Israel's Nuclear Arsenal - Espionage, Opacity and Future (July 7, 2010)

What do newly declassified documents about weapons grade uranium and dual-use technology diversions from the US reveal about the role of espionage in building Israel's secret arsenal? Did Israel's proposed nuclear weapons sales to apartheid South Africa signal they are still for sale if the partner and price are right? Do FBI and CIA cover-ups of investigations into Israeli nuclear espionage signal official US government approval or political acquiescence? Did cooperating with Israel's policy of "strategic ambiguity" ever make sense for the United States? Is the era of 'nuclear opacity" now coming to an end? Are Israel's nuclear weapons of strategic benefit to the US? The following panelists tackled these questions.

Sasha Polakow-Suransky is editor of Foreign Affairs magazine at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the 2010 book "The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa."

John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago and author of the book "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics" and coauthor of "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy"

Grant F. Smith is director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) and author of the books "Spy Trade", "America's Defense Line" and "Foreign Agents."

Moderated by Middle East analyst Jeffrey Blankfort, host of the Northern California public radio station KZYX international affairs program, "Takes on the World".

High-definition video of the July 7 IRmep conference at the Spy Museum "Israel's Nuclear Arsenal: Espionage, Opacity and Future" is now available online from the Internet Archive (IA):

http://www.archive.org/details/IsraelsNuclearArsenal-EspionageOpacityAndFuture-July72010Panel

Viewers may watch specific segments, share, comment on and email this unedited, uncut HD video using IA's online tools. Highlights include:

00:01:00 Jeffrey Blankfort discusses US government refusals to acknowledge Israel's nuclear arsenal.

00:08:01 Why the Israeli, Apartheid South Africa, and ADL spied on US activists.

00:18:43 Grant F. Smith highlights the significance of the declassification and May 6, 2010 release of the GAO report "Nuclear Diversion in the US? 13 Years of Contradiction and Confusion."

00:23:09 Who established Israel's US nuclear diversion and funding network?

00:32:00 Is there any evidence the US officially collaborated in arming Israel with nuclear weapons technology?

00:37:15 Why aren't any high level Israeli or American arms smugglers ever prosecuted in the US?

00:48:52 Sasha Polakow-Suransky reveals South African yellow-cake uranium transfers to Israel's military.

00:56:31 New revelations about NUMEC diversions to Israel that were released after his book was published.

01:09:35 When will Israeli citizens be allowed to openly discuss the implications of their nuclear weapons?

01:14:26 John J. Mearsheimer reviews why states acquire nuclear weapons.

01:15:05 Debunks the argument that Iran would project power over the Gulf with nuclear weapons.

01:28:00 "Strategic ambiguity" doesn't matter since Israel isn't held accountable in the US.

01:31:49 Why Israel's nuclear weapons undermine US interests.

01:38:25 Q&A with US military, government agency, foreign and domestic press, diplomats, NGOs and students.

Any cable operator, public access show, documentarian, citizen journalist, news organization or other producer may freely download, edit and rebroadcast derivatives of the IA production quality 3.6 GB MPEG-4 under the Creative Commons copyright waiver (CCO 1.0 Universal).

http://www.archive.org/details/IsraelsNuclearArsenal-EspionageOpacityAndFuture-July72010Panel

Friedman’s Disingenuous Columns Hide Israel’s Crimes

Friedman’s Disingenuous Columns Hide Israel’s Crimes

By

Dr. Habib Siddiqui

Thomas Friedman is an Op/Ed columnist for the New York Times. He writes on a variety of subjects, including the Muslim world. In a recent article “Letter From Istanbul,” he wrote about the much visited city in Turkey. In his June 15 column, he wrote, “I like the people, the culture, the food and, most of all, the idea of modern Turkey — the idea of a country at the hinge of Europe and the Middle East that manages to be at once modern, secular, Muslim, democratic, and has good relations with the Arabs, Israel and the West.”

Yes, a Turkey that has looked westward, often discarding and ridiculing its rich past since the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire, should appear endearing to anyone who is insensitive and, worse still, hostile to Turkey’s Islamic heritage. Not to be forgotten in this context is the opposition of Sultan Abdul Hamid, the last of the Muslim Caliphs to rule this once great empire, to the very idea of Zionism. When the Zionists offered to give him 150 million pounds of gold to buy up and then turn over the Ottoman debt to the Sultan's government in return for an Imperial Charter for the Colonization of Palestine by the Jewish people, the Sultan told them, “If you offer me gold of the world adding it to your 150 man, I won’t agree to give you the land. I have served Islam and the people of Muhammad (S) for more than 30 years, and I won’t cloud the Islamic history, the history of my fathers and grand fathers – Ottoman Sultans and caliphs.”

It is no secret that the Sultan’s uncompromising opposition to the Zionists and Freemasons, who by the early 20th century, have taken effective control of the Young Turks and the Committee of Unity and Progress, paved the path for his overthrow and the ultimate abolishment of the Ottoman Caliphate. They insisted on his agreement to form a national Jewish state in the sacred land of Palestine. But in spite of their obstinacy he strongly refused them. [For details, see this writer’s article: The Case of Jerusalem - The Holy City Between Zionist Claims and Justification of Apartheid, Palestine Media Center (2005).]

This part of the Ottoman history, although unfamiliar to many students of history, is not unknown to most Zionists, including Friedman. What happened to Turkey over the next hundred years since the fall of the Ottomans is actually a matter of celebration for them. Not only the modern and secular Turkey was able to disrobe its Ottoman heritage, ban Islamic dresses in public places, pass laws that were hostile to its Muslim population, and distance itself from its co-religionist neighbors to the south and the east, it became one of the most ardent supporters of the Jewish state. The way things turned around, the Sultan probably would have been better off relenting to the Zionists!

As a pro-Israeli Zionist, the cause of Israel has always been central to Friedman’s writings. In his praise or censure of a country or culture, he has a simple litmus test: is it for or against Israel? Thus, it is not difficult to understand his rather cynical comment “it is quite shocking to come back today and find Turkey’s Islamist government seemingly focused not on joining the European Union but the Arab League — no, scratch that, on joining the Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran resistance front against Israel.” Tom is fully aware of his exaggerated claims and concerns, and thus admits swiftly that Turkey’s eastward tend in recent days owes in part to the failure of the European Union (E.U.) to embrace the Muslim country.

