Congress Barters Lives for Cash?

[American Dream]

stefano wrote:

Can you show that Zionists have been able to shape US policy in a direction harmful to the interests of the more established mighty?

This I think is the key question...

[AlicetheKurious]

Well, just off the top of my head, there are the most obvious examples:

1) Was it in America's interest to cover up the deliberate bombing of the USS Liberty with napalm, gunfire & missiles for 2 hours, killing 34 American soldiers and wounding 172 more? More details here.

Or was it in Israel's interest to prevent the American spy ship from documenting its massacre of more than 1000 Egyptian POWs in Arish, or intercepting Israel's plan to invade Syria's Golan Heights, which the American government had opposed?


2) It is in the American interest to maintain friendly relations with oil-producing Arab states in the Middle East -- prior to the "special relationship" that developed between the U.S. and Israel after the assassination of JFK, America had NO enemies in the Arab world. Since then, America has been increasingly reliant on brute military force and massive infusions of cash to prop up corrupt regimes, in order to maintain its foothold in the Arab world.

The invasion of Iraq highlighted the conflict between the American "oil" camp, and the zionist camp -- a conflict that was bitterly fought in the corridors of power and in the media long before the first plane dropped the first bombs over Baghdad. Guess who won?

Halfway through George W. Bush's term of office, one year since 9/11, and the ideal of moral clarity in US foreign policy couldn't be murkier. According to Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, and Richard Perle, every moment we postpone war with Iraq damages our credibility; according to Brent Scowcroft, General Anthony Zinni, Lawrence Eagleburger, and James Baker III, nothing would damage our credibility so much as a unilateral, preemptive war on Iraq.

Michael Bérubé | Boston Globe | September 15, 2002


On 15 August [2002] Condoleeza Rice made a passionate, moralistic argument for war, focussing mostly on the evils of Saddam Hussein but also drawing in the dangers posed by Iraq's alleged development of weapons of mass destruction. This was followed up on Monday by Dick Cheney, in emphatic mood. "There is no doubt," he said, "that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction, and there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us," citing testimonies made by Saddam's son-in-law in the mid-1990's. Cheney made it clear that the return of weapons inspectors provided no alternative to a "pre-emptive war".

The endless repetition of such arguments by administration officials and extreme right wing propagandists and politicians serves to sweep beneath the carpet concerns over the real costs of the war. References by liberals to the formidable consensus against war among Washington's allies and friends, the impact of the venture on an already vulnerable American and world economy and the absence of any exit strategy, though, are now being made with ever greater urgency, voiced by major figures within both the Republican and Democratic parties.

In this connection is the arguments made by Brent Scowcroft in The Wall Street Journal last week are of particular interest. Though Scowcroft argued against the appropriateness of the war option he stopped short of condemning it out of hand. His arguments were later reiterated by James Baker, who argued that the administration should pursue the possibility of a robust inspection regime before going to war.

Baker focused on the economic cost of war -- estimated at $60 billion -- and dangers involved in any unilateral action, the implication being that multilateral approaches must be explored in an attempt to reduce the economic and political costs.

While Henry Kissinger, predictably, threw his weight behind the administration, the 18 August edition of The Washington Post published a comprehensive critique of the administration's position by Zbigbiew Brezezinski, national security advisor to President Carter. He castigated the administration for failing to consult with its allies, for political Darwinism and the lack of any real evidence to support its anti-Iraq rhetoric.

Mohamed El-Sayed Said | Al-Ahram | September 1, 2002


3) Similarly, America is now hated second only to Israel in markets controlled by 1.2 billion Muslims, largely because it is widely seen as the racist colonial state's unconditional lackey. How this serves American interests, or American "elite" interests, I don't know.



4) US Aid to Israel subsidizes a major global competitor for American arms manufacturers and exporters.



5) Opposing Israel's demands is very unhealthy for the careers and lives of Americans, no matter how high up the "elite" ladder.

- Probably no American president has ever stood up so firmly to Israel, as John F. Kennedy did in the spring of 1963, when he resolved to "abolish Israel's nuclear activity at Dimona," and sent Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion an ultimatum.

Avener Cohen, in Israel and the Bomb, stresses, "No American president was more concerned with the danger of nuclear proliferation than John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He was convinced that the spread of nuclear weapons would make the world more dangerous and undermine U.S. interests." Cohen continues at the end of this passage, "The only example Kennedy used to make this point was Israel."

