selective amnesia allows Israeli political figures to court the illusion that Hamas can be invaded to death. 

All this and more was to be had from an interview Samia gave Army Radio this week, which should give pause not only to the Palestinians and Israelis who may fall victim to a Second Gaza War, but to Washington as well. 

If last year's brutal fighting is any indication - and there is every reason to believe that it is - a full-on drive to prevent the looming Israel-Hamas confrontation in the Strip belongs at the top tier of Obama's already staggering pile of priorities. 

Another Gaza war, this one likely to be an even more bitter onslaught, could not only prove lethal to what is left of Israeli moral credibility, it could undermine and cripple Obama's military-political offensives in Iraq, Afghanistan and, slipping further down the slope, Yemen...

Israel's 10 worst errors of the decade (Haaretz)

In the Mideast, dreams can only end badly. Not because messianic messages are, in and of themselves, bad dreams, but because of the nature of this place, the history which is as much imagination as it is record, as much sacred hallucination as it is shared memory. And because the dreamers of this place fail again and again because they are under the illusion that they are realists...

In this regard, there is perhaps no better time than this to review Israel's 10 Worst Mistakes of the Last 10 Years: 

1. The Siege of Gaza - The stated goal of the siege was to undermine Hamas and to goad Gazans into rejecting Hamas rule. The effect of the siege has been to focus and intensify Palestinian anger against Israel, increase Gazans' dependency on Hamas social welfare arms, enrich Hamas coffers through tunnel taxation and foreign donations, and sap Palestinian support for Fatah, which, through its back-channel encouragement for the siege, is seen as a betrayer and a boot-licker in the eyes of many Palestinians...

10. The Siege of Gaza - The siege corrupts the moral values of all Israelis, who, whether or not they are aware of what is being done to the people of Gaza, bear ultimate responsibility for all acts being carried out in their name.

Report: Bush Lawyer Said President Could Order Civilians to Be 'Massacred'

February 21, 2010 "Newsweek" -- Feb 19, 2010 - The chief author of the Bush administration's "torture memo" told Justice Department investigators that the president's war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be "massacred," according to a report released Friday night by the Office of Professional Responsibility...

Jewish lobbying sways EU against support of Goldstone Gaza report (Haaretz)

Members of the European Parliament have backtracked from their plan to pass a resolution demanding implementation of the Goldstone report, in response to pressure from European Jewish leaders, Haaretz has learned. 

After leaders of all the major EP parties had agreed on the wording of a draft demanding implementation of the controversial document - which accused Israel of war crimes in Gaza last year and proposed prosecuting Israeli officials in the International Criminal Court - the European Union's legislative body was scheduled to vote on the measure Wednesday...

"The European Jewish Congress played an important role in blocking the legitimization of the Goldstone report," an official from the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. 

Instead of voting on one joint resolution, the parliamentarians may now vote on six different proposed resolutions and stick with the one that gets the most votes. But the draft expected to receive the most votes is that of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats), the largest grouping. Instead of demanding the report's implementation, it calls for both parties, Israel and Hamas, to investigate accusations of war crimes...

EU member states have so far been divided in their approach to the Goldstone report in international forums. Italy and Holland voted in the General Assembly against adopting the report, while France and Britain abstained. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, meanwhile, has praised it...

De christelijke fracties in de Tweede Kamer lijken zich in de vingers te hebben gesneden:

er komt onderzoek naar de door Gretta Duisenberg onder de publieke aandacht gebrachte 'dominantie' van zionistische-christenen en -joden (de 'Israel lobby') op het Midden-Oosten beleid van onze regering.

Recente uitspraken van mevrouw Duisenberg waarin zij dit beleid hekelt vanwege zijn bijna onvoorwaardelijke steun aan Israel ten koste van de Palestijnen, leidden tot woedende Kamervragen van SGP, ChristenUnie en CDA.

In deze Kamervragen - waarin, opvallend genoeg, zionistische christenen niet worden genoemd maar wordt gesproken over 'antisemitische stereotypen en/of aanzetten tot haat'- eisen de christelijke fracties  stopzetting en terugvordering van subsidies aan de stichting 'Stop de Bezetting'. Mevrouw Duisenberg is voorzitter en belangrijkste woordvoerder van deze Stichting, die streeft naar een rechtvaardige en duurzame vrede tussen Israël en de Palestijnen.

Ministers Verhagen en Koenders reageren nogal koeltjes en afwijzend op de Kamervragen.

Zij wijzen erop dat de combinatie van orthodoxe christenen en zionistische joden - tezamen de 'Zionistische lobby' of 'Israel lobby' genoemd - al jarenlang internationaal onderwerp zijn van wetenschappelijke en journalistieke discussies.

Het lijkt beide ministers nuttig dat er onderzoek wordt gedaan naar 'de evt. samenstelling, doelstelling enn machtsuitvoering van een vermeende zionistische 'Israel lobby' in Nederland'.

Over de wijze waarop dit zal gebeuren wordt de Tweede Kamer nader geinformeerd.

Recentelijk heeft er in het Verenigd Koninkrijk een journalistiek onderzoek plaats gevonden naar

de invloed van de 'Israel lobby', met onthutsende resultaten.

Het Nederlands onderzoek kan ook grote gevolgen hebben voor de parlementarier Geert Wilders en zijn 'beweging', de PVV. De 'dubbele loyaliteit' van Geert Wilders is genoegzaam bekend maar nog niet politiek aan de kaak gesteld. Hij en zijn mede-fractieleden dragen hun verbondenheid met het 'beloofde' cq 'heilige' land Israel nog sterker uit de kleine christelijke partijen SGP en ChristenUnie.

In recente moties riep de PVV de regering op om de Nederlandse ambassade naar Jeruzalem te verplaatsen en haar bezwaren tegen uitbreiding van nederzettingen in 'bezet' gebied in te slikken.

Over de financiering van Wilders en de PVV bestaan veel vragen, omdat zij hierover geen openheid betrachten. Vermoed wordt, dat hierbij (ook) buitenlandse, i.c. Amerikaanse  zionistische bronnen in het geding zijn.

Op 28 Januari  hebben de Tweede Kamer-fracties van de CDA, CU en SGP  de volgende schriftelijke kamervragen gesteld:

1. Hebt u kennis genomen van de uitlatingen van de voorzitter van de Stichting Stop de Bezetting, mevrouw Gretta Duisenberg, over de vermeende invloed van Nederlandse Joden op de Nederlandse regering (Dagblad De Pers, 28 januari 2010)?
2. Bent u met ons van mening dat de uitspraken van mevrouw Duisenberg berusten op antisemitische clichés en een volstrekt vals beeld geven van de werkelijkheid?
3. Vindt u dat mevrouw Duisenberg door deze verwerpelijke retoriek publiekelijk te etaleren de Palestijnse zaak juist schade toebrengt?
4. Mag ik u herinneren aan de antwoorden op vragen van het lid Boekestijn (TK, 920, 8 december 2007) waaruit blijkt dat de Stichting Stop de Bezetting in 2007 via Oxfam Novib een subsidie van € 2.500 heeft ontvangen? En kent u het artikel uit Elsevier van 20 juli 2007, waarin de woordvoerder van Oxfam Novib verklaart dat dezelfde stichting in het kader van wat de organisatie '40 jaar bezetting' noemt 15.000 is toegekend? Kunt u aangeven welke informatie juist is?
5. Zijn dit alle subsidies die in de laatste vijf jaar via door de overheid gesubsidieerde medefinancieringsorganisaties aan de Stichting Stop de Bezetting zijn toegekend? Zo nee om welke bedragen gaat het dan wel?
6. Bent u met ons van mening dat organisaties waarvan woordvoerders zich bedienen van antisemitische stereotyperingen en / of aanzetten tot haat, niet voor overheidssubsidie in aanmerkingen zouden moeten komen, ongeacht of die subsidiering door deze medefinancieringsorganisaties ten laste komt van de ontvangen middelen uit de begroting voor ontwikkelingssamenwerking of worden bekostigd uit eigen financieringsbronnen? Zo nee waarom niet? Zo ja welke stappen gaat u ondernemen om toekomstige subsidie verstrekking te voorkomen en eerder verleende subsidies te laten terug te vorderen?

Gezamenlijke antwoorden van de ministers van Buitenlandse Zaken en Ontwikkelingssamenwerking, op 13 februari 2010

 ad 1. Ja. Overigens heeft mevrouw Duisenberg in genoemd artikel haar uitlatingen nader gespecificeerd door te spreken over 'zionistische joden' die met 'orthodoxe christenen' de regering zouden domineren.

 ad 2. Nee. De uitspraken van mevrouw Duisenberg berusten naar onze mening niet op anti-Semitische cliches omdat zij zich richten tegen de combinatie van zionistische joden en orthodoxe christenen.