Nearly five years and a half ago, in an article -- “What’s next for Turkey: the Marathon?” -- I pointed out Christian overtone of the E.U., “The decision by the European commission shows that Europe is still not ready for pluralism and is worried about inclusion of a Muslim majority country. They can preach about the wisdom behind secularism, but religion still matters. So, the Turkish constitution can be the most secular on earth, and upheld doggedly by its military to the extent of even unseating its elected government, but is no guarantee for admission into the E.U. Pure and simple!” (Media Monitors Network, January 5, 2005)

Such clear cut E.U. hypocrisy, visible to any keen observer of modern Europe, was conveniently ignored by western pundits like Friedman. Now after all these years, Friedman admits that the E.U.’s rejection of Turkey was a hugely bad move, which has been a key factor prompting Turkey to move closer to Iran and the Arab world. He wrote, “After a decade of telling the Turks that if they wanted E.U. membership they had to reform their laws, economy, minority rights and civilian-military relations — which the Erdogan government systematically did — the E.U. leadership has now said to Turkey: ‘Oh, you mean nobody told you? We’re a Christian club. No Muslims allowed.’”

I believe if it were not for Turkey’s criticism of Israel in recent months, beginning with Prime Minister Erdogan’s lambasting Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, over the Israeli military’s brutal tactics in the Gaza campaign and the IDF’s cold-blooded murderous orgy of Turkish activists in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, and dissenting vote against the Iran-sanction in the UN Security Council, we probably would not have seen Friedman’s remarks in the New York Times. He now bemoans Turkey’s south and eastward drift to patch up relationship with the Muslim world. However, as usual, he belittles Israel’s savagery or its accountability to souring relationship with the secular Turkey, and instead blames the latter for, what he calls, “loudly bashing Israel over its occupation and praising Hamas.” He is troubled by the fact that Mr. Erdogan has decried Israelis as killers. To him, the killers can only be the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah, and not the Zionists, even though they have been committing worse crimes since the establishment of the Jewish state.

Such reactions from one of the most vociferous supporters of the rogue state of Israel should not surprise anyone.

In his second part of the ‘Letter from Istanbul’ (June 18), Friedman is upset about Prime Minister Erdogan’s accusations that the Israelis are behind the PKK terrorism inside Turkey. If he is serious to unearth the truth, Tom would learn that Israel has been financing the Kurdish separatist groups, not only inside Turkey but also inside Iraq, for many years. It is all part of a very calculated strategy on the part of the rogue state to better position itself as the only trusted friend of the USA in the region, let alone to weaken those Muslim majority countries with internal strife.

It was all part of this scheme of doing things which led to the 9/11 when, as many credible analysts have shown, the Israeli leaders did not share intelligence information with their American counterparts. They knew the plan and the planners, and yet to extract maximum gains out of evolving situation in the aftermath of 9/11 chose not to share such critical information with the USA.

Friedman believes that the ruling party (AKP) is getting unpopular inside Turkey. His observations belie ground realities inside Turkey. Under Erdogan’s leadership, the Turkish nation has been able to clearly see what has been so obvious to many outside observers in that it need not run the extra miles on Marathon to prove its case for joining the E.U. It is better off today than ever before in its Republican history. Turkey is now a vibrant, competitive democracy with an economy that would rank as the sixth largest in Europe. It has become the center of its economic space, stretching from southern Russia, all through the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and down through Iraq, Syria, Iran and the Middle East. In 1980, Turkey’s total exports were worth $3 billion. In 2008, they were $132 billion. There are now 250 industrial zones throughout Anatolia.

Turkey’s cell phone users have gone from virtually none in the 1990s to 64 million in 2008. If that is not an economic success story, what is?

While Friedman is all agog to find faults with the Turkish Prime Minister today, he should know that like most Turkish leaders of the past, Mr. Erdogan was not unfriendly to Israel either when he began his official duty as the prime minister. He encouraged closer ties with Israel, and even took a planeload of businessmen to Tel Aviv in 2005. The first sign of unease probably can be attributed to the reign of Ehud Olmert, then Israel’s prime minister. Mr. Erdogan was mediating talks between Israel and Syria when Israel began without warning the bombing of Gaza. This was seen by many analysts as a sign of Israeli arrogance that cares less about its benefactors just as it did a few months ago with vice president Biden’s visit to Israel. The flotilla attack was another such scheme by the Israeli policy makers to test America’s unwavering allegiance to the pariah state and breed tension and uneasy relationship between the USA and Turkey. As the UN debate later revealed, the Obama administration was not willing to chastise Israel for her heinous crimes. No punitive measures will be taken against Israel! To president Obama and secretary Clinton, Israel is once again more important than Turkey, a NATO partner.

In my 2005 article on Turkey, I asked, “Wouldn’t it be better for them [the Turks] to look south and eastward and reclaim their leadership position as they once held?” I am glad to report that from its bitter experience on failed membership in the E.U. and American and Israeli insensitivity towards Turkish lives, Turkey is learning its lessons fast. It has learned that its true identity cannot be an imported, fake and imposed one by its enemies. Just as 70 years of Soviet communism could not wipe out Russian Orthodox Christianity, the Kemalist experiment with hardcore secularism minus Islam is rejected by the vast majority of Turks. The modern Turkey is comfortable with its Islamic heritage that values human rights, dignity, progress and pluralism.

Turkey is finding its footing in its own backyard, a troubled region that has been in turmoil for years, in part as a result of American policy making and the Israeli factor. Turkey is no longer comfortable with its puppet role in the world scene. It has become forthright honest about things it likes and dislikes. Thus, it is not shy of telling Israel that she has been committing heinous crimes against the Palestinians living in Gaza. Nor is Turkey shy of saying that the UNSC voting sanctioning further harsh measures against Iran suggest that the USA has not gone beyond its cold-war mentality. This new vigor may come as a surprise, and even irritation, to the likes of Freidman, but not to most Turks who are tired of clearing up the mess left in the region by the USA and her regional partner in crime - Israel.

THE PRO-ISRAEL LOBBY IN BRITAIN

THE PRO-ISRAEL LOBBY IN BRITAIN. By James Jones and

Peter Oborne

Author’s Note by Peter Oborne

Every year, in a central London hotel, a very grand lunch is thrown by the Conservative Friends of Israel. It is often addressed by the Conservative leader of the day. Many members of the shadow cabinet make it their business to be there along with a very large number of Tory peers and prospective candidates, while the Conservative MPs present amount to something close to a majority of the parliamentary party. It is a formidable turnout.

This year’s event took place in June, with the main speech by Tory leader David Cameron and shadow foreign secretary William Hague in attendance. The dominant event of the previous twelve months had been the Israeli invasion of Gaza at the start of the year. So I examined Cameron’s speech with curiosity to see how he would handle that recent catastrophe.

