Jeff Gates: “What is Israel’s Role in the Destabilization of Pakistan?”

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 4:29 AM

From: “Jeff Gates”

• Op-Ed — What is Israel’s Role in Pakistan

The Indo-Israel Alliance

See below, attached and on the Criminal State site where you can also purchase Guilt By Association, the first release in the Criminal State series.

What is Israel’s Role in the Destabilization of Pakistan?

When waging war “by way of deception,” the motto of the Israeli Mossad, well-timed crises play a critical agenda-setting role by displacing facts with what a target population can be deceived to believe. Thus the force-multiplier effect when staged crises are reinforced with pre-staged intelligence. In combination, the two often prove persuasive.

That duplicity was on display when U.S. lawmakers were induced to invade Iraq in response to the mass murder of 9-11. That crisis alone, however, was insufficient. Military mobilization required a “consensus” belief in Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi mobile biological weapons, Iraqi meetings in Prague, and so forth. Though all were false, those “facts” proved sufficient to induce an invasion of Iraq.

Such agent provocateur operations typically include collateral incidents as pre-staging for the intended main event. Ongoing incidents suggest a follow-on operation is underway. Recent history suggests we’ll see an orgy of evidence that plausibly indicts a pre-staged Evil Doer. Though Iran is an obvious candidate, Pakistan is also a possibility where outside forces have been destabilizing this nuclear Islamic nation with a series of violent incidents.

Will it be coincidence if the next war—like the last—is consistent with the expansive goals of Jewish nationalists?

December 2007 saw the murder of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Mark Siegel, her Ashkenazim biographer and lobbyist, assured U.S. diplomats that her return was “the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact.”

President Pervez Musharraf had announced that resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict was essential to the resolution of conflicts in Iraq and neighboring Afghanistan. That comment made him a target for Tel Aviv.

During Bhutto’s two terms as prime minister, Pakistani support for the Taliban—then celebrated as the freedom-fighting Mujahadin—enabled her to wield influence in Afghanistan while also catalyzing conflicts in Kashmir. By fueling tension with India, she also fueled an Indo-Israel alliance as Tel Aviv provided New Delhi an emergency shipment of artillery shells during a conflict over the Kirpal region of Kashmir.

In January 2009, Israel delivered to India the first of three Phalcon Airborne Warning & Control Systems (AWACS) shifting the balance of conventional weapons in the region. That sale confirmed what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier announced: “Our ties with India don’t have any limitation….” That became apparent in April when Israel signed a $1.1 billion agreement to provide India an advanced tactical air defense system developed by Raytheon, a U.S. defense contractor.

In August 2008, Ashkenazim General David Kezerashvili returned to Georgia from Tel Aviv to lead an assault on separatists in South Ossetia with the support of Israeli arms and training. That crisis ignited Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Russia, key members of the Quartet (along with the EU and the UN) pledged to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Little was said about the Israeli interest in a pipeline across Georgia meant to move Caspian oil through Turkey and on to Eurasia, using Israel as an intermediary while undermining Russia’s oil industry.

More Game Theory Warfare?

Bhutto’s murder ensured a crisis that replaced Musharaff with Asif Ali Zardari, her notoriously corrupt husband. By Washington’s alliance with Zardari, the U.S. could be portrayed as extending its corrupting influence in the region.

On August 7, 2008, the Zadari-led ruling coalition called for a no-confidence vote in Parliament against Musharraf just as he was departing for the Summer Olympics in Beijing. On August 8, heavy fighting erupted overnight in South Ossetia. As with many of the recent incidents in Pakistan, this violent event involved armed separatists.

But for pro-Israeli influence inside the U.S. government, would our State Department have installed in office the corrupt Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, leading to record-level poppy production? Is the heroin epidemic presently eroding Russian society traceable to Israel’s infamous game theory war-planners? [See “How Israel Wages Game Theory Warfare” http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/08/26/jeff-gates-how-israel-wages-game-theory-warfare/ and “Israel and 9-11” http://www.middle-east-online.com/English/?id=34283.]

In late November 2008, a terrorist attack in Mumbai, India’s financial center, renewed fears of nuclear tension between India and Pakistan. When the attackers struck a hostel managed by Chabad Lubavitch, an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect from New York, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced from Tel Aviv: “Our world is under attack.” By early December, Israeli journalists urged that we “fortify the security of Jewish institutions worldwide.”