Zodanige combinatie - meestal de 'Israel lobby' of 'Zionistische lobby' genoemd - vormt al enige jaren onderwerp van internationale wetenschappelijke en journalistieke discussie in beschouwingen over het te voeren beleid t.a.v. het conflict tussen Israel en de Palestijnen. In de Verenigde Staten hebben de publicaties van de hoogleraren John J. Mearsheimer en Stephen Walt  over 'The Israel lobby and U.S. Foreign policy' (2007), deze discussie in een stroomversnelling gebracht. 

ad 3. Of mevrouw Duisenberg met haar publieke uitspraken de Palestijnse zaak schade toebrengt dan wel dient, is moeilijk te beoordelen. Zij heeft, mede door Uw vragen, de door haar vermeende dominerende invloed van de 'Israel lobby' op de nationale politieke agenda geplaatst, kennelijk met het streven dat daardoor het beleid van de Nederlandse regering in een meer pro-Palestijnse richting wordt omgebogen.

Zulks in overeenstemming met de doelstelling van de 'Stichting Stop de Bezetting', waarvan mevrouw Duisenberg voorzitter is. Dat is haar goed recht - al wil dat niet zeggen dat wij het eens zijn met haar inschatting van genoemde invloed en de origine daarvan. 

ad 4/5. Een overzicht van aan de 'Stichting Stop de Bezetting' verstrekte subsidies treft U als bijlage.

ad 6. Aangezien de premisse van deze vraag is, dat mevrouw Duisenberg zich heeft bediend van 'antisemitische stereotyperingen en / of aanzetten tot haat', en wij het daar niet mee eens zijn (zie ad 2.), zullen wij geen stappen ondernemen als door U bedoeld.

Wij voegen hieraan toe, dat legale organisaties die op legitieme wijze een ander beleid voorstaan dan door de regering gevoerd, ook in het verleden van rijkswege zijn gesubsidieerd (vgl. 'Stop de Apartheid' en 'Angola Comite') en ook in de toekomst voor subsidie in aanmerking komen. 

                       Tenslotte lijkt het ons nuttig dat er onderzoek wordt gedaan naar de evt. samenstelling, doelstelling en machtsuitvoering van een vermeende zionistische 'Israel lobby' in Nederland. Over de wijze waarop deze zal worden uitgevoerd, zal Uw Kamer nader worden geinformeerd.

   De minister van Buitenlandse Zaken,       De minister van Ontwikkelingssamenwerking,

Reactie welkom mits terzake, beschaafd en niet anoniem 

Gretta's uitspraken over de dominantie van het Zionistisch pro-Groot Israel geloof/sentiment van onze religieus-politieke partijen SGP, Christen Unie en CDA, bij het Midden-Oosten beleid van onze regering, hebben geleid tot woedende Kamervragen van hun fracties.

Maar zij heeft wel gelijk: waarom neemt bijv. Nederland binnen de EU altijd de meest 'hard line' positie in bij het verdedigen van het volstrekt laakbare bezettings-, annexatie- en agressiebeleid van Israel? En waarom is onze 'Atlantische reflex' mede gebaseerd op onze 'Israel reflex'?

Mevrouw Duisenberg had ook de politiek-Zionistische partij PVV kunnen noemen. De dubbele loyaliteit van Geert Wilders cs mag genoegzaam bekend worden verondersteld. Hij en zijn mede-fractieleden pochen over hun verbondenheid met dit 'beloofde' cq 'heilige' land.

Het gaat bij Gretta niet om 'anti-Semitisme' of 'anti-Israelisme' zoals haar christelijk- en joods-Zionistische belagers willen doen geloven, maar om een rechtvaardige oplossing voor 'het' Midden-Oosten conflict.

Zulks ter bescherming van zowel de Joodse Israeliers als de Palestijnen, in een wederzijds overeengekomen geografische constellatie.

Wij hebben in ons land meer organisaties die zich inzetten voor die rechtvaardige oplossing.

Voor het merendeel handelen zij voorzichtig om niet als 'anti-Semitisch' en 'anti-Israel' te worden weggezet.

Mevrouw Duisenberg en haar stichting 'Stop de Bezetting' fungeren als frontsoldaten in deze strijd met onze nationale Zionistische pro-Groot 'Israel lobby'. Het is hoog tijd dat die andere

organisaties hun schuchterheid overwinnen en zich verenigen. In deze tijd van Holocaust-herdenkingen wordt de andere, sluipende, genocide van Palestijnen teveel  'vergeten'. 

En een volgende oorlog tegen Iran, Syrie, Hezbollah en Hamas - gepropageerd door alle 'Israel lobbies' - dreigt. Wat zou dit voor gevolgen hebben voor de regio, onze missie in Afghanistan en de wereld?

Ik ben ondertussen zeer benieuwd naar de beantwoording van de Kamervragen  - en hoop op reacties van de echte pro-Israel en -Palestijnen partijen

Reacties welkom, mits terzake, beschaafd en niet anoniem.

De zionistische (Groot-)'Israel lobby' in Nederland: een noodzakelijke inventarisatie

Herdenking Holocaust en 'vergeten' van andere genociden

Nederlands 'Atlantische reflex' mede gebaseerd op 'Israel reflex'

Geert Wilders' anti-islamisme gebaseerd op politiek zionisme en populistische xenofobie

Woede over uitspraken Gretta Duisenberg 'Zionistische joden domineren regering'

Deel van Tweede Kamer boos over uitspraken Gretta Duisenberg met subsidie SdB

Duisenberg: Jewish Zionists control Holland (zionism-israel.com)

..Zionism is not in any way exclusively a belief shared among Jewish people, it is also a common belief among Christians. The matter is based on the reference to Jews being "God's Chosen People" and while that in and of itself is one matter, it has ultimately led to the decimation of the population of Palestine. How can any belief system that illegally targets schools and hospitals in a historic place like Gaza, mercilessly killing hundreds of innocent children in the process, represent God?

The excuse used by Israel is that it is eternally in defense of itself, but many believe Israel is simply, systematically, creating genocide on the Palestinian population...

ZIONISM UNMASKED (Salem-News.com)

As an editor and writer for a military, veterans and foreign affairs publication, the term “Zionism” seems to have become a polarizing element.  Some of our writers are Jews or have Jewish families.  Some are Palestinians, many are Muslims.  Most are atheists, from my very personal and private poll, as are vast numbers of Americans and, frankly, people around the world, many who attend religious worship out of social pressure and even fear.  Most of the Jews and Christians I know are atheists, well educated and fine people, frankly much much better people than the “church goers” I know.  But this is a talk about Zionism and ideas of religious freedom have little to do with it...

WHY IS ZIONISM NOT ABOUT JEWS (Veterans Today)

Waar Israel zich militair voorbereidt op een ‘preventieve’ aanval op Iran, is het essentieel om te weten hoe ons kabinet en de oppositiepartijen tegenover zulk een mogelijke oorlog staan. Dit is ook van belang voor de besluitvorming over de Nederlandse ISAF-missie in Afghanistan, omdat oorlog met Iran vergaande consequenties heeft voor de hele regio, zo niet voor de wereld.

Wat betreft Iran's verwerven van nucleaire wapens, ben ik het eens
met de Nederlands-Israelische hoogleraar krijgsgeschiedenis Martin van Crefeld in zijn artikel 'Een Iraanse kernbom is niet erg' ( NRC Handelsblad van dit weekend, 6.2.10):

- het is volstrekt begrijpelijk dat Iran streeft naar een militair-nucleaire capaciteit
gezien m.n. zijn omsingeling door (potentiele) tegenstanders ("En eerlijk gezegd zou ik, als ik in hun schoenen stond, precies hetzelfde doen", schrijft MvC);
- de wereld (speciaal VS en Israel) zullen met een nucleair bewapend Iran moeten leren leven;
- daartoe zullen Amerikaanse strijdkrachten in het Golfgebied moeten blijven om Iran van een aanval op Iran te weerhouden;
- het risico dat Iran Israel nucleair zal aanvallen is minimaal gezien de zekere vernietigende vergelding daarvan door de VS en Israel;
- de VS zullen daarom vrijwel zeker met sancties volstaan;
- Israel zal de toestand verder uitbuiten om (nog) meer hulp van de VS en Duitsland te verkrijgen;
- de doelmatigheid van een 'preventieve' aanval op Iran is twijfelachtig qua effect op zijn kernprogramma, en contraproductief wat betreft de gevolgen :

"Tot slot zou een aanval op Iran een bijzonder onzekere onderneming zijn. Of zo'n aanval het kernprogramma van Teheran kan uitschakelen is twijfelachtig, maar dat het Midden-Oosten erdoor in lichte laaie zal komen te staan, wellicht met rampzalige gevolgen voor een groot deel van de wereld, lijkt nagenoeg zeker", zo besluit Van Crefeld - zelf allerminst een duif! - zijn artikel.

Nederland zou zich in de daarvoor geeigende fora (NAVO, EU en VN) moeten verzetten tegen oorlog-ophitserij. De behandeling van het rapport van de Commissie Davids biedt een goede gelegenheid om dit onderwerp voor het voetlicht te brengen.

Nederlands 'Atlantische reflex' mede gebaseerd op 'Israel reflex'

Tony Blair maakt geesten rijp voor confrontatie met Iran

Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came home with sweaty palms from his mid-February visit to Israel. Ever since, he has been worrying aloud that Israel might mousetrap the U.S. into war with Iran.

This is especially worrying, because Mullen has had considerable experience in putting the brakes on such Israeli plans in the past. This time, he appears convinced that the Israeli leaders did not take his earlier warnings seriously — notwithstanding the unusually strong language he put into play...