I was shocked to see that Cameron made no reference at all to the invasion of Gaza, the massive destruction it caused, or the 1,3701 deaths that had resulted. Indeed, Cameron went out of his way to praise Israel because it “strives to protect innocent life”

I found it impossible to reconcile the remarks made by the

young Conservative leader with the numerous reports of human rights abuses in Gaza. Afterwards I said as much to some Tory MPs. They looked at me as if I was distressingly naive, drawing my attention to the very large number of Tory donors in the audience.

But it cannot be forgotten that so many people died in Gaza at the start of this year. To allow this terrible subject to pass by without comment suggested a failure of common humanity and decency on the part of a man most people regard as the next prime minister.

To praise Israel at the same time for protecting human life showed not merely a fundamental failure of respect for the truth but also it gives the perception, rightly or wrongly, of support for the wretched events which took place in Gaza. That is not to condone or excuse the abhorrent actions of Hamas, but to overlook Israel’s culpability is undoubtedly partisan.

It is impossible to imagine any British political leader showing such equanimity and tolerance if British troops had committed even a fraction of the human rights abuses and war crimes of which Israel has been accused. So that weekend, in my weekly Daily Mail political column, I criticized Cameron’s speech to the CFI, drawing attention to his failure to mention Gaza and his speaking of Israeli respect for the sanctity of human life. Soon I received a letter from Stuart Polak, the longstanding CFI director: “Peter, the snapshot of our lunch concentrating on the businessmen and David’s alleged comments was really unhelpful.” The CFI political director, Robert Halfon, wrote saying that my letter was ‘astonishing’ and accusing me of making a ‘moral equivalence’ between Israel and Iran.

I wrote back to them citing a number of reports by international organizations such as Amnesty International highlighting breaches of codes by the Israeli army. I resolved then to ask the question: what led David Cameron to behave in the way he did at the CFI lunch at the Dorchester Hotel last June? What are the rules of British political behaviour which cause the Tory Party leader and his mass of MPs and parliamentary candidates to flock to the Friends of Israel lunch in the year of the Gaza invasion? And what are the rules of media discourse that ensure that such an event passes without notice?

On a personal note I should say that I have known both Stuart Polak and Robert Halfon for many years and always found them fair-minded and straightforward to deal with. Indeed in the summer of 2007 I went on a CFI trip to Israel led by Stuart Polak.

No pressure was put on me, at the time or later, to write anything in favour of Israel. The trip, which was paid for by the CFI, certainly enabled me to understand much better the Israeli point of view. But we were presented with a very full spectrum of Israeli intellectual and political life, ranging from disturbingly far right pro-settler MPs to liberal intellectuals consumed with doubt about the morality of the Zionist state. The trip was also balanced to a certain extent by a meeting with a leading Palestinian businessman and with the British consul in East Jerusalem.

Nevertheless, the job of a political journalist is to try and explain how politics works. Ten years ago I exposed, in an article for The Spectator headlined “The man who owns the Tory Party”, the fact that the controversial offshore financier Michael Ashcroft was personally responsible for the financial 

survival of William Hague’s Conservatives. I asked how legitimate Michael Ashcroft’s contribution was, how much he spent, and did my best to investigate how he used his influence.

Now I want to ask a question that has never been seriously addressed in the mainstream press: is there a Pro-Israel lobby in

Britain, what does it do and what influence does it wield?

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

By James Jones and Peter Oborne

In 2007 two US academics, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, published a study of what they called the US Israel lobby, exploring in particular the connection between the domestic power of the lobby in the United States and US foreign policy.

Read On ...... The Pro-Israel Lobby in Britan

Is Obama Losing Moral Compass?

Is Obama Losing Moral Compass?

By

Dr. Habib Siddiqui

Last week the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was in Washington D.C. He was invited to stay at the Blair House and have a working lunch at the White House with President Obama. In front of the cameras, the two leaders appeared smiling and shaking hands. Apparently they discussed the Palestine-Israel conflict. Netanyahu declared that he is committed to “peace” with Palestinians and President Obama asserted that the Israeli leader is “willing to take risks for peace.” However, Netanyahu did neither offer any specifics about what he would do to help move peace negotiations forward nor mention a two-state solution to the conflict.

If there was any doubt about relationship between the two leaders, Obama reiterated, “If you look at every public statement that I’ve made over the last year and a half, it has been a constant reaffirmation of the special relationship between the United States and Israel, that our commitment to Israel’s security has been unwavering.”

Yes, Obama is right. Look at what his administration has done for the rogue state! The Israeli government will be getting more military and economic aid from the U.S. government than anytime before in its entire history. Recently Obama and his aides pushed the United Nations Security Council to pass a fourth round of sanctions and have worked with the Europeans and others, pressing them to adopt even tougher punishments on Iran. As to the Gaza Freedom Flotilla attack that killed nine Turkish (including a Turkish-American) human rights activist Washington sided with Israel against Turkey. Obama even told Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey to tone down his criticism of Israel.

This new warming gesture to the prime minister of a state that has been committing war crimes for decades is simply unbelievable, especially from a person who last year won the Nobel Prize for peace. Who can forget Obama’s speeches in Turkey and Egypt that aired optimism for peace and prosperity to billions of people of our planet? It sounded sincere and that change was in the horizon. He promised closure of the Guantanamo Bay prisons. He promised pullout of the American troops from Iraq. He promised fairness and healing of the old wounds. Truly, no American president in our time has been able to create so much enthusiasm and hope as Obama was able to do. All those promises now sound empty and hollow. Obama seems to have either fooled or betrayed us all big time!

To the vast majority of his cheerleaders the sad reality is sinking in that while the presidents may come and go, when it comes to Israel, business is going to remain as usual in the White House.

Just days before Obama was sworn in as the president, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) committed some of the worst war crimes against the Palestinians living inside Gaza. Some 1400 Palestinians were killed – more like in an execution style murderous orgy. Last year, the UN commissioned an inquiry, which was led not by a gentile but by a Jewish and pro-Israeli judge – Richard Goldstone of South Africa (who even claimed to be a Zionist). The commission concluded that the IDF’s actions in Gaza qualified as war crimes. And yet, the Obama administration resisted all attempts both inside and outside the U.N. to reprimand and censure Israel for such heinous crimes. It even condemned the Goldstone report as an anti-Israel, “biased” report.

Last month, the Obama administration did everything within its power to prevent an international probe into the Israeli raid on ships bound for the Gaza Strip, bringing in humanitarian aids. As if we have not seen enough of toothless internal inquiries conducted by the Israeli government to investigate its own crimes, the Obama administration, to make a mockery of the entire sad episode, backed another internal investigation mounted by Israel. Lest we forget, only recently an IDF soldier has been found guilty of the three-week long Gaza massacre of 2008-2009. He was charged with manslaughter in connection with the deaths of a Palestinian mother and daughter who were shot while waving white flags. No high ranking official within the IDF has been put behind the jail. In its April 2010 report, Human Rights Watch stated, “Israel has failed to conduct credible investigations into policies authorized by senior levels of the country’s political and military leadership that may have led to violations of the laws of war.”