On May 18, 1963, Kennedy wrote that "American commitment and support would be seriously jeopardized in public opinion and in the West, if it should be thought that this Government was unable to obtain reliable information on a subject as vital to peace as Israel's efforts in the nuclear field." The potential withdrawal of American support was a significant hazard to Israel, and this letter presented the greatest threat so far to the success of the Dimona project. Ben-Gurion refused to submit to biannual visitation, saying that "the 'start-up' time of the Dimona reactor will not come until the end of this year or early 1964...this will be the most suitable time for your representatives to visit the reactor." He also continued to insist that Israeli nuclear aims were civilian in nature.

Kennedy was no longer willing to tolerate Ben-Gurion's wavering. In June of 1963, Kennedy wrote that if inspections and the desired conditions of these inspections did not take place as early as that summer and a satisfactory agreement was not reached, it would "jeopardize the U.S. government's commitment to, and support of, Israel."

Ben-Gurion immediately resigned as Israel's prime minister.

Pinhas Sapir and Yuval Neeman, who also served as aides to Ben-Gurion, claim that Kennedy's pressure was the single impetus for resignation. Neeman views Ben-Gurion's resignation as yet another stalling tactic which would allow Israel to finish the project. It is certainly the case that Levi Eshkol's succession delayed the American visitations past the summer of 1963, because Eshkol was able to feign relative ignorance and to request time to learn the details of the negotiations. Eventually, under Eshkol's watch, Israel allowed limited visitations to Dimona, but the Kennedy administration never renewed the pressure that they had used during the Ben-Gurion years. Link

Indeed. Perhaps the fact that Kennedy was assassinated that very fall, had something to do with the fact that his administration "never renewed the pressure" on Israel to submit to American inspections.

Reuven Pedatzer, in a review of Avner Cohen's Israel and the Bomb, in the Israeli Newspaper Ha'aretz on February 5, 1999 wrote, "The murder of American president John F. Kennedy brought to an abrupt end the massive pressure being applied by the U.S. administration on the government of Israel to discontinue their nuclear program." He continues, "Kennedy made it quite clear to the Israeli Prime Minister that he would not under any circumstances agree to Israel becoming a nuclear state." Pedatzer concludes, "Had Kennedy remained alive, it is doubtful whether Israel would today have a nuclear option". Link".

- Lyndon B. Johnson, almost immediately upon taking office, dramatically increased military aid to Israel, something that Kennedy would have adamantly opposed. He was president when Israel attacked the USS Liberty (see above), and oversaw the subsequent cover-up. In stark contrast to Eisenhower, who took immediate, concrete action to force Israel to withdraw from the Sinai after its 1956 invasion of Egypt, Johnson gave lip service to the principle that the territories' status should not be changed, and that they should be returned as part of a comprehensive peace plan. Johnson never pressured Israel concerning its nuclear program. All these policies constituted a dramatic betrayal of U.S. regional and international interests as formulated by both Eisenhower and Kennedy.

- I have posted elsewhere about how Nixon was almost totally incapacitated during the 1973 War, in a fog of alcohol, self-pity over the Watergate scandal, and possibly drugs, while all major decisions were taken by Kissinger in his name. One such decision was to place the United States on the highest military readiness worldwide, including nuclear alert, ready to launch a nuclear holocaust to prevent the Soviet Union from intervening, while a massive arms transfer was launched from the U.S to Israel.

In late October 1973 Kissinger was sent to Moscow to negotiate with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to pursue a comprehensive peace process for the Middle East, but he ignored Nixon's instructions and pressed instead for a cease-fire that left Israel dominant and destroyed any chance for a multilateral peace effort. According to Mearsheimer and Walt, "The American-compiled minutes of the three meetings that Kissinger attended with Brezhnev unequivocally show that he accurately and repeatedly represented Israeli interests to Moscow, almost totally contrary to Nixon's preferences." When the UN Security Council subsequently passed a cease-fire resolution, Kissinger allowed the Israelis to ignore it for 12 hours so they could consolidate their gains.

In 1975, while secretary of state, Kissinger signed a memorandum of understanding that pledged the U.S. to provide for Israel's oil needs in the event of a crisis and to finance and stock a strategic reserve. He also agreed that Washington would not "recognize or negotiate with" the PLO as long as the group refused to recognize Israel's right to exist. This made it impossible to talk to the only group that represented the aspirations of most Palestinians, a dialogue that the Israelis wished to derail but which would have served America's interests. Kissinger's last year as secretary of state also saw Israel's aid from the U.S. skyrocket from $1.9 billion in 1975 to $6.29 billion for 1976.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=11586


Kissinger's series of secret understandings included a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Israel in which he committed the United States to "make every effort to be fully responsive ... on an on-going and long-term basis to Israel's military equipment and other defense requirements, to its energy requirements and to its economic needs." This was made at a time when the U.S. economy itself was reeling under the staggering costs of the oil boycott, which in turn had been imposed as a direct result of Washington's ostentatious support of Israel during the 1973 war.