Soon after “India’s 9-11” was found to include operatives from Pakistan’s western tribal region, Zardari announced an agreement with the Taliban to allow Sharia law to govern a swath of the North West Frontier Province where Al Qaeda members reportedly reside.

Pakistani cooperation with “Islamic extremists” created the impression of enhanced insecurity and vulnerability for the U.S. and its allies. That perceived threat was marketed by mainstream media as proof of the perils of “militant Islam.”

With the Taliban and Al Qaeda portrayed as operating freely in a nuclear-armed Islamic state, Tel Aviv gained traction for its claim that a nuclear Tehran posed an “existential threat” to the Jewish state. Meanwhile Israel’s election of an ultra-nationalist/ultra-orthodox coalition further delayed resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

More delay is destined to evoke more extremism and gain more traction for those marketing the “global war on terrorism.” Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni argued after the assault in Mumbai: “Israel, India and the rest of the free world are positioned in the forefront of the battle against terrorists and extremism.”

In announcing that list, Islamabad was indicted by its exclusion even though Pakistan is dominantly Sunni and, unlike Iran’s Shi’a, abhors theocratic rule. The fact patterns suggest that Pakistan, not India, was the target of the murderous terrorism in Mumbai.

Advised by legions of Ashkenazim, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent mission to Islamabad was a diplomatic disaster. Abrasive and arrogant, America’s top diplomat reinforced Pakistani concerns that it is surrounded by hostile forces and that the nation is being set up to fail by Jewish nationalist advisers to a nation it considered an ally.

In a climate of heightened tensions, Clinton undermined U.S. interests, boosted the Israeli case for a global war on “Islamo-fascism” and lent credence to the Clash of Civilizations.

Destabilization as a Prequel to Domination

As Afghanistan and Pakistan join other nations being destabilized by outside forces, key questions must be answered:

·      Was India’s 9-11 a form of geopolitical misdirection meant to serve both the tactical goals of Muslim extremists and the strategic goals of Jewish nationalists? Who benefits—within Pakistan—from humiliation at the hands of India and the U.S.?

·      With Bhutto’s murder and Musharraf’s departure, the crisis in Mumbai drew Pakistani forces to the Indian border and away from the western tribal region. Was that the geostrategic goal of these well-timed crises? What role, if any, did Israel play?

·      Is delay in ending the occupation of Palestine part of an agent provocateur strategy?  Was the latest assault on Gaza part of this strategy?

Each of these crises incrementally advanced the expansionist agenda of Colonial Zionists. Do these collateral incidents trace their origin to a common source? Is that source again using serial events to pre-stage a main event?

The public has an intuitive grasp of the source of this oft-recurring behavior. An October 2003 poll of 7,500 respondents in member nations of the European Union found that Israel was considered the greatest threat to world peace.

Is terrorism limited to “Islamo-fascists”? Are mass murders also deployed—from the shadows—as a strategy of geopolitical manipulation by those who Ashkenazim philosopher Hannah Arendt described as “Jewish fascists”?

Jeff Gates is author of Guilt By Association, Democracy at Risk and The Ownership Solution. See www.criminalstate.com

The organization’s name, J Street, a lettered street which does not exist in
Washington, DC, is presumably an effort to identify with K Street, which is
considered the central location for lobbying firms in Washington, with the
“J”  presumably standing for “Jewish,”  since  “J” is not the only unused
letter for Washington street names.

J Street has been excoriated by the neocons and other hardline Zionist
rightists as being anti-Israel, while it has been hailed as a great hope for
the future by many proponents of a more balanced, less pro-Israel, American
policy in the Middle East.  Giraldi, however, stands virtually alone in
seeing things in a much different light.  To him, J Street is “just another
Israel advocacy group with a slightly more progressive and politically
correct and therefore acceptable message.”  In short, with its moderate,
pro-peace image, J Street can more effectively promote the policies of the
Israeli government, to the detriment of the Palestinians and the United
States.

Giraldi shows that, on crucial issues, there is not much substantive
difference between J Street and AIPAC.  He writes that the “the two
pro-Israel lobbies clearly have the same overriding objective:  to preserve
unlimited American support for the state of Israel, not advancing the
interests of the United States.” Specifically, J Street holds that the U.S.
“should continue indefinitely in its role as Israel’s patron, security
guarantor, and financial supporter.” The new lobby rules out the idea that
American aid to Israel should be conditioned on Israeli concessions for
peace.
   