It has been nearly 18 months since Obama was sworn in as the president and yet nothing positive has come out of his administration to stop the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Some 1.5 million Palestinians, mostly refugees from the Israeli annexation of their ancestral homes, are now forced to live like canned sardines there. Currently, more than 77 percent of Gaza Palestinians either face or are vulnerable to hunger; of these, 65 percent are children younger than 18. According to UNICEF, 10 percent of Gaza children show signs of stunting, while the World Health Organization maintains that another 10 percent face chronic malnutrition.

Back in 2005 when Israel dismantled its illegal settlements there and withdrew, an American-mediated agreement allowed Palestinians to export up to 450 truckloads of goods a day from Gaza. However, true to her deceptive nature, Israel allowed no more than 70 trucks per day before the siege was imposed to punish the Palestinians. According to the Israeli rights group Gisha, which collects data on Gaza’s besieged economy, since 2007, the total number of trucks carrying goods out of Gaza has been less than 300, i.e., less than a hundred a year. This number is equivalent to just four days of exports under the de-facto pre-siege number – which itself was far less than originally envisioned. As a result, according to the estimates by the Palestinian Federation of Industries, more than 90 percent of Gaza’s factories have closed down or are working at minimum capacity. (Newsweek, July 12, 2010) What more statistics does President Obama need to fathom the grim situation in Gaza?

The near-total export ban from Gaza also tells us that the prime motivation for Israeli action is not aimed at preventing weapons from reaching Gaza but actually to destroy Palestinian economy. Israel is enforcing a collective punishment of the Palestinians for voting for the Hamas. As noted by Professor Juan Cole of University of Michigan, that is a political, not a military, objective, and it is impermissible under international law (e.g., the Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention) to target innocent civilians to achieve nonmilitary goals. In German, it is called Sippenhaft or Sippenhaftung.

However, as usual, no one within the Obama administration, including the Jewish senators, children and grand-children of Jewish victims of Sippenhaftung, seems to be concerned about such gross violations of international law. The Jewish Senator Chuck Schumer of New York has been a great promoter of Israeli interest. In a recent statement he even endorsed such collective punishment of the Palestinian people. He said, “The Palestinian people still don’t believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution… They don’t believe in the Torah, in David… You have to force them to say Israel is here to stay. The boycott of Gaza to me has another purpose — obviously the first purpose is to prevent Hamas from getting weapons by which they will use to hurt Israel — but the second is actually to show the Palestinians that when there’s some moderation and cooperation, they can have an economic advancement… And to me, since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas, while certainly there should be humanitarian aid and people not starving to death, to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go, makes sense.” With such statements, mostly false, it is clear that these sons of ghetto dwellers have learned the Gestapo tactics quite well! Humanity is not in their soul!

In his welcoming speech to Netanyahu, president Obama said, “We discussed the issue of Gaza, and I commended Prime Minister Netanyahu on the progress that's been made in allowing more goods into Gaza. We've seen real progress on the ground.” This statement distorts the grim reality inside Gaza. It is untruthful and misspoken. Obama said, “I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu wants peace… We’ve seen over the last year how our relationship has broadened… And I think a lot of that has to do with the excellent work that the Prime Minister has done.” What a joke!

If war is peace, annexation is liberation, colonization is freedom, piracy is philanthropy, murder is life, and starvation is nourishment, one can understand such misplaced adulation for a psychopathic mass murderer like Netanyahu. In his remarks to the press, President Obama made no mention of settlement expansion or the Israeli commando attack on the humanitarian aid flotilla that killed nine people including a U.S. citizen.

By failing to condemn the Israeli piracy and murder of Turkish human rights activists in the international waters, Obama has sent the green signal for such acts of savagery and heinous crimes without facing any retribution.

So, with such a cavalier attitude towards condoning one of the worst crimes of this decade, the Obama Administration has shown that it is no different than its predecessor – the much hated administration of George W. Bush. With its appeasing words for the Israeli war criminals responsible for strangulating Palestinians in Gaza and murdering the human rights activists it has shown that it has lost moral compass. Whether the Obama administration likes to admit or not, the Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla has once again vindicated Goldstone’s report and its central claim that Israel used disproportionate force and deliberately attacked civilians in the Gaza assault—just as Israel, albeit on a much smaller scale, did in the massacre aboard the flotilla. Only a stupid or insanely biased individual can miss to see that writing on the wall.

Israel History

History of Israel: Key events Israel has experienced a tumultuous and often violent existence over its 60 years as a nation. Click on the links below to watch and read key events in its history since its creation in 1948.



1948
The State of Israel is founded
Israel declares independence as British leave Palestine



1956
The Sinai campaign
Secret ploy to thwart Egyptian blockade backfires



1967
The Six-Day War
Israel extends its territory dramatically after strike





1973
October War
Egypt in surprise attack over Suez on Yom Kippur





1977 - 1979
Egyptian-Israeli peace
Agreement over Sinai signals end to 30 years of war





1982
Lebanon invasion
Israel turns attention to Palestinian targets



1987
First Intifada
Palestinians revolt against Israeli rule



1993
Oslo agreement
PLO eyes political benefits of two-state solution





2000
Second Intifada
Peace talks fail and trigger fresh bloodshed



2005
Gaza withdrawal
Wall goes up as Israel pulls out of Gaza





2006
Lebanon war
Ambush sparks new conflict with Hezbollah





2008
Israel now
Democratic, prosperous, but still on a knife-edge



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7385661.stm

How Israel uses game theory to create the correct provocation-response to serve the needs of Israel.

In 2005, the Nobel Prize in Economic Science was awarded to Israeli mathematician and game theory specialist Robert J. Aumann, co-founder of the Center for Rationality at Hebrew University. This Jerusalem resident explains: “the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel” has turned “Israel into the leading authority in this field.”

Israeli strategists rely on game theory models to ensure the intended response to staged provocations and manipulated crises. With the use of game theory algorithms, those responses become predictable, even foreseeable—within an acceptable range of probabilities. The waging of war “by way of deception” is now a mathematical discipline.

Such “probabilistic” war planning enables Tel Aviv to deploy serial provocations and well-timed crises as a force multiplier to project Israeli influence worldwide. For a skilled agent provocateur, the target can be a person, a company, an economy, a legislature, a nation or an entire culture—such as Islam. With a well-modeled provocation, the anticipated reaction can even become a powerful weapon in the Israeli arsenal.