War game shows how attacking Iran could backfire

WASHINGTON — Here's a war game involving Iran, Israel and the U.S. that shows how unintended consequences can spin out of control:

With diplomacy failing and precious intelligence just received about two new secret Iranian nuclear facilities, Israel launches a pre-emptive strike against Tehran's nuclear complex. The strike is successful, wiping out six of Iran's key sites and setting back its suspected quest for a bomb by years.

But what happens next isn't pretty...

At What Cost the Israel Lobby?

More than 46 years ago, President John F. Kennedy sought to preclude a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. In June 1963, he wrote the last in a series of insistent letters to Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Those letters sought what Israel now demands of Iran: international inspections of its nuclear facilities. The key difference: Kennedy knew for certainthat Israel, while portraying itself a friend and ally, repeatedly lied to Kennedy about its nuclear weapons development at the Dimona reactor in the Negev Desert.

Best estimates point to sometime between 1962 and 1964 when Israel produced its first weapon in what is now a vast nuclear arsenal estimated at 200-400 warheads. Kennedy’s letter to Ben-Gurion was anything but friendly. The words he chose were drawn not from diplomacy but from the instructions that a judge gives a jury on criminal culpability. In that brusque letter, the U.S. commander-in-chief insisted that this purported ally prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the Zionist enclave was not developing nuclear weapons...

Will Israel Ensure that History Repeats Itself?

The lead-up to the first U.S.-Iran talks in three decades saw a replay of the same modus operandi that induced the U.S. and its allies to invade Iraq in March 2003. Then as now, the invasion of Iran is consistent with a regime change agenda for Greater Israel described in a 1996 strategy document prepared by Jewish-Americans for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As with Iraq, the threat of weapons of mass destruction is again marketed as a causa belli. As with Iraq, the claim is disputed by weapons inspectors and intelligence analysts. The Iraqi program had been shut down a dozen years before the invasion. In Iran, there is no evidence that uranium is being enriched beyond the low levels required for energy and medical purposes...

Will Tel Aviv Take the U.S. to War – Again?

Tel Aviv long ago proved its mastery at waging war “by way of deception” – the operative credo of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence and foreign operations directorate. Yet its latest operation reveals a need to freshen up its repertoire of dirty tricks. As Israel’s patron, those of us who live in the U.S. are painfully familiar with such duplicity. Yet the recent frequency of its frauds renders their latest treachery remarkably transparent.

Consider the similarities. First a network of pro-Israelis fixed the intelligence that induced us to invade Iraq in support of an expansionist agenda for Greater Israel. Who can forget Iraqi WMD, scary images of mushroom clouds and secret meetings in Prague? Who can fail to recall the yellowcake uranium from Niger and those ominous warnings of “high-level contacts” between secular Baghdad and the religious fundamentalists of Al Qaeda?..

Iran offered 'to make peace with Israel' (Gareth Porter, Asia Times, May 26, 2006)

..An Iranian threat to destroy Israel has been a major propaganda theme of the Bush administration for months. On March 10, President George W Bush said, "The Iranian president has stated his desire to destroy our ally, Israel. So when you start listening to what he has said to their desire to develop a nuclear weapon, then you begin to see an issue of grave national-security concern." 

But in 2003, Bush refused to allow any response to the Iranian offer to negotiate an agreement that would have accepted the existence of Israel. Flynt Leverett, then the senior specialist on the Middle East on the National Security Council staff, recalled in an interview that it was "literally a few days" between the receipt of the Iranian proposal and the dispatch of a message to the Swiss ambassador expressing displeasure that he had forwarded it to Washington. 

Interest in such a deal is still very much alive in Tehran, despite the US refusal to respond to the 2003 proposal...

CNN Poll: American believe Iran has nuclear weapons

Seven in 10 Americans believe that Iran currently has nuclear weapons, according to a new national poll...

The poll indicates that 71 percent of the public says Iran has nuclear weapons, with just over one in four disagreeing. More than six in ten think the U.S. should take economic and diplomatic efforts to get Iran to shut down their nuclear program, with only a quarter calling for immediate military action.

"But if economic and diplomatic efforts fail, support for military action rises to 59 percent, with only 39 percent opposing military action under those circumstances," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland...

ISRAEL'S SHADOW OVER IRAN (Paul Rogers/Sustainable security.org)

..The hard choice

The logic of the foregoing is that even if Iran has not yet decided to divert into a nuclear-weapons programme, there is a strong risk of an Israeli attack – but that Iran’s leadership will be confident that a raid would leave important parts of any programme intact. Moreover, Iran’s elite could respond to an attack from the middle-east’s only nuclear-weapons power by withdrawing from thenon-proliferation treaty; mobilising the people around a unifying cause; portraying the country as a regional leader against aggression; and “really” going all-out for nuclear weapons.  The result would be yet more assaults by Israel in subsequent months, with complex political effects across the region in which (for example) the reaction of Arab elites and Arab citizens would be very different.

The long-term consequences of any Israeli operation against Iranian nuclear targets are unpredictable, but probable among them is serious regional instability. Yet where the dominantsecurity paradigm remains fixated on Iran’s nuclear potential, this would not be enough to stop Israel. 

The United States clearly recognises this fact, and the Barack Obama administration - unlike itspredecessor – well understands how damaging a war would be. The watchwords of the Washington’s dealings with Tehran in coming months will continue to be caution and patience. It is far less certain that the US president has any serious control over Israel’s plans and calculations. For that reason alone, a crisis remains likely some time in 2010.

AP Article Fuels Iran War Hysteria

Het is ernstig te betreuren dat de Commissie-Davids niet dieper is ingegaan op de 'Atlantische reflex' als motief voor de (politieke) steun van Nederland aan de invasie van Irak.

Dan had de Commissie moeten onderzoeken in hoeverre Nederlandse beleidsmakers ook de motieven van de Amerikaanse beleidsmakers deelden.

Zie hiertoe bijv. de uitstekende analyse:

WHY IRAQ? THE STATE OF DEBATE ON THE MOTIVES FOR THE WAR


" ..Why did the United States go to war with Iraq? Six years after the invasion, commentators from across the political spectrum—from liberals and left internationalists to right-wing realists and even some neoconservatives—agree the war was a catastrophic mistake.
But there is little consensus about why it was waged in the first place...

War motives generally overlapped and blurred within the minds of supporters, and closer examination of the war’s architects refutes the simplistic notion that there was a single “real reason” that was universally shared and all-important.

It is clear that the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular have been a fixation of U.S. policymakers since well before the emerging threat of transnational terrorism. The most important reason for this was the U.S. government’s strategic interest in ensuring a stable and continuous oil flow from the Gulf region. A secondary reason, which was particularly important for several key war architects, was the region’s significance for the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflicts.

These preoccupations help explain why a so-called “rogue state” like Iraq was treated as a far more serious threat to U.S. interests than similarly brutal or aggressive regimes elsewhere in the world, and why regime change in Iraq had been a longtime goal of U.S. policymakers. They also help explain why, in the much-changed political environment that followed the 9/11 attacks, the United States seized upon Iraq as the proper test case for its new goals of deterrence and democratization, despite the country’s tenuous connection to the overarching framework of the “global war on terror.” 

By thinking in this way about the motives behind the war, we may be able to reach a deeper understanding of how the United States came to be in Iraq, and how—or whether—it can avoid similarly misguided adventures in the future."

Bescherming van Israel was de belangrijkste drijfveer van een invloedrijk deel van de Amerikaanse beleidsmakers en opinievormers, de zionistische 'Israel lobby'

Verdedigers van de Amerikaanse invasie, ook in ons land, behoren meestal tot deze pro-Groot Israel lobby. Om te voorkomen dat zij de geesten rijp maken voor steun aan een, potentieel catastrofale, aanval op Iran, is het noodzakelijk dat de samenstelling en invloed van onze nationale 'Israel lobby' worden onderzocht.

De zionistische (Groot-)'Israel lobby' in Nederland: een noodzakelijke inventarisatie

De gevaarlijke dubbele loyaliteit van Geert Wilders cs, kan hierbij aan de kaak worden gesteld.

Geert Wilders' anti-islamisme gebaseerd op politiek zionisme en populistische xenofobie

..We now know that 911-related intelligence was “fixed” around a preset agenda for Greater Israel long sought by Israelis and pro-Israelis with the help of Iraqi liar Ahmad Chalabi, an asset developed over decades by Zionist war-planners Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz.

Pakistan must realize that the same mental and emotional manipulation deployed to induce a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq is now being used to provoke an invasion of Iran. By destabilizing Pakistan and portraying its western provinces as a haven for Al Qaeda, Zionists will make it appear that Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal is insecure. That perception heightens the plausibility of an attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran, citing a nuclear risk..

..The common pro-Israeli source of the phony intelligence that induced war in Iraq has yet to be acknowledged even though intelligence experts agree that deception on such a scale required a decade to plan, staff, pre-stage, orchestrate and—until now—cover up. The leaders of the 9-11 Commission conceded they were thwarted by Commission members adamantly opposed to hearing testimony on the hijackers’ motivation for 9-11: the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

The fictions reported as facts by mainstream media included Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi meetings with Al Qaeda in Prague, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and Iraqi purchases of “yellowcake” uranium from Niger. Only the last claim was conceded as bogus prior to the invasion.