Giraldi points out that, like AIPAC, J Street accepts the exclusivist
Jewish state instead of  “equal rights for all citizens.” J Street’s
executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, castigates Mearsheimer and Walt’s
portrayal of a powerful Israel Lobby as anti-Semitic. Ben-Ami also rejects
the UN-sponsored Goldstone report’s critical depiction of Israeli war crimes
in the December 2008-January 2009 incursion into Gaza, which was endorsed by
the overwhelming majority of countries of the world.  Moreover, J Street
differs but slightly with AIPAC on Iran.  If diplomacy and UN Sanctions fail
to bring concessions, J Street advocates the strong sanctions advocated in
the U.S. House of Representatives bill on Iran, which, Giraldi points out,
“is basically an act of war requiring intervention by the US Navy and would
devastate the Iranian economy.”

There is also one other J Street position that completely undermines its
image as pro-peace.  J Street specifically talks about incorporating the
major West Bank Jewish settlements into Israel, instead of having Israel
return to its 1967 borders.   In short, there is no evidence that J Street
is willing to support any type of Palestinian “state”  that differs in any
significant way from what Israeli governments have proposed in the past,
which essentially is a  non-viable state that is, understandably, completely
unacceptable to the Palestinian people.   

So what is J Street’s likely impact?   As suggested earlier, it provides a
liberal façade for Israeli “peace” terms, thus garnering greater support
from progressives in the United States and around the world.  The fact that
the Zionist Right would likely be yelling appeasement and condemning J
Street as a bunch of  “self-haters” would do even more to bolster any
Israeli peace proposal endorsed by J Street.  Conversely, any Palestinian
rejection of such “liberal” peace terms supported by J Street would provide
greater justification for their demonization and harsh treatment by the
Israeli government. 

J Street also creates a shield to protect Israel and all of its supporters,
including hard-line rightists,  from truthful criticism.  Because of its
public image as fair-minded, J Street can implicitly set strict limits for
allowable criticism of Israel and its American supporters.  Any criticism
going beyond this, no matter how accurate–which would include the charge
that the Israel Lobby dominates American Middle East policy–would be
considered unacceptable, and undoubtedly J Streeters would play a key role
as gatekeepers.  Prominent J Streeter Michelle Goldberg recently attacked my
book, “The Transparent Cabal,” as an example of “subtle” anti-Semitism.
http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/reviewrebuttle.html
Like Ben-Ami, she also expressed a negative view of Mearsheimer and Walt. 

Giraldi appropriately questions “why there should exist a lobby operating in
Washington consisting of American citizens promoting the interests of a
foreign country,” which is so contrary to the thinking of America’s
founders.  In a follow-up article, Giraldi proposes the creation of  a
pro-American foreign policy lobby that “would be the modern embodiment of
George Washington’s warning to steer clear of foreign involvements and to be
a friend to all,” which he dubs X Street.
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2009/11/04/a-manifesto-for-x-street/

It must be pointed out that George Washington in his famous “Farewell
Address” realized that there were Americans who were “passionately attached”
to foreign countries, and that at some future date their agenda would be, to
some extent, implemented, though he hoped that his warning could serve to
mitigate the harm that  this would do to the United States.   

In short, there is nothing odd in American Jews’ having what Washington
termed a “passionate attachment” to the Jewish state.   What is odd,
however, is that so many educated gentiles in the United States would look
to Jews to correct US foreign policy where Israeli interests are involved.
There seems to be an implicit assumption by many American gentiles that,
because of historical discrimination against Jews,  only Jews have the moral
right to criticize the policies of the state of Israel  and, even among
those in whom this assumption does not prevail, there exists an overriding
fear that for gentiles to criticize the state of Israel would bring on the
lethal charge of anti-Semitism. 

So in large measure, the problem is not with American Jews but with American
gentiles.
Undoubtedly, some American Jews have made telling criticisms of the policies
of Israel, but American gentiles cannot afford to simply wait for the right
Jews to rectify America’s one-sided policy in the Middle East.  Matters in
that region are so serious and so fraught with incalculable peril for the
United States and for the world as to make this passivity unconscionable.
Rather, American gentiles themselves must dare to step forward and speak
out.  The purpose is not to condemn Israel or its American supporters, but
simply to tell the truth.  The peace and security of the United States and
the world depend on it.