For instance, a skilled game theorist could foresee that, in response to a 911-type mass murder, “the mark” (the U.S.) would deploy its military to avenge that attack. With phony intelligence fixed around a preset goal, a game theory algorithm could anticipate that those forces might well be redirected to invade Iraq—not to avenge 911 but to pursue the expansionist goals of Greater Israel.

To provoke that invasion required the displacement of an inconvenient truth (Iraq played no role in 911) with what lawmakers and the public could be deceived to believe. The emotionally wrenching nature of that incident was essential in order to induce Americans to abandon rational analysis and to facilitate their reliance on false intelligence.

Americans were (predictably) provoked by that mass murder. The foreseeable reaction—shock, grief and outrage—made it easier for them to believe that an infamous Iraqi Evil Doer was to blame. The displacement of facts with beliefs lies at heart of how Israel, the world’s leading authority in game theory, induces other nations to wage their wars.

Full Article byJeff Gates: http://intifada-palestine.com/2009/08/20/how-israel-wages-game-theory-warfare/

Why The Bankers love the left

By Henry Makow, Ph.D

Count Cherep-Spiridovitch was a Czarist general who battled the Bolsheviks in the 1917 Russian Revolution.

In 1926 he published a book entitled "The Secret World Government" which shows how the Rothschild's plan for world tyranny dominates modern history. (See my "The Jewish Conspiracy is British Imperialism.")
http://www.savethemales.ca/000447.html

The fact that "Secret World Government" is generally considered "right wing" and "anti Semitic" is revealing:

1) It shows the extent society already has been brainwashed and subverted by the Rothschild conspiracy.

2) It reveals how the bogus issue of antisemitism is used to divert attention from a genuine mortal threat to humanity.

3) It explains the true meaning of "right wing crackpot" and why the Left is an instrument of the bankers.

EXAMPLE: THE US CIVIL WAR

Compare the treatment of this war in "The Secret World Government" with "A Peoples History of the United States"by Howard Zinn, a leftist, who cannot utter the word "Rothschild."

Cherep-Spiridovitch cites an interview with the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1876. Bismarck explained that the Rothschilds who controlled Europe were afraid the United States would become independent of them if it remained one nation.

"They foresaw tremendous booty if they could substitute two feeble democracies indebted to the Jewish financiers for the vigorous republic confident and self providing. Therefore they started their emissaries in order to exploit the question of slavery and thus to dig an abyss between the two parts of the republic." (180)

The Illuminati used the Masonic "Knights of the Golden Circle" formed in 1854 by George W. L. Bickley, to spread racial tension by making slavery an issue. Members included Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and his adviser Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of War, a Rothschild agent.

The plan was to divide the United Sates between England controlled by Lionel Rothschild and France, controlled by James Rothschild. France was to take over the whole South while Canada annexed the defeated North. In 1863 France and Spain invaded Mexico with 30,000 troops. The embattled Confederate States actually offered Louisiana and Texas to France in exchange for assistance.

Britain and France were ready to snuff out the young republic but were deterred by Russia, the only European power not in the Rothschild's thrall. Czar Alexander II sent his fleets to New York and San Francisco and declared that an attack on Lincoln would be an attack on Russia.

Meanwhile Lincoln created "greenback" dollars to finance the war and escape indebtedness to the foreign financiers. "They understood at once that the United States would escape their grip," Bismarck said." The death of Lincoln was resolved upon. Nothing is easier than to find a fanatic to strike." (180)

Compare this with Howard Zinn who although a "socialist," makes no mention of European financiers. His book is a soap opera of the oppression of the poor by the rich. He depicts the Civil War as a clash of capitalist "elites."

"The Northern elite wanted economic expansion.... The slave interests opposed all that. " (189) Again, "The American government had set out to ... retain the enormous national territory and market and resources. " (198)

In other words "capitalism" in general and not the Rothschild Illuminati caused this heinous war that cost 500,000 soldiers' lives and eight billion dollars. Is it any wonder these bankers, who are the real establishment, love the Left? Is it any wonder they populate our universities with pious Marxists (and feminists) who never question why they are pulling down big salaries if they are really defying the establishment?

Another Pied Piper is Noam Chomsky who attributes all evil to capitalism and American imperialism. As far as I know, he never mentions the Rothschilds, the llluminati, the Council on Foreign Relations or the New World Order. He pretends that Oklahoma City and 9-11 were NOT inside jobs.

"We shall erase from the memories of men all facts of previous centuries which are undesirable to us," say the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." "And leave only those which depict all the errors of the government of the goyim." (Protocol 16)

The problem is not American capitalism but the control of the nation's credit by a small private international cartel which has used this advantage to build a monopoly in every key industry. This international group is behind western imperialism and every war. Its totalitarian occult agenda (a.k.a, globalism, feminism, diversity) is now corporate policy.

The big government vs big business paradigm diverts attention from the Illuminati bankers who run both. It places the blame on capitalism and the US, which has been under Illuminati control for at least a century. It teaches each new generation to be alienated from their country, culture and economic system, and to become dysfunctional and impotent.

The bankers love socialism and Big Government. They have a monopoly of money and need a monopoly of power (i.e. government.) Together, these Rothschild banker monopolies are the essence of Communism. Rothschild pawns (liberals, socialists etc.) are elected by bribing the people with social services and jobs which create debt (and profit.)

The bankers need to institute a global police state (New World Order) to ensure that no nation challenges their credit monopoly or defaults on their "debt."

ANTISEMITISM

Antisemitism is another tactic to divert attention from the Rothschild's plan for world tyranny.

Cherep-Spiritovitch concludes:

"According to Bismarck the awful Civil War in America was fomented by a Jewish Conspiracy, and Abraham Lincoln the hero and national saint of the United States was killed by the same Hidden Hand which killed six Romanov Czars, ten kings and scores of Ministers only to easier bleed their nations." (181)

He is not talking about Jews in general but only those who advance the Rothschild Illuminati agenda. His book makes an appeal to righteous Jews, and recognizes that many non-Jews have sold out.

"The Jews should bring to bay the 'Satanists' who corrupt the countries in which they have found asylum," the Preface says: " the Gentiles should render every Judas who accepts the bribes of the Jews." [listen up Hagee Ministries!]

Bankers and their agents (B'nai Brith etc.) deflect this challenge by conflating the Rothschilds with all Jews. Thus they transform a political cultural and economic issue into a racial one that can be dismissed as 'prejudice.'

Why do so many Jews think they are responsible for the Rothschilds and the Illuminati? It looks suspicious.

The bankers' Satanic Conspiracy is the source of antisemitism. The sooner more Jews oppose it; the sooner antisemitism will disappear.