Only after the war began were the balance of the claims disclosed as false, flawed or outright fabricated. An attempt to punish former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Joe Wilson for his exposure of the phony yellowcake account led to a federal conviction of vice-presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby, another well-placed Zionist insider...

A Closer Look at Israel’s Role in Terrorism

Temidden van de vele Holocaust-herdenkingen, is het nodig om ook de eigen nationale verantwoordelijkheid onder ogen te zien voor volkerenmoord in het verleden en nu, zo

betoogde Martin Shaw in de jaarlijkse 'War Studies-lecture' voor Kings College in Londen. 

Hieronder enkele passages waarin o.a. het Zionistisch terrorisme (1948) en de 'particular horrific massacre' van Srebrenica (1955) worden genoemd.

The date of the liberation of the Nazi concentration-camp at Auschwitz, 27 January 1945, has since 2001 been marked in Britain as a moment for the remembrance of the victims of the Nazi holocaust – and, by gradual extension, of all those subjected to genocidal assault over the last century. The annual commemoration of “Holocaust Memorial Day”, now in its tenth year, has become an established part of the national political calendar: the highlights include educational programmes and exhibitions, and a series of events attended by survivors of genocide, leading politicians and representatives of religious groups – most of them taking place under the auspices of a charitable trust which works throughout the year (theHolocaust Memorial Day Trust).

Britain is the locus of these activities, but what of its own relationship to the histories and practices being commemorated?...

The British state was also deeply implicated in the mutually destructive violence of the Indian partition of 1947, in which 12 million people were forced from their homes and at least 250,000 died. This violence - now widely seen as genocidal - was exacerbated by the British partition-plan, which was devised and implemented with disregard for its likely catastrophic consequences. In Palestine in 1948, the British stood by as Zionist forces terrorised the majority of the Arab population into flight in order to create as large as possible a Jewish-majority state. The United Nations’s own partition-plan (notwithstanding its genocide-convention that was to be approved at the end of 1947) is a reminder that responsibility for the disaster was international, but Britain - as the contemporary mandate power - had a particular share.

In the era after the cold war, Britain (like other western states) proclaimed a new determination to prevent genocide. Yet the record is distinctly unimpressive: Britain may not bear the shame of facilitating a particular horrific massacre (as the Dutch do for Srebrenica in 1995), but it has hardly spearheaded effective responses. The Conservative government of John Major (1990-97) adopted a notably anti-interventionist and even cynical stance towards genocide. It disregarded Saddam Hussein's terrorising of the Iraqi Kurds in 1991 until shamed into action (Major notoriously remarked: “I do not recall asking the Kurds to mount this particular insurrection”); it then exerted itself (including at the United Nations) to block effective international responses to genocide in Bosnia (1992-95) and Rwanda (1994)...

The reflective moment

David Cesarani’s judgment that “the Holocaust is a part of British history” must, therefore, be extended. The wider history of genocide has touched and been touched by British state and society in many different ways. It cannot – with reference once more to Tony Blair’s statement of June 1999 – be assumed that “other” countries are the problem and Britain part of the solution. The idea of “bad/guilty” and “good/vigilant” nations - which often lies at the heart of genocidal practice - is not much help in answering genocide. Rather, it must be recognised that entire nations never stand unequivocally on one side of the historical process: complexity and ambiguity are the norm.

British governments and people have been part of the problem as often as they have been part of the solution. British citizens have responsibilities that go beyond vigilance; for example, to investigate the reasons why their state and social institutions have not always been vigilant, and why indeed they have sometimes been complicit in genocide. The lessons of the historical record are varied, but they leave no reasons for complacency.

Martin Shaw delivered the annual war-studies lecture at King's College, London on 26 January 2010. The lecture – entitled “Britain and Genocide: Parameters of National Responsibility” - contains a fuller version of the argument presented here.

Britain and genocide (Martin Shaw)

Wanneer is sprake van door Israël gepleegde genocide? De zeer gerespecteerde internationaal rechtsgeleerde en Speciale VN-rapporteur over Palestijnse Mensenrechten, Richard Falk, die zich Amerikaans-joods noemt, sprak in 2007  over 'sluipende genocide naar een Palestijnse holocaust'. Een belangrijke initiator van de Conventie tegen Genocide, was de Pools-joodse rechtswetenschapper Raphael Lemkin. Hij definieerde genocide in 1943 als volgt:

Genocide betekent niet noodzakelijkerwijs de directe vernietiging van een natie….Het is eerder bedoeld een gecoördineerd plan van verschillende acties in te houden gericht op de vernietiging van essentiële fundamenten van het leven van nationale groepen, met als doel de vernietiging van die groepen zelf. De doelstellingen van een dergelijk plan zou de desintegratie zijn van de politieke en sociale instituten, van cultuur, taal, nationale gevoelens, religie, en het economisch bestaan van nationale groepen, en de vernietiging van de persoonlijke veiligheid, vrijheid, gezondheid, waardigheid, en zelfs de levens van de individuen die tot zulke groepen behoren.

Het is moeilijk een betere beschrijving te geven van wat er in Gaza en op de Westoever aan de gang is.                

Na de moorddadige aanval in 2008/2009 van Israël op Gaza zijn, nog afgezien van rapporten van gezaghebbende ngo's, vijf onderzoeken uitgevoerd door officiële internationale instanties:  - het Jaarrapport van de Speciale VN-Rapporteur Mensenrechten in de Palestijnse Gebieden (Richard Falk),

- de VN-Raad voor de Mensenrechten (Goldstone),

- de Secretaris-Generaal van de VN (Martin),

- het Internationale Rode Kruis, en

- de Arabische Liga (Dugard).

Hoewel ook Hamas werd veroordeeld voor aanslagen op Israëlische burgerdoelen, waren de rapporten unaniem in hun veroordeling van Israël voor het grootschalig schenden van het internationaal recht.

Men zou wensen dat men in Israel en, daarbuiten, als verdedigers van het Israelisch-zionistisch beleid, meer aan zelf-reflectie zou doen.     

DE HOLOCAUST IS VOORBIJ - AFREKENEN MET HITLERS ERFENIS

24 februari 2010 (MO) - Avraham Burg, ex-parlementslid van de Israëlische Arbeiderspartij, heeft het zichzelf niet gemakkelijk gemaakt met dit boek, dat recent in Nederlandse vertaling ging. Burg neemt de heiliging van de shoah door Israël danig op de korrel. Dat deed ook de Amerikaanse Norman Finkelstein met zijn boek de Holocaust-Industrie, en die is intussen niet meer welkom in Israël.

Anders dan Finkelstein vertrekt Burg echter van binnenuit, vanuit de zionistische beweging, al doet hij dat als ‘postzionist, antizionist, en anticatastrofische zionist’. Burg vertrekt van zijn eigen leefwereld en ervaringen, en valt terug op de geschriften van het Judaïsme, een vredesreligie.

Burg wil dat Israël geneest van de traumadrang. Kwetsen of de Shoah minimaliseren is daarbij het laatste wat hij wil. Israël leidt aan ernstige kwalen, zegt hij, ook aan een enorm gebrek aan zelfvertrouwen. Dat verklaart volgens hem de neiging van Israël om zich tegelijk superieur en gecontesteerd op te stellen. ‘De voortdurende aanwezigheid van de Shoah in mijn leven lijkt op het suizen van mijn oor’, schrijft hij...

Blair rechtvaardigde gisteren niet alleen zijn besluit de Amerikaanse invasie van Irak in 2003 te steunen, maar maakte van zijn hoorzitting voor de Chilcout onderzoek-commissie ook uitgebreid gebruik om een vergelijking te maken met een, zijns inziens, huidige noodzaak om Iran aan te vallen.

Een uiterst gevaarlijke these waarop helaas niet door de commissieleden is ingegaan.

Ook in Nederland wordt het rapport-Davids niet becommentarieerd met het oog op 'lessen voor de toekomst'. Naast een 'Amerika-reflex' heeft ons kabinet ook een 'Israel-reflex', die leidt tot zijn onvoorwaardelijke steun aan het zionistisch annexatie- en bezettingsbeleid van Israel.

Waar Israel aanstuurt op een 'preventieve' aanval op Iran, is het essentieel om te weten hoe ons kabinet tegenover zulk een (voorgenomen) oorlog staat. Dit is ook van belang voor de besluitvorming over de Nederlandse ISAF-missie in Afghanistan, omdat oorlog met Iran vergaande consequenties heeft voor de hele regio, zo niet voor de wereld.

Tony Blair has been accused of warmongering spin for claiming that western powers might be forced to invade Iran because it poses as serious a threat as Saddam Hussein.

 Sir Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Iran, accused Blair of trying to make confrontation with Iran an electoral issue after the former prime minister repeatedly singled out its Islamic regime as a global threat in his evidence to the Iraq war inquiry yesterday.

 Blair said many of the arguments that led him to confront the "profoundly wicked, almost psychopathic" Saddam Hussein seven years ago now applied to the regime in Tehran.

 "We face the same problem about Iran today," he told the Chilcot inquiry...