Transparent Cabal Website:  http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/

Amazon: http://tiny.cc/zNV06 

My recent article “Obama, nuclear-arms reduction, and the power of the
Israel Lobby” is posted at www.thornwalker.com/ditch/sniegoski_israeli_nukes.htm

Stephen Sniegoski

—————————————————————————-
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2009/10/28/my-problem-with-j-street/

My Problem with J Street

Posted By Philip Giraldi On October 28, 2009 @ 11:00 pm

As readers of Antiwar.com certainly are aware, J Street was created a year
and a half ago to serve as an alternative to the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC).  J Street supports creation of a viable
Palestinian state that would exist side-by-side in peace with Israel.
Unlike AIPAC, J Street advocates first negotiating issues rather than
dropping bombs and it rejects the view that American Jews should close ranks
and reflexively and unconditionally support every government in Israel. J
Street targets liberal minded American Jews who are troubled by the Israel
Lobby’s right wing-Likud orientation.  It promotes itself as pro-Israel,
pro-American, and pro-peace, maintaining that it is possible to support
Israel without having to endorse all Israeli government actions.  It has
recently concluded its first Washington conference which attracted a
smattering of politicians.  General James Jones, President Barack Obama’s
National Security Adviser, was a featured speaker.

J Street has come under attack from the usual suspects, to include the
Weekly Standard, the National Review, and assorted individual neocons.
Because of the attacks, there has been a “my enemy’s enemy” response and a
number of opponents of AIPAC and the neocons have rallied to J Street, in
some cases purely because the neocon onslaught suggests that J Street must
be a good thing.  Some defenders of J Street have pointed out that it is
more moderate than AIPAC and therefore must be considered a better lobbying
option even if it sometimes has to embrace compromise policies that are
imperfect.  Others have argued that even when it has to take certain
positions tactically it still represents the best hope for a peaceful future
in the Middle East.

I have to disagree.  I believe that J Street is just another Israel advocacy
group with a slightly more progressive and politically correct and therefore
acceptable message.  J Street wants carte blanche United States support for
Israel and, indeed, it might reasonably be described as little more than a
spin-off of the existing Israel Lobby to make it more palatable to the
liberal Democrats that make up the Obama Administration.  It is one more
voice pushing the same old agenda with slightly different window dressing.
This is not to suggest that AIPAC and J Street are actually acting in
collusion but the two pro-Israel lobbies clearly have the same overriding
objective:  to preserve unlimited American support for the state of Israel,
not advancing the interests of the United States except insofar as one
assumes erroneously that Tel Aviv’s and Washington’s interests are
identical.  J Street calls continued massive US military aid to Israel “an
absolutely essential aspect of Israel’s security.”  If it is difficult to
perceive any pro-American element to the J Street program it is because it
is not about the United States at all – it is about Israel.  J Street
believes Washington should continue indefinitely in its role as Israel’s
patron, security guarantor, and financial supporter.

On many of the specific issues, J Street is AIPAC lite.  It accepts an
Israeli state based on religion, not on equal rights for all citizens,
specifically supporting the apartheid-like right of any Jew to “return”
without affording similar rights to Christians or Muslims who resided in
Palestine before 1948. Its Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami calls a
one-state solution to Israel/Palestine with all citizens having the same
rights a “nightmare.”

In a recent interview he praised AIPAC and outlined his vision for a
continuing American-Israeli special relationship saying, “for instance, the
special relationship between the U.S. and Israel, the essential security
guarantee that the U.S. provides, the notion that Israel should always have
a qualitative military edge – those are things that have been achieved by
lobbying, by what some people would call the ‘Israel lobby.’ J Street is
very happy with these achievements, and we support those ends, and we
respect and admire much of what groups like AIPAC and others have done over
the years.”

Ben-Ami also commented on the Mearsheimer-Walt book on the Israel Lobby,
saying “I don’t like what Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer have written in
their book and in their articles. I don’t agree with Stephen Walt.” He
criticizes their scholarship and labels them as anti-Semites, claiming that
the book “essentially says that all of American foreign policy is controlled
by this one lobby and this one interest group, to me, personally, this does
smack of the kind of conspiracy theories contained in the Protocols of the
Elders of Zion.”

Ben-Ami has also recently released a statement on Iran in an apparent
attempt to confirm to skeptical would be supporters that J Street is willing
to get tough with the Mullahs.