Who actually was behind the assassination of Bhutto Thursday? I can't pretend to know. But throughout history the central bankers routinely have assassinated politicians who stand in their way or whose removal will result in war. Lincoln, Arch Duke Ferdinand and JFK are the most prominent but there are hundreds. See my "Illuminati Murdered At Least Two Other Presidents" http://www.savethemales.ca/002009.html

CONCLUSION

The Rothschild Illuminati Conspiracy is the essential challenge facing mankind. Talk of US imperialism, capitalism and "hate" (antisemitism) is a red herring.

Modern world history is nothing but the process by which this satanic force is replacing Western Civilization with an occult world police state managed by taser and television. The whole world is being colonized by this imperialist financial power, which is behind all left, liberal, Communist and revolutionary movements. What they call "progressive" is progress only in their occult terms.

Socialist Presidential candidate Norman Thomas said, "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."

The world is in the advanced stages of a diabolical multi generational conspiracy. The general method and goals have all been revealed in http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/przion1.htm The Protocols of the Elders of Zion Our educators, leaders and media have largely been subverted.

Thus, a "right wing crackpot" such as Cherep-Spiritovich is anyone who favors individual freedom and self-reliance, family, nation, race, and God. These are the things that the Illuminati need to destroy.

The ruling classes have been hoodwinked to believe they are building a Brave New World. In fact they are accomplices in the mental, spiritual and possibly physical enslavement of humanity. ---- Henry Makow Ph.D. is the author of "Cruel Hoax: Feminism and the New World Order." (http://www.cruelhoax.ca/) His articles can be found at his web site http://www.henrymakow.com/ He enjoys receiving comments, some of which he posts on his site using first names only.

British diplomat convicted of being rude to Israel - Its illegal to object in the UK to the killing of innocent women and children

British diplomat Rowan Laxton is convicted of 'racial harassment' over his use of strong language in protest at Israel's offensive against the Gaza Strip at the turn of the year.

Laxton reportedly used "offensive language against Israel and Jews" after watching a report about the Gaza war on television, while exercising in a gym on January 27.

The now suspended head of the South Asia desk of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) also said that all Israeli soldiers "should be wiped off the map."

Upon a complaint made by two gym-users to the police, the diplomat was arrested on charges of 'inciting religious hatred' but released on bail until next month.

On Thursday, City of Westminster Magistrates' Court convicted the 48-year-old Laxton of 'aggravated racial harassment' and required him to pay a fine worth 350 pounds.

"A member of FCO staff was convicted... of a public order offence. The FCO takes very seriously any suggestion of inappropriate behavior by its staff," said an FCO spokeswoman.

She said the case would be considered under the FCO's misconduct procedure, but refused to elaborate further.

Laxton, who has already been suspended from his job, could now be sacked. He was also ordered to pay 500 pounds in prosecution costs, but was not ordered to pay compensation.

US Jews and Israelis Split on Obama

A Jerusalem Post poll has revealed that only four per cent of Israeli Jews believe that Barack Obama, the US president, is pro-Israel

India among 20 Most Dangerous Places in the World

London: Terror attack in Mumbai has severely dented the country's image as a safest heaven for tourists.

A British report says that following the attack, India has slipped to a list of the 20 most dangerous places to visit on Earth.

UK daily The Telegraph, which prepared the list, said in an online report that the British government was currently advising against all, but essential, travel to Mumbai.

India has been listed along side countries like Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Mexico, Thailand and South Africa in this list.

Chechnya, Jamaica, Sudan, Colombia, Haiti, Eritrea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Burundi, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Lebanon have also been named among the 20 most dangerous places to visit on Earth.

Although the Foreign Office is currently advising against all, but essential, travel to Mumbai, most of the rest of India is considered safe, according to the report.

Courtesy: siliconindia.com

Did you Know ?

Did you know that non-Jewish Israelis cannot buy or lease land in the Zionist entity?

Did you know that Palestinian license plates in Zionist entity are color coded to distinguish jews from non-jews?

Did you know that Israel allots 85% of the water resources for jews and the remaining 15% is divided among all Palestinians in the territories? For example in Hebron, 85% of the water is given to about 400 settlers, while 15% must be divided among Hebron's 120,000 Palestinians?

Did you know the United States awards the israel $5 billion in aid each year?

Did you know that yearly US aid to israel exceeds the aid the US grants to the whole African continent?

Did you know that the israel is the only country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?

Did you know that the israel is the only country in the Middle East that refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections from its sites?

Did you know that israel currently occupies territories of two sovereign nations (Lebanon and Syria) in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?

Did you know that israel has for decades routinely sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies?

Did you know that high-ranking military officers in the israeli Defense Forces have admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed by the IDF?

Did you know that israel refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war?

Did you know that israel routinely confiscates bank accounts, businesses, and land and refuses to pay compensation to those who suffer the confiscation?

Did you know that israel blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a U.S. ship in international waters, killing 33 and wounding 177 American sailors?

Did you know that the second most powerful lobby in the United States, according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders, is the jewish AIPAC?

Did you know that israel stands in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council Resolutions?

Did you know that today's israel sits on the former sites of more than 400 now-vanished Palestinian villages, and that the israeli's re- named almost every physical site in the country to cover up the traces?

Did you know that it was not until 1988 that israelis were barred from running "jews Only" job ads?

Did you know that four prime ministers of israel (Begin, Shamir, Rabin, and Sharon) have taken part in either bomb attacks on civilians, massacres of civilians, or forced expulsions of civilians from their villages?

Did you know that the israeli Foreign Ministry pays two American public relations firms to promote israel to Americans?

Did you know that Sharon's coalition government includes a party -- Molodet -- which advocates expelling all Palestinians from the occupied territories?

Did you know that israel's settlement-building increased in the eight years since Oslo?

Did you know that settlement building under Barak doubled compared to settlement building under Netanyahu?

Did you know that israel once dedicated a postage stamp to a man who attacked a civilian bus and killed several people?

Did you know that recently-declassifi ed documents indicate that David Ben-Gurion in at least some instances approved of the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948?

Did you know that despite a ban on torture by israel's High Court of Justice, torture has continued by Shin Bet interrogators on Palestinian prisoners?

Did you know that Palestinian refugees make up the largest portion of the refugee population in the world?

And finally do you know who is the terrorist now ?

Zionist / Israeli Roots of Hamas Are Being Exposed ...Centre for Research on Globalisation 18/18/02: Dean Andromidas

Speaking in Jerusalem Dec. 20, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer made the connection between the growth of the Islamic fundamentalist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and Israel's promotion of the Islamic movement as a counter to the Palestinian nationalist movement. Kurtzer's comments come very close to EIR's own presentation of the evidence of Israel's instrumental role in establishing Hamas, and its ongoing control of that organization.