Tony Blair accused of putting war with Iran on the electoral agenda (David Batty in Guardian)

..He told the hearings that the world faced the same decisions now as he and President George W Bush had over Iraq. Mr Balir warned that Tehran's actions made him even more afraid today that a rogue state could supply weapons of mass destruction to terrorists than when he took Britain to war against Saddam Hussein in 2003.

"My judgment - and it may be other people don't take this view, and that's for the leaders of today to make their judgment - is we don't take any risks with this issue," he said.

"My fear was - and I would say I hold this fear stronger today than I did back then as a result of what Iran particularly today is doing - my fear is that states that are highly repressive or failed, the danger of a WMD link is that they become porous, they construct all sorts of different alliances with people.

"When I look at the way that Iran today links up with terror groups ... I would say that a large part of the destabilisation in the Middle East at the present time comes from Iran."..

Tony Blair: world leaders need to take urgent action over Iran (Rosa Prince in Telegraph)

The decisions made in London reflect the Barack Obama administration’s searchfor a more intelligent and flexible strategy in Afghanistan. But the change of emphasis persists in ignoring another key element of the Afghan reality: namely, the role of important regional states (beyond the most obvious one of Pakistan). For a number of such states - Russia, China and especially Iran – has the capacity to reinforce or help derail western policy towards Afghanistan.

Iran’s position is made highly relevant by a set of factors: the extensive common border with Afghanistan, its political and social involvement in the west of the country, transport links to the Iranian ports of Chabahar and Konarak, and Tehran’s perennial concern over drug-trafficking across the frontier...

The risk of an Israel/Iran war is rising (see “Israel’s shadow over Iran”, 14 January 2010). But the Iran/Afghanistan connection tends to be excluded from any such scenario. Many analysts have argued that the dangerous consequences of such a war include Iran’s capacity to interfere in Iraq and to disrupt Gulf oil-supplies. These dangers most certainly exist, but it may well be that an even greater impact would be felt in Afghanistan.

The London summit could signal a change in attitude to the Taliban that might just presage some hesitant progress in a complex, costly and divisive conflict. But if there were to be an Israeli attack on Iran, all could be derailed.

Afghanistan: the politics of war (Paul Rogers, openDemocracy)

The combination of Iran's effort to protect its nuclear facilities and Israel's to prevent its rival developing a weapon makes a crisis in 2010 all the more likely.

Israel's shadow over Iran (Paul Rogers, openDemocracy)

 The British government's justification for launching the Iraq war has been dramatically undermined by two separate inquiries casting new light on the build-up to the invasion in 2003. Delivering the first independent assessment of the legality of the conflict, an official Dutch inquiry yesterday concluded that 'the military action had no sound mandate in international law.' In a 550-page report, it concluded that: 'The UN Security Council resolution on Iraq from the 1990s did not give a mandate to the US-British led military intervention in 2003.' The report added that 'in its depiction of Iraq's WMD programme, the [Dutch] government was to a considerable extent led by public and other information from the US and the UK.'

Dutch inquiry concludes the Iraq war 'was illegal' as Tony Blair’s spin doctor presents evidence at Chilcot inquiry (Rukeyya Khan. openSecurity)

Hoewel dit een artikel is van oktober 2007, is het relevant voor nu omdat het uitgaat van een door Israel uitgelokte aanval teneinde Amerika over de brug te krijgen.

TICKING CLOCKS AND ‘ACCIDENTAL’ WAR

Amerika dreigt Iran met (een na?) laatste ultimatum

David Ben-Gurion droomde ervan en Avigdor Lieberman, de huidige 'fascistische' Israelische minister van buitenlandse zaken, streeft er actief naar: Israel als lid van de NAVO.              

Terwijl de NAVO, onder Amerikaanse leiding (en druk) , een steeds sterkere mondiale rol aanneemt, verzekert Israel zich van de eerste plaats onder haar partners. Zo bereikt dit land dat zijn binnenlandse en regionale conflicten om nationaal territoir en mensenrechten worden ondergebracht in de Westerse wereldwijde 'oorlog tegen (islamitisch) terrorisme' - ten onrechte en daarbij een potentieel gevaarlijke ontwikkeling.

Voor wie zich wil verdiepen in de diverse aspecten van dit belangrijke onderwerp - dat nauwelijks aandacht krijgt in onze media - , hieronder enkele links en uittreksels:

Israel and NATO – Between Membership and Partnership

MADRID – The idea of integrating Israel into NATO has frequently been advanced as bait to encourage the Jewish state to make the necessary concessions for an Arab-Israeli peace settlement. And some Israeli leaders – Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, for example – are convinced that joining NATO would act as a vital deterrent against Iran.

But it is highly unlikely that Israel’s full integration into the Alliance is feasible from NATO’s standpoint. The Alliance would not be happy to apply Article 5 of the NATO charter, which would oblige its members to fight for Israel if it were attacked by any of its many potential enemies in an endemically dangerous region.

Nor is it clear that membership would be in the best interest of Israel, a country whose defense doctrine has been always based on self-reliance and freedom of maneuver in security matters. Israel’s unwritten alliance with the United States is a more convenient alternative...

The options for further cooperation are many, ranging from intelligence and procurement to the development of an updated anti-terrorism doctrine (including cyber-terrorism), a domain to which NATO is a newcomer. David Ben-Gurion’s dream of Israel becoming a NATO member might not materialize, but the developing partnership reflects the Alliance’s unequivocal recognition that Israel shares the challenges facing the West and is a vital partner in developing responses to them.

Israel: Global NATO’s 29th Member (by Rick Rozoff in Global Research.ca)

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is pressuring its 28 member states and dozens of partnership affiliates on five continents to contribute more troops for the war in Afghanistan, the Jerusalem Post reported on January 13 that  “Israel is launching a diplomatic initiative in an effort to influence the outcome of NATO’s new Strategic Concept which is currently under review by a team of experts led by former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.”...

Recently Madeleine Albright has been traveling to several European capitals to preside over a series of seminars on the updated Strategic Concept and the latest of those, in Oslo, Norway on January 13, was attended by officials from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

In preparation for the above meeting “Several weeks ago, a former senior Israeli diplomat met privately with Albright to discuss Israeli interests in the concept that is under review.” 

The same source added the following background information:

“Israeli-NATO ties have increased dramatically in recent years. Chairman of the Military Committee, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola visited Israel in November, and the Israeli Navy has announced plans to deploy a missile ship with Active Endeavour, a NATO mission to patrol the Mediterranean Sea….

“Israel is also seeking to receive an upgraded status following the conclusion of the Strategic Concept review that will enable Israeli officials to participate in top NATO forums….Israel is a member of the Mediterranean Dialogue, which was created in 1994 to foster ties with Middle Eastern countries like Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco.” ...

On February 24, 2005 Jaap de Hoop Scheffer became the first NATO secretary general to visit Israel and the next month “Israel and NATO conducted their first ever joint naval exercise in the Red Sea, signalling a strengthening of relations.” An Alliance naval group visited the Israeli Red Sea port of Eilat for a week-long visit, “which included a joint exercise with the Israel Navy.” 

As Britain’s Jane’s Defence Weekly reported, “The novelty in the exercise was the fact it was conducted with NATO ships, which operate regularly in the Mediterranean, but rarely visit the Red Sea.” 

In May of the same year it was announced that “Israel plans to stage three military exercises with NATO during 2005.

“Israeli officials said the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has submitted a plan to NATO that would include the staging of three exercises with Israel’s military over the next 10 months. They said the exercises would take place at NATO headquarters in Brussels….”

An Israeli official was cited as saying, “We have no doubt that Israel will gain immensely from closer ties with NATO, and we also believe that Israel has much to offer NATO in return.”...

The Washington Post published his article “Contain Iran: Admit Israel to NATO” on February 21, 2006 which contained these recommendations:

“The best way to provide Israel with that additional security is to upgrade its relationship with the collective defense arm of the West: NATO. Whether that upgraded relationship culminates in membership for Israel or simply a much closer strategic and operational defense relationship can be debated.”

“Several leading Europeans have called for NATO to embrace Israel, but this debate will not get serious until the United States, Israel’s main ally, puts its weight behind the idea. The time has come to do so.”..

“Israel and NATO have approved a long-term plan for cooperation in 27 different areas” and “Israel is the first non-European country, and the first in the Middle East to cooperate with NATO and reach a bilateral agreement with the organization.”...

By the end of 2006 Israel-NATO military integration had proceeded to the stage that:</b>

The Jewish state was granted a partnership agreement with the Western military bloc more advanced than any accorded any other nation outside of Europe.

The nation’s foreign minister publicly called for her country’s inclusion in NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, which has recently successfully groomed twelve other states for full membership in the bloc.

Calls were being made in the West and Israel alike for the latter’s full membership in NATO....

Extending Article 5 protection, hitherto limited to full member states, to Israel was being advocated with the inescapable implication that a coalition of most of the world’s most powerful military nations, led by the self-designated world’s sole military superpower, would retaliate against Iran if it responded to an Israeli first strike attack. As the U.S. stations hundreds of nuclear warheads at NATO bases in Europe, including in Iran’s neighbor Turkey, invoking NATO’s war clause could provoke a nuclear conflagration.

The nation was being promoted as the linchpin of a new Global NATO as now U.S. ambassador to the Alliance Ivo Daalder openly proclaimed it.