    “J Street supports the thoughtful and nuanced approach to Iran sanctions
legislation articulated yesterday by Chairman Howard Berman. We agree that
it is a vital interest of the United States, Israel and the entire Middle
East to ensure that Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons. Further, we agree
with the Chairman’s stated policy preferences for achieving that objective.
J Street’s first choice – as it is for President Obama and Chairman Berman -
is to resolve the nuclear issue through diplomatic means.  We, too, strongly
support the Obama Administration’s efforts to engage Iran and hope for
promising follow-through to the first round of talks held in Geneva on
October 1. However, should engagement not produce the desired results, we
too believe that the United States should seek hard-hitting multilateral
sanctions through the United Nations Security Council.  If that course of
action proves impossible, then the U.S. should work to build the broadest
possible international coalition to back such steps. The imposition of
unilateral sanctions, without UN approval or the support of allies, should
be, as the Chairman himself says, a last resort. J Street supports the
Chairman’s intention to mark up the bill on October 28th and to give the
President further time to pursue our preferred options. As we have said
before, J Street does not oppose the imposition of sanctions per se. We
prefer, as do Chairman Berman and President Obama, attempting to achieve the
desired result through diplomatic engagement and multilateral action.”

Describing Congressman Howard Berman as “thoughtful and nuanced” regarding
Iran is, to say the least, generous and many have noted that his House bill
is basically an act of war requiring intervention by the US Navy and would
devastate the Iranian economy. His bill has 327 co-sponsors and was marked
up yesterday in committee so that it can move to a vote in the full house.
Supporting “hard-hitting multilateral sanctions” will only end any hopes for
a negotiated solution and will strengthen Iranian hardliners, as J Street
well knows.  There is in fact little practical difference between J Street’s
position and that of AIPAC.  J Street even supports denying Iran the right
to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, which is basically the Israeli
government position, not that of the US.

Ben-Ami does not accept the UN’s Goldstone report that detailed the Israeli
war crimes committed in Gaza in January, saying he is against embracing “the
Goldstone report and for standing up for the right of Israel to defend
itself or for its military aid.”  He publicly praised President Obama for
rejecting the report’s carefully arrived-at conclusions.  J Street’s nuanced
criticism of the brutal Israeli invasion of Gaza also deserves to be quoted
in full because it ignores the murder of 300 Palestinian children by the
Israeli Defense Forces and only differs from AIPAC’s position in tone:

    “Throughout the recent Gaza crisis, J Street consistently called for
strong American and international leadership to reach a cease-fire that
ended all military operations, stopped the rockets aimed at Israel,
instituted an effective mechanism to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza to
re-arm Hamas, and lifted the blockade of Gaza. While the military response
by the Israeli Defense Forces may be understood and even justified in the
wake of Hamas rocket attacks, we believe that a military response that is
disproportionate and escalatory will ultimately prove counterproductive,
igniting further anger in the region and damaging long-term prospects for
peace and stability for Israel, the Palestinians, and the whole region.
Obviously Israel has the right to employ military force to defend its
citizens and interests. The right question to ask, however, is not whether
Israel has that right, but whether the specific actions taken by Israel in
Gaza actually serve Israel’s legitimate long-term security interests and
America’s best interests. In this case, J Street believes they may well
not.”

There are other examples of allegedly moderate J Street positions actually
veering sharply to the right.  A J Street sponsored event in mid September
featured retired Israeli Major General Danny Rothschild.  The general was
being introduced around Washington where he openly advocated a two-state
solution with the Palestinians because of his belief that it is the best
solution for Israel.  But he also reiterated standard Israeli talking points
about “Islamofascism” and Iran, i.e. that there is no use talking to those
people and that Iran intends to develop a nuclear weapon and has repeatedly
threatened to destroy Israel.  He claimed, wrongly, that Tehran is rapidly
building up its armed forces and advocated a military solution to the Iran
problem.  One attendee commented afterwards that Rothschild sounded like an
Israeli version of Republican Senator John McCain.

J Street might well be sincere in its efforts and if they help bring about
something equating to a peace settlement in the Middle East, I wish them
success.  But it appears to me that J Street’s positions are just a
variation on the usual Israel-first policies that have been dominant in
Washington for so long.  Since its founding, J Street has been drifting
closer to the Israeli government positions that it once seemed to criticize
and, since I am naturally cynical, I might wonder if that was the intention
right from the beginning.  One might well question in any event why there
should exist a lobby operating in Washington consisting of American citizens
promoting the interests of a foreign country – but we live in strange times.
The founding fathers might have considered such a schizophrenic world view
inappropriate for ostensibly loyal American citizens, a view that I share.