Kurtzer said that the growth of the Islamic movement in the Palestinian territories in recent decades-"with the tacit support of Israel"-was "not totally unrelated" to the emergence of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their terrorist attacks against Israel. Kurtzer explained that during the 1980s, when the Islamic movement began to flourish in the West Bank and Gaza, "Israel perceived it to be better to have people turning toward religion rather than toward a nationalistic cause [the Palestinian Liberation Organization-ed.]." It therefore did little to stop the flow of money to mosques and other religious institutions, rather than to schools.

According to the Dec. 21 Israeli daily Ha'aretz, Kurtzer made these extraordinary statements at a seminar on religion and politics sponsored by Oz V'Shalom-Netivot Shalom, a largely Anglo-American organization that promotes peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Rabbi Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein, the head of Har Etzion Yeshiva in Alon Shvut, who is an active advocate of a just regional peace, also spoke. Kurtzer said that as a result of the growth of Islam at the expense of education, there are now Palestinians who are "determined terrorists that use religious beliefs in a perverted way to appeal to the masses."

Kurtzer said that cultural and religious interaction is potentially a way to "build bridges." But instead, "the perverted use of religion in the region is today becoming one of the great challenges for the years ahead." He said that there is no "inherent component" in Islam that advocates violence. But one of the five principles of Islam, jihad-resistance-"in classic religious associations connotes religious belief and fervor, not violence." But extremists have distorted the meaning of jihad, so it now has a connotation of violence in the service of a religious purpose.

The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend

This statement is extraordinary given the fact that Kurtzer is a very senior diplomat, having held the post of Ambassador to Egypt just prior to going on to Tel Aviv. He is also an Orthodox Jew who is not shy of criticizing the extreme anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic views held by certain Arab circles. But Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rarely grants the United States' highest representative in Israel an official audience.

The ambassador's comments are an acknowledgment of what any serious Middle East observers knows: Hamas has always been seen as a tool by which Israel could undermine the nationalist movement led by Palestinian Authority President and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat. Similar statements by Arafat have been dismissed by Israel as "cranky" propaganda. In an interview with the Dec. 11 Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Arafat said,

"We are doing everything to stop the violence. But Hamas is a creature of Israel which at the time of Prime Minister [Yitzhak] Shamir [the late 1980s, when Hamas arose], gave them money and more than 700 institutions, among them schools, universities and mosques. Even [former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin ended up admitting it, when I charged him with it, in the presence of [Egpytian President Hosni] Mubarak."

To the Italian daily L'Espresso, Arafat laid out the reasons for this support. "Hamas was constituted with the support of Israel. The aim was to create an organization antagonistic to the PLO. They received financing and training from Israel. They have continued to benefit from permits and authorizations, while we have been limited, even to build a tomato factory. Rabin himself defined it as a fatal error. Some collaborationists of Israel are involved in these [terror] attacks," he said. "We have proof, and we are placing it at the disposal of the Italian government."

On one level the support for Hamas is simply the application of the old saying, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Indeed, in the minds of crude Israeli ultra-nationalists and fascists such as Sharon and his faction, this is indeed the case. Sharon is not interested in peace and therefore is not concerned that the violence and needless deaths of Israelis and Palestinians continue. In the Jan. 3 Ha'aretz, Yossi Sarid, chairman of the Meretz party, wrote, "What does frighten Sharon ... is any prospect or sign of calm or moderation. If the situation were to calm down and stabilize, Sharon would have to return to the negotiating table and, in the wake of pressure from within and without, he would have to raise serious proposals for an agreement. This moment terrifies Sharon and he wants to put it off for as long as he possibly can." In contrast, Sarid said that Sharon understands "that the terrorists and those who give them asylum are not the real enemies. Instead, the real enemies are the moderates.... You fight terrorists-a pretty simple operation-but you must talk with moderates, and this is a very tricky, if not dangerous, business."

More important for the survival of not only the Palestinian people, but especially Israel itself, is the dangerous role of the puppet masters outside the region, who are manipulating both sides of this deadly game as part of their own demonic plans to spread the policy of a "clash of civilizations." In this regard, Sharon, and his "Greater Israel" policy, is just as much a puppet as the Palestinian, strapped with explosives, who blows himself up at an Israeli bus station.

Two Decades of Undermining Arafat

Given the level of control that the Israeli intelligence services such as the Shin Bet and Mossad have been able to exert over the Palestinian territories during the last 35 years of Israeli occupation, the capability to manipulate militant and violent organizations, such as those associated with Hamas, should not surprise anyone familiar with intelligence and even routine police operations. This should be obvious, considering that Israel has routinely recruited thousands of collaborators and provocateurs among the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have passed through Israeli prisons in over 35 years of its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Most convincing is a comparison of the development of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and their antecedents, and the growing national and international legitimacy of the PLO and its undisputed leader, Arafat.

Hamas is an acronym for Harafat al-Muqawama Al-Islamiyya, or Islamic Resistance Movement. Its spiritual leader is Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who, despite his fiery anti-Israeli sermons, has had an unusual relationship with the Israeli authorities. In 1973, Yassin established the Islamic Association-at a time when it was Israeli policy to promote what Ambassador Kurtzer refers to as the "Islamic movement."

One might ask: Why should Israel promote an Islamic movement which later turns around and attacks it? How could the Israeli secret services be taken in by a Yassin? They weren't. The simple fact is, that the stated policy of Hamas is simply the flip side of Sharon's "Greater Israel" policy that refuses to seek a territorial compromise. The Hamas charter in 1988 stated, "The land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations, and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it.... Peace initiatives, the so-called peace initiatives, are all contraray to the beliefs of Hamas, for renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion." In this rhetoric there is no room for a state of Israel-as there is none for a state of Palestine in Sharon's "Greater Israel."

Israel's Hamas relations intensified after the Arab League, in 1974, decided to recognize Arafat and the PLO as the representatives of the Palestinian people-in effect, a government in exile. By 1979, top Yassin acquired an official permit from the Israeli government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin. This coincided with the signing of the Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. That treaty embodied detailed clauses calling for the establishment of a Palestinian Authority in the Occupied Territories, which would be the precursor for the Israeli withdrawal and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Gen. Ariel Sharon has been the chief proponent since this treaty was signed, of the policy of ensuring that these clauses would never be implemented. His chosen alternatives were war in Lebanon and the expansion of the Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories. Sharon was helped by the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat by Anglo-American-controlled, Egypt-based Islamic terrorists.