In 2007 a Russian analyst warned of the consequences of the above developments:...

The most significant comment at the symposium came from a (once and future) Israeli head of state: “Addressing the Atlantic Forum’s symposium in Hertzliyah…former prime minister Netanyahu urged NATO to accept Israel as a ‘full partner’ by the year 2010.”...

The following month, December, with Israel’s Operation Cast Lead assault on Gaza only weeks away, NATO expanded and enhanced its Individual Cooperation Program with Israel.</b> “The agreement allows for an exchange of intelligence information and security expertise on different subjects, an increase in the number of joint Israel-NATO military exercises and further cooperation in the fight against nuclear proliferation....

On December 27 Tel Aviv began its relentless attacks in Gaza, replete with reports of the use of white phosphorous bombs and depleted uranium weaponry.

The president of the United Nations General Assembly at the time, Nicaragua’s Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, criticized the offensive as a breach of international law and said, “Gaza is ablaze. It has been turned into a burning hell.”...

In the middle of the assaults and carnage NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer arrived in Tel Aviv to deliver a speech to the Atlantic Forum highlighted by his contention that “This is a new NATO.” In a feature with that title, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper printed remarks by Scheffer which included:

“NATO has transformed to address the challenges of today and tomorrow. We have built partnerships around the globe from Japan to Australia to Pakistan and, of course, with the important countries of the Mediterranean and the Gulf.”

“[The] Alliance is projecting stability in Afghanistan, in Kosovo, in the Mediterranean (with Israeli support), and elsewhere – including fighting pirates off the Somali coast – without in any way diluting our core task to defend NATO member states and populations. Finally, we are looking at playing new roles, as well, in energy security and cyber defence….”...

The NATO website reported that Scheffer also met with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and now prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In his Atlantic Forum address he said, “Israel has been a most enthusiastic Mediterranean Dialogue partner and that tells me that this country knows full well about the Dialogue and about the benefits that it brings”....

An analysis published by China’s Xinhua News Agency last July, “Israel pushes for major upgrade in relations with NATO,” stated “Reports in the Israeli media this week suggest that Israel is looking forward to participation in several key exercises and operations with NATO and individual NATO members during the remainder of 2009.

“However, this seems to be only part of plans for a much broader gradual integration into NATO by Israel.”

It added “Some reports suggest Israel’s desire to cooperate with NATO and to up its operational exercises is Israel’s further preparation for any attack on Iran.”...

“Last summer, over 100 IAF jets flew over Greece in an exercise widely seen as a test-run for a potential air raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities.”...

Di Paola “noted that NATO and the IDF were facing similar threats – NATO in Afghanistan and Israel in its war against Hamas and Hizbullah.”...

 The U.S., Israel and NATO are preparing for momentous events in the Middle East. They will not be peaceful ones.

Speech

by NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at an event jointly organized by the Institute for National Security Studies and the Atlantic Forum of Israel (11 January 2009)

...And it has become obvious here in the Middle East. During the Cold War, a Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance could not say anything about this region. The Middle East, as many of you might remember, was considered “out-of-area” for NATO – a region far beyond the collective interest of the NATO Allies. Indeed, I am exaggerating only slightly when I say that – for the Cold War NATO – Tel Aviv or Amman were as far away as Tokyo or Beijing.

This started to change in the mid-1990s, when NATO launched its Mediterranean Dialogue – an effort to build trust and understanding with seven North African and Middle Eastern countries, including Israel. And I reveal no secret when I say that, from the outset, Israel has been and still is a most enthusiastic Dialogue partner...

Now a pessimist may argue that the current turmoil in Gaza is just another indication that NATO’s notions of dialogue, partnership and cooperation are simply not applicable to this region...

Indeed, there is a risk that the current developments threaten to set us back – they risk sowing the seeds of future conflict. That is why I call on all parties to implement the relevant United Nations Security Council Resolution...

It goes without saying that recent events in and around Gaza are certainly most worrying. And if you add the international community’s unsuccessful attempts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, it is easy to see why the pessimists on the Middle East find so much resonance.

But I think that we must never let our future be decided by the pessimists. Continuing to work for opportunities to build new patterns of security cooperation across the Mediterranean and throughout the Middle East is not a sign of naivety. Given the pivotal importance of this region, fostering cooperation is an investment in regional and indeed global security. It is an investment that promises a return – even if that return may come in trickles only, rather than in waves....

Israel’s forward-looking approach is also visible in its contribution to the so called Operation Active Endeavour in the Mediterranean, and by its steady increase in other areas of the Dialogue, notably in science, public diplomacy, and armaments cooperation...

When you consider, ladies and gentlemen, the many serious and unresolved issues in the Middle East, from the issue of Palestine all the way to the Iranian nuclear programme, NATO-Israeli cooperation in the Med Dialogue may appear small and insignificant. It is therefore not surprising that some observers call for bolder steps, for example a NATO-led force for the region. Since I was the first Secretary General of NATO who has broached this possibility in public, I am certainly not opposed to such an idea in principle.

The international community is working towards an end to the violence in Gaza where, let me underline that, a role for NATO is not foreseen. Let me, however, use this opportunity to reiterate the three conditions for NATO to play a role: first a comprehensive peace agreement; second, of course, consent of the parties and third a UN mandate. If these conditions were met, I could imagine that NATO would find it hard to say “no” if the Allies were asked to make a contribution to Middle East peace. But we are unfortunately a long way from meeting those conditions...

Vanuit het Witte Huis klinkt in toenemende mate dreigende taal tegen Iran - maar hoe ver kan het gaan met het inhoud geven daaraan?

Obama heeft Iran bij aanvang van zijn presidentschap aangezegd dat uiterlijk aan het eind van dit jaar duidelijkheid moest zijn over de nucleaire ambities van dit land. Nu Iran blijft insisteren dat zijn nucleair programma zuiver voor civiele doeleinden is, en opeenvolgende voorstellen om dit zeker te doen stellen heeft afgewezen, rijst de vraag voor Obama: hoe nu verder?

Het Iraanse programma vordert en de tijd benodigd voor het ontwikkelen van nucleaire wapens - als Iran die zou willen verwerven - wordt korter. De EU steunt Amerika verbaal bij het dreigen met strengere maatregelen, al heeft het Zweedse voorzitterschap nog niet gesproken over verdergaande sancties - daarover wordt eind januari binnen de EU vergaderd.

Binnen de Veiligheidsraad lijkt Rusland 'aan boord' te zijn van het Westerse kamp, maar China voelt niets voor stringente sancties, vanwege eigen oliebelangen.

Voor de Israelische 'hardliners' hadden de  Iraanse nucleaire installaties al lang  moeten worden aangevallen, maar de Amerikaanse militaire top voelt daar (heel verstandig) niets voor - en Israel beseft dat het niet zonder Amerikaanse steun kan.

In Iran zelf lijken binnen de verschillende machtsstructuren tegenstrijdige visies te bestaan t.a.v. het onderwerp , waardoor een eenduidig beleid ontbreekt.

Al met al blijft dit een potentieel explosief dossier dat voortdurend moet worden bijgewerkt.

Een militaire crisis om Iran zou, buiten het Midden-Oosten, ook vergaande consequenties hebben voor de NAVO/ISAF-missie in Afghanistan - en voor de verhouding tussen 'het Westen' en 'de moslimwereld' in het algemeen.

US warns Iran year-end nuclear deadline is serious (Dawn.com)

EU, US back new Iran nuclear sanctions (Dawn.com)

Only much harsher sanctions can halt Iran nuclear program (By Ephraim Kam/Haaretz)

U.S. won't rule out Iran strike; France touts new nuclear sanctions (Haaretz)

Think tank: U.S. would sideline Israel in Iran nuclear dispute (Haaretz/Reuters)

Exclusive: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (ABC News TV video)

Why No U.S. President will Bomb Iran (Carnegie Endownment for International Peace)

Na Irak propageren Joodse 'Hasbara' auteurs nu aanval op Iran

Terwijl het vredesproces nog steeds niet is opgestart, vereist het lijden van de bevolking van Gaza dat de wederopbouw snel wordt aangevangen, vindt Jimmy Carter. En wie kan het daar niet mee eens zijn, buiten de zionistische (pro-Groot)'Israel lobby'..?

..In summary: UN resolutions, Geneva conventions, previous agreements between Israelis and Palestinians, the Arab peace initiative, and official policies of the US and other nations are all being ignored. In the meantime, the demolition of Arab houses, expansion of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and Palestinian recalcitrance threaten any real prospect for peace.

Of more immediate concern, those under siege in Gaza face another winter of intense personal suffering. I visited Gaza after the devastating January war and observed homeless people huddling in makeshift tents, under plastic sheets, or in caves dug into the debris of their former homes. Despite offers by Palestinian leaders and international agencies to guarantee no use of imported materials for even defensive military purposes, cement, lumber, and panes of glass are not being permitted to pass entry points into Gaza. The US and other nations have accepted this abhorrent situation without forceful corrective action.

I have discussed ways to assist the citizens of Gaza with a number of Arab and European leaders and their common response is that the Israeli blockade makes any assistance impossible. Donors point out that they have provided enormous aid funds to build schools, hospitals and factories, only to see them destroyed in a few hours by precision bombs and missiles. Without international guarantees, why risk similar losses in the future?