`Policy of Strengthening Islamic Bodies' Israeli toleration, if not initial sponsorship of the Islamic movement, has been acknowledged and well documented in Israeli sources. In 1997, the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, at Tel Aviv University, published a study, "Hamas: Radical Islam In A National Struggle," authored by Anat Kurz and Nahman Tal. It stated that the Islamic Association, "the platform of which contained no nationalist clauses, obtained a permit from the Israeli Civil Administration in 1979 to conduct its activities. The permit was apparently consistent with the Israeli policy of strengthening Islamic bodies as a counterweight to Palestinian nationalist groups."

The rapid expansion of the Islamic Association led to clashes on the Palestinian University campuses in the Occupied Territories in the 1980s, between PLO-affiliated students and those associated with the Islamists. This expansion was aided by the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, where Sharon hoped to solve the "Palestinian problem" by militarily crushing the PLO-which was then based in Lebanon-and by carrying out genocide against the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in impoverished refugee camps in Lebanon. Despite his orchestration of the massacre of thousands of Palestinians, including women and children, at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, Sharon failed to eliminate Arafat. Nonetheless, Arafat and the PLO were exiled to Tunisia, their influence severely weakened.

Sheikh Yassin, along with other Hamas leaders, was arrested in 1984, after it was discovered that the Islamic Association had maintained arms caches. But the organization was not banned. In fact, Yassin was soon released as part of an unprecedented prisoner exchange between Israel and Ahmed Jabril's PFLP-General Command. This deal, made with one of the most violent of all anti-PLO Palestinian groups at the time, was made in a period when the Mossad was busy assassinating the most moderate of PLO leaders.

Then, in 1988, the Islamic Association created Hamas as a direct alternative to the PLO, which had launched the first Intifada the year before. 1988 was also important because the PLO, at the 19th Conference of the Palestinian National Council in Algeria in 1988, accepted the United Nations Security Council resolution of 1947 calling for two states in Palestine. They also called for convening an international peace conference based on UN Resolutions 242 and 338, which established the land-for-peace concept. This was a de facto recognition of Israel by the PLO and Arafat. By the end of 1988, the Reagan Administration extended official recognition to the PLO as the official representative of the Palestinian people.

When Palestinian leader Abu Jihad began negotiating with Hamas, in an attempt to win its mass base over to the new policy, he was promptly assassinated by the Mossad.

Yassin, as all senior leaders of Hamas, is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the far-flung international Islamic organization with operations throughout the Islamic world. In the past, Anglo-American factions have not hesitated to manipulate the Brotherhood's various factions to destabilize secular Arab regimes. When Zbigniew Brzezinski launched the Afghan war against Russia in the 1980s, many of the Arab mujahideen fighters were recruited through Muslim Brotherhood-linked networks. The Muslim Brotherhood story fills volumes; the crucial point here is that Hamas, one of its branches, has traditionally stood in opposition to the secular nationalism of Arafat, the PLO, and its supporting governments.

Hamas has a peculiar organizational structure which contrasts sharply with that of the PLO. While within the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas exists as a broad political movement, its militant wings, the Izza-Din Al Qassam and Islamic Jihad, split-offs from the organization, are administered totally separately. These latter organizations, which are responsible for the attacks, are under the control of leaders who operate from abroad. Their offices are in London, where the group's magazine, Falatin Al Muslimah, is based; Jordan; Syria; and the United States, particularly in Virginia and Texas. Although Arafat has periodically tried to bring the popular base of Hamas into the Palestinian fold, the foreign-based military leadership has always opposed him.

This bifurcation dovetails with Sharon's strategy of launching brutal attacks against Hamas targets, in order to elicit the equally brutal response from Islamic Jihad and the Izza-Din Al Qassam. Thus Arafat, and diplomatic goals, are undermined, and the fires of civil war within the Occupied Territories are stoked.

The Anti-Oslo Terror Campaign Begins The Oslo Accords marked the first glimmer of hope for a resolution of the Middle East conflict. And, the first suicide terrorist attack aimed at destroying it was not launched by Hamas or Islamic Jihad or another Palestinian faction. The first suicide attack was launched on Feb. 25, 1994, by Israeli terrorist Baruch Goldstein, when he entered the Mosque of Hebron and killed 50 Muslim worshippers as well as himself. Goldstein was a member of Kach, the terrorist organization founded by the late Meir Kahane, who also founded the Jewish Defense League in the 1960s in the United States. Kach, which is well connected to Sharon, is on the official U.S. State Department list of terrorist organizations.

The unprecedented massacre was calculated to set the stage for a suicide bombing campaign by Hamas and its split-off, Islamic Jihad, over the next year. In fact, it set into motion the "cycle of violence" that has yet to end. The Goldstein attack came at precisely the point when Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and Arafat began the formal implementation of the Oslo agreement which envisioned the establishment of a Palestinian state by 1998. The first Hamas-linked suicide attacks did not start until two months later, in April 1994, when Rabin and Arafat signed the agreement for the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority. The agreement called for the conduct of free elections throughout the territories-which would eventually establish the international legitimacy of the Arafat-led government.

But despite this terror campaign, which lasted for months under a massive crackdown by Arafat's security forces, the Rabin-Arafat alliance, although seriously weakened, was not broken. This alliance was finally broken with Rabin's assassination by an Israeli, on Nov. 5, 1995.

The next phase of attacks followed the "targeted assassination" of Hamas bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash on Jan. 5, 1996. Although said to be "revenge attacks," they were in fact part of Hamas' campaign to get Benjamin Netanyahu elected Israeli prime minister. This was admitted by Ibraham Ghawshah, Hamas' official spokesman resident in Amman, Jordan. He said that it was part of their strategy to influence Israeli public opinion to bring down the entire Oslo process. The election of Netanyahu indeed fulfilled all their hopes, especially after he launched his own provocations, which not only brought about the pre-calculated Hamas response, but also brought the region several times to the brink of war.

This tit-for-tat campaign reached the height of insanity when Netanyahu, under the direction of Sharon, who was a member of his government at the time, launched a Mossad assassination attempt in 1997 against the Jordan-based Hamas official Khalid Mishaal. Not only did the attempt fail, but it led to Israel agreeing to release Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Yassin from an Israeli jail, where he had been under arrest since 1989. Yassin was allowed to return to Gaza to rally Hamas against the Oslo process in general, and Arafat in particular.

This pattern has continued to this very day. Netanyahu's downfall in 1999 led to the short-lived government of Ehud Barak, who despite much talking and negotiating, furthered the Oslo process not one iota. By the end of the Summer of 2000, the stage was set for Sharon's ultimate provocation, his Sept. 28 march on to the Islamic holy site Al-Haram Al-Sharif/Temple Mount.

Since coming to power, Sharon has done everything to ensure the collapse of Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. If successful, it would either bring Hamas to power or lead to political chaos within the territories.