It is time to face the fact that, for the past 30 years, no one nation has been able or willing to break the impasse and induce the disputing parties to comply with international law. We cannot wait any longer. Israel has long argued that it cannot negotiate with terrorists, yet has had an entire year without terrorism and still could not negotiate. President Obama has promised active involvement of the US government, but no formal peace talks have begun and no comprehensive framework for peace has been proposed. Individually and collectively, the world powers must act...

Without ascribing blame to any of the disputing parties, the Quartet also should begin rebuilding Gaza by organising relief efforts under the supervision of an active special envoy, overseeing a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and mediating an opening of the crossings. The cries of homeless and freezing people demand immediate relief.

This is a time for bold action, and the season for forgiveness, reconciliation.

Gaza Must Be Rebuilt Now - We can wait no longer to restart the peace process. The human suffering demands urgent relief (Jimmy Carter in Guardian en ICH)

World Has Betrayed Gaza Civilians: Rights Groups (AFP/ICH)

Galloway raps Arabs over forsaking Gaza (Presstv.ir)

Egypt defends Gaza wall (Aljazeera.net)

Israel threatens another large-scale Gaza war (Presstv.ir)

Prominent Jewish-American professor says Gaza rockets were 'symbolic resistance' to Israeli siege

Uitsluiting van Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in ruil voor terugtrekking van buitenlandse troepen, dat zou in essentie het vredesaanbod van de Taliban zijn waarop de Amerikaanse regering niet ingaat. Hoe zit dat precies? Dat is een belangrijke vraag ook voor Nederland, waar binnenkort moet worden beslist of  - en evt. hoe -  na volgend jaar onze militaire missie in dat land wordt gecontinueerd.

WASHINGTON, Dec 15 (IPS) - The Barack Obama administration is refusing to acknowledge an offer by the leadership of the Taliban in early December to give "legal guarantees" that it will not allow Afghanistan to be used for attacks on other countries.

The administration's silence on the offer, despite a public statement by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton expressing scepticism about any Taliban offer to separate itself from al Qaeda, effectively leaves the door open to negotiating a deal with the Taliban based on such a proposal. The Taliban, however, has chosen to interpret the Obama administration's position as one of rejection of its offer.

The Taliban offer, included in a statement dated Dec. 4 and e-mailed to news organisations the following day, said the organisation has "no agenda of meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and is ready to give legal guarantees if foreign forces withdraw from Afghanistan".

The statement did not mention al Qaeda by name or elaborate on what was meant by "legal guarantees" against such "meddling", but it was an obvious response to past U.S. insistence that the U.S. war in Afghanistan is necessary to prevent al Qaeda from having a safe haven in Afghanistan once again.

It suggested that the Taliban is interested in negotiating an agreement with the United States involving a public Taliban renunciation of ties with al Qaeda, along with some undefined arrangements to enforce a ban al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan in return for a commitment to a timetable for withdrawal of foreign troops from the country.

Despite repeated queries by IPS to the State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley and to the National Security Council's press office over the past week about whether either Secretary Clinton or President Obama had been informed about the Taliban offer, neither office has responded to the question...

U.S. Silent About Taliban Guarantee Offer on al Qaeda (By Gareth Porter in IPS/ICH)

DOOR DE (i.c. MIJN) BOCHT: LANGER IN URUZGAN BLIJVEN

Heel goed dat president Obama de van oorsprong Nederlander Ivo Daalder heeft
aangewezen als Amerikaanse Permanente Vertegenwoordiger in de NAVO-Raad.
Daalder kan, als weinig anderen, zowel de Amerikaanse regering als de NAVO-
bondgenoten, goed uitleggen wat de wederzijdse instellingen en beweegredenen zijn.

Dat hij vanochtend in onze krant Nederland oproept om in Uruzgan te blijven, is zijn functionele taak - waar hij ongetwijfeld persoonlijk ook volledig achter staat.

'Nederland blijf!' (Ivo Daalder, Opinie de Volkskrant, 3 dec. '09)

Zelf ben ik altijd tegen het zenden van Westerse 'troepen' naar Irak en Afghanistan geweest,
omdat ik meen dat zij die regio's en de wereld eerder onveiliger dan veiliger maken.
(Zie onderstaande links).

Het belangrijkste argument om 'de vijand' daar te bestrijden i.p.v. op eigen bodem, gaat niet op. Integendeel, moslims worden geradicaliseerd, verenigen zich en conflicthaarden nemen toe en breiden zich uit.

Het grootste gevaar van de Amerikaanse 'surge' in Afghanistan is, dat het de politieke situatie
in nucleair-bewapend Pakistan verder destabiliseert. De haat van Pakistani jegens met name de VS neemt schrikbarend toe en een vijandige militaire coup zou kunnen leiden tot het aan islamisten beschikbaar stellen van nucleaire kennis - of zelfs materiaal. 

Daarnaast kan men de ontwikkelingen in Afghanistan niet los zien van een dreigende - al dan niet door de VS gesanctioneerde, maar wel operationeel gesteunde - Israelische aanval op Iran.

Ondanks deze fundamentele bezwaren meen ik echter dat Nederland NU deel moet uitmaken van Obama's uiterste krachtsinspanning om een geloofwaardige Afghaanse regering op eigen benen te helpen en het land voldoende (?) stabiel achter te laten.

En ALS Nederland in Afghanistan blijft, DAN in Uruzgan waar onze militairen goede resultaten boeken en het vertrouwen van de lokale bevolking winnen.

Door onze NAVO/ISAF-missie in Uruzgan te verlengen - bijv. tot medio 2011 wanneer Obama heeft aangekondigd te beginnen met eigen strijdkrachten terug te trekken - helpen wij deze
goedwillende president, behouden we onze invloed bij de besluitvorming in de NAVO, en
blijven we het vertrouwen van de bevolking winnen.

'Volgend jaar terugtrekken uit Afghanistan'


'Obama's nieuwe strategie voor Afghanistan - van kwaad tot erger?'

Na Irak propageren Joodse 'Hasbara' auteurs nu aanval op Iran

Barack Obama's war: the final push in Afghanistan (Guardian)

Obama’s Mixed Message on Afghanistan

(By Gareth Porter | Posted: December 02, 2009 in  RightWeb)

The Irresistible Illusion (by

Rory Stewart in London Review of Books, 9 July 2009)

Vanuit Iraans gezichtspunt zou het heel begrijpelijk zijn als Iran het verwerven van nucleaire wapens nastreeft, schrijft Gilad Atzmon in ICH.

Iran wordt dagelijks bedreigd door Israel, Amerika en het Westen en zou zo snel mogelijk een nucleaire afschrikkingsmacht moeten opbouwen om een aanval te voorkomen.

Hij had hieraan kunnen toevoegen dat Iran, in tegenstelling tot Israel, Pakistan en India,

het Non-Proliferatie Verdrag heeft ondertekend.

Hasbara author (1) David Aaronovitch is pretty much unstoppable. The man who together with the Jewish Chronicle writer Nick Cohen encouraged the war in Iraq, is now warning us about the evolving Iranian bomb. “Wake up”, he urges us in The Times, “this threat is too big to ignore”.  As if more than one million Iraqis killed in a war he advocated were not enough, the enthusiastic Hasbara author has a new conflict to propel.

Aaronovitch, who back in 2003 was mobilized by an imaginary threat that was crudely forged by Blair & Co, seems to be shaken again. This time it is the Iranian nuclear threat. “Most experts seem to agree, training the steed is mostly a matter of time.” There is something Aaronovitch is failing to mention. The state that lists him as its ‘Hasbara author’, the state that was recently found complicit in some colossal crimes against humanity, evidently possesses hundreds of nuclear bombs that has kept the entire region in constant red alert for more than four decades. The Jewish state has not signed the non-proliferation treaty and does not let any IAEA inspectors into its nuclear facilities.

Aaronovitch is worried because “there are suggestions from different sources that Iran is indeed researching a weapons capability.” I would ask Aaronovitch, or any other Hasbara operator, to come with an answer to this rather pertinent question: why shouldn’t they?

Iran is threatened by Israel, America and the West on a daily basis. Unlike Israel, a nation spiritually guided by suicidal biblical and historical narratives such as Samson and Masada (2), Iran's military nuclear project can only be realised as a defensive one. Iran needs its bombs to deter Israel, America and Britain. Iran is not going to launch a nuclear attack against Israel risking the life of millions of Muslims in the region. It has no reason to do so and it won’t. For Iran and every other state in the region, except Israel, nuclear weapons can only be understood as a means of defence and deterrence...

Hasbara Author vs Iran’s Bomb (By Gilad Atzmon / ICH)

Hasbara - Hoe de Israelische propaganda-machine werkt (The Guardian en Huffington Post)

Israel Hasbara Committee (Alphabetical List of Authors)

REPORTING AND CREATING THE MESSAGE 

Media pundits try to convince the reader or viewer they only report the message and deny they have any part in creating it when, in fact, they do both, wittingly or unwittingly. The way media selects news and opinion items and the weight they ascribe to various facets of stories they publish can sway the message. At the Israel Hasbara Committee we proudly do both. We generate many unique and original ideas, thoughts and commentaries, so as to get a very clear message out: Israel is in need of your support.

Israel Hasbara Committee (Home Page)

Thomas Friedman -- Hasbara GrandMaster Or Elitist Dupe?

Ongeveer 33.000 extra Amerikaanse militairen naar Afghanistan met druk op de NAVO-bondgenoten om ook meer troepen te leveren, meer nadruk op het opleiden

van het Afghaanse leger en politie en het verlenen van civiele ondersteuning, betere samenwerking met Pakistan en andere omringende landen voor het bevechten van de Taliban en Al Qaida, en streven naar een zo spoedig mogelijk overhevelen van de verantwoordelijkheden naar een geloofwaardige Afghaanse regering, dat zullen de belangrijkste ingredienten zijn van president Obama's morgennacht te ontvouwen 'nieuwe' strategie. 

Voor wie, zoals ik, had gehoopt dat Obama weerstand zou (kunnen) bieden aan de druk van hardliners, is dit teleurstellend.

Het belangrijkste argument voor het bestrijden van de Taliban en Al Qaida in Afghanistan en Pakistan is, dat het beter is de vijand daar aan te pakken dan op eigen bodem. Het tegenovergestelde blijkt echter het geval: deze Westerse interventies - en die in Irak - leiden tot radicalisering onder moslims en uitbreiding van conflicthaarden.

Het was te wensen geweest dat Obama dezelfde 'profile in courage' had getoond als president John Kennedy toen deze, tegen de wil van zijn militaire top en het politiek/militair industrieel complex, besloot om niet Cuba aan te vallen en, later, de Amerikaanse militairen uit Viet Nam

terug te trekken. (Helaas is dat laatste niet gebeurd vanwege Kennedy's moord).

Maar Obama kan niet anders - daarvoor heeft hij zichzelf teveel gecommitteerd aan deze 'noodzakelijke' oorlog. Wat de consequenties zullen zijn in deze gewelddadige regio valt moeilijk te voorspellen. Hierbij zou ook de mogelijkheid van een Israelische aanval op Iran moeten worden verdisconteerd.

President Obama gives go-ahead to implement Afghanistan strategy

The Secret Details of Obama's Afghan Plan

How the War Hawks Caged Obama 

Obama's Profile in Courage Moment

Obama’s Speech on Afghanistan to Envision Exit

Senators split on exit strategy and funding to continue war in Afghanistan

Senate will hold hearing on new Afghan strategy

America vs. The Narrative

Why They Hate Us - How many Muslims has the U.S. killed in the past 30 years?

An Open Letter to President Obama from Michael Moore

A Democratic Hawk Bolts with Obama on Afghanistan, Citing 'Eerie Echoes of Vietnam.'

Is afzijdigheid van Nederland in Pakistan, Afghanistan en Irak, werkelijk 'naief'?

Het deze week aangevangen openbare (!) onderzoek naar de beweegredenen van de Britse regering om Bush te steunen bij zijn invasie van Irak in 2003, heeft al opzienbarende onthullingen voortgebracht. 

Hoewel er tevoren veel kritiek is geweest op de samenstelling van de onderzoekscommissie en het feit dat de getuigen niet onder ede worden gehoord, blijkt het feit dat dit onderzoek in het openbaar gebeurt verrassend effectief.

Premier Gordon Brown heeft geprobeerd het onderzoek achter gesloten deuren plaats te doen vinden, maar de publieke verontwaardiging hierover was zo sterk dat hij heeft moeten toegeven. Nu heeft Brown verordonneerd dat 'geheime' stukken die bij het onderzoek worden geraadpleegd, niet mogen worden gepubliceerd. Ook daar komt veel kritiek op. Brown heeft destijds Blair door dik en dun gesteund bij diens Irak-beleid. Ook dat zal nu boven water komen.

In ons land zal de commissie-Davids die een soortgelijk, maar helaas niet openbaar, onderzoek uitvoert, ongetwijfeld uit het Britse onderzoek veel wetenswaardigheden kunnen putten. Het toenmalige kabinet-Balkenende heeft zich immers sterk op de informatie en adviezen van Blair cs verlaten.

Ondertussen is het wel duidelijk dat het maar goed is dat Blair niet tot 'president' van de EU is gekozen. In hoeverre dat dit ook voor Balkenende gaat gelden, moet nog blijken.

Geinteresseerden kunnen het verloop volgen via:

The Iraq Inquiry Official Website (Video)

 en

Iraq Inquiry Digest -

This is a project to monitor and comment on the Iraq Inquiry

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Iraq war inquiry (Guardian)

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Iraq inquiry – live (Guardian)

Verder zullen hieronder links worden gelegd naar artikelen etc.

Blair lied and lied again: Mandarins reveal that 10 days before Iraq invasion PM knew Saddam couldn't use WMDs

Oliver Miles: The key question – is Blair a war criminal? (The Independent, 22 Nov. '09)

Tony Blair's government decided up to a year before the Iraq invasion that it was "a complete waste of time" to resist the US drive to oust Saddam Hussein, opting instead to offer advice on how it should be done, the former British ambassador to Washington said today.

Sir Christopher Meyer, testifying to the Chilcot inquiry into Britain's role in the war, made it clear that once the Bush administration decided to takemilitary action, the Blair government never considered opting out or opposing it.

He said that the timing of the invasion was dictated by the "unforgiving nature" of the military build-up rather than the outcome of diplomacy or UN weapons inspections, which had not been given sufficient time. British officials were left "scrabbling for the smoking gun" – evidence for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction – as preparations continued.

Meyer, ambassador to Washington from 1997 to 2003, described a critical moment in March 2002, as Blair was preparing a visit to George Bush's Texas ranch...

Chilcot inquiry: Tony Blair decided on Iraq war a year before invasion - envoy (Guardian, 26 Nov. '09)

..It’s awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who “got saved.” He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars.

For six years, Americans really haven’t known why he launched the unnecessary Iraq attack. Official pretexts turned out to be baseless. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction after all, and wasn’t in league with terrorists, as the White House alleged. Collapse of his asserted reasons led to speculation about hidden motives: Was the invasion loosed to gain control of Iraq’s oil—or to protect Israel—or to complete Bush’s father’s vendetta against the late dictator Saddam Hussein? Nobody ever found an answer.

Now, added to the other suspicions, comes the goofy possibility that abstruse, supernatural, idiotic, laughable Bible prophecies were a factor. This casts an ominous pall over the needless war that has killed more than four thousand young Americans and cost U.S. taxpayers perhaps $1 trillion.

James A. Haught is the editor of the Charleston Gazette (West Virginia) and a Free Inquiry senior editor.

A French Revelation, or The Burning Bush 

Gordon Brown was accused of engineering a new Iraq cover-up yesterday by handing Whitehall departments the right to block the release of secret documents about the war.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg ambushed the Prime Minister in the Commons, angrily accusing him of trying to 'suffocate' the Chilcot Inquiry.

Relatives of the 179 servicemen who died in Iraq are desperate for the inquiry to finally uncover the truth and apportion blame.

But Mr Clegg said the Government's 'shameful culture of secrecy' would make that impossible. 

'Protocols' on the release of information have given civil servants and witnesses nine separate grounds on which to block the publication of damaging details.

The revelation came on the day that senior civil servants gave damning evidence to the inquiry which showed that Tony Blair had lied, lied and lied again about the Iraq War...

What an insult to the dead: Brown accused of new Iraq cover-up as he 'blocks' release of incriminating evidence

..President George Bush was able to disguise his blatant militarism behind the false sincerity of his ally Blair and his own secretary of state, Colin Powell. The president's task was made far easier given the role of useful idiot played by much of the mainstream media in the US and Britain, where reporters and editors alike dutifully repeated both the hyped-up charges levied against Iraq and the false pretensions that a diplomatic solution was being sought...

..The parade of British diplomats and officials appearing before the Chilcot hearings rightly point out the absolute lack of any "smoking gun" concerning Iraq and WMD. But until Chilcot receives testimony from those best positioned to speak about Iraq's WMD programmes, namely the UN weapons inspectors themselves, all the hearings will succeed in doing is sustain the false appearance of well-meaning British officials, stampeded into a war with Iraq by an overbearing American ally, looking in vain for a "smoking gun" that would justify their decision to invade. The evidence needed to undermine any WMD-based case for war, derived from the work of the UN weapons inspectors, was always available to those officials in a position to weigh in on this matter, but either never consulted or deliberately ignored...
 

The truth of UK's guilt over Iraq (Scott Ritter in Guardian, 27 Nov. '09)

Iraq inquiry told by diplomat Edward Chaplin that senior Washington figures had 'real blind spot' and assumed there would be 'dancing in streets' after invasion

British attempts to improve postwar planning for Iraq 'ignored by US' (Guardian, 1 Dec. '09)

Bush and Blair 'talked about Iraq only three days after 9/11' (News.scotsman.com, 2 Dec. '09)

The Labour Friends of Israel has become a powerful lobbyist for Zionist and Israeli interests in the UK. This article is an introduction to the new Spinwatch Profile, telling a hidden story of power and influence...

Labour Friends of Israel in the House (Spinwatch, UK)