The memorandum also officially committed American support against threats by a "world power," meaning the nuclear-equipped Soviet Union, and among other things promised:

*America would guarantee for five years that Israel would be able to obtain all its domestic oil needs, from the United States if necessary.

*America would pay for construction in Israel of storage facilities capable of storing a one-year's supply of reserve oil needs.

*America would conclude contingency planning to transport military supplies to Israel during an emergency.

*America shared Israel's position that any negotiations with Jordan would be for an overall peace settlement, that is, there would be no attempt at step-by-step diplomacy on the West Bank.

*In a secret addendum to the secret MOU, America promised that the administration would submit every year to Congress a request for both economic and military aid for Israel. It also asserted that the "United States is resolved to continue to maintain Israel's defensive strength through the supply of advanced types of equipment, such as the F-16 aircraft." In addition, America agreed to study the transfer of "high technology and sophisticated items, including the Pershing ground-to-ground missile," which is usually used to deliver atomic warheads.

*In another secret memorandum, Kissinger committed America not to "recognize or negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization as long as the Palestine Liberation Organization does not recognize Israel's right to exist and does not accept Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338." This language was passed into law by Congress in 1985.

*The United States would coordinate fully on strategy for any future meetings of the Geneva Conference. Thus, with Israel and the United States refusing to recognize the PLO and with powerful groups within the PLO refusing to accept Resolutions 242 and 338, the stalemate on the West Bank was set in concrete, much to Israel's satisfaction.

*In a separate secret letter signed by President Ford, the United States promised Israel that it would not put forward any peace proposals without first discussing them with the Israelis. This was a significant concession since it gave Israel, in effect, a direct input to formulation of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

*In addition, President Ford signed a secret letter promising that the United States "will lend great importance to Israel's position that any peace treaty with Syria must be based on Israel's remaining on the Golan Heights."

For this colossal commitment of U.S. wealth, technology and diplomatic support, Israel agreed to withdraw its forces between 20 to 40 miles east of the Suez Canal. This left well over half of Sinai under continuing Israeli occupation. Israel's major concession was to give up Egypt's oil fields, which lay on the western edge of the Sinai. The withdrawal resulted in Israeli forces being deployed east of the Gidi and Mitla passes, which were turned into observation posts. The United States pledged to set up and pay for stations manned by two hundred Americans to protect both sides from violations. The arrangement replaced U.N. peacekeepers, who Israel opposed as being prejudiced against it even though U.N. reports from the field had proved to be rigorously objective over the decades.

Defense Minister Shimon Peres summed up the benefits to Israel of Sinai II: "The ... agreement [assures] us arms, money, a coordinated policy with Washington and quiet in Sinai ... We gave up a little to get a lot."

Indeed, there is no example in history when one nation granted to another such enormous amounts of wealth and array of commitments as Henry Kissinger's Sinai II agreement. This perhaps helps explain the tantalizing reference to Kissinger in the memoirs of Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister at the time of Sinai II, in which he wrote:"The story of Kissinger's contribution to Israel's security has yet to be told, and for the present suffice it to say that it was of prime importance."

Link


I could go on and on, about how, since the Kennedy assassination, successive American presidents have, willingly or not, consistently taken decisions that benefited Israel at the expense of American interests, whether elite or not.

The elder Bush was the last president to criticize the lobby publicly, in September 1991, when he complained that "there are 1,000 lobbyists up on the Hill today lobbying Congress for loan guarantees for Israel and I'm one lonely little guy down here asking Congress to delay its consideration of loan guarantees for 120 days."

[According to former agent Victor Ostrovsky, the Mossad tried to assassinate Bush Sr. in Madrid that same year -- Alice]

The Democrats exploited this split between the Israel lobby and the first Bush administration. In an address to AIPAC in May 2000, presidential candidate Al Gore recalled, "I remember standing up against Bush's foreign policy advisers who promoted the insulting concept of linkage, which tried to use loan guarantees as a stick to bully Israel. I stood with you, and together we defeated them."

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Israe ... by_US.html

This is just a quick overview -- there's so much more, up to and including the AIPAC spy case that has just been quietly buried, the recent Harman scandal, with its appalling implications for America's national security, and all kinds of nefarious goings-on, including blatant interference in American elections to ensure that no politician ever puts American interests (elite or not) above Israel's. But I'm getting tired.

Time for someone else to answer a question: who are these mysterious non-zionist elites who supposedly engineered all this to benefit from the enormous transfer of wealth, technology, intelligence, weapons and decision-making authority from the United States to Israel? Over and over, we've seen that when American interests conflict with Israeli interests, it's the latter that prevail. Before Chas Freeman, there was Bobby Ray Inman, Bill Clinton's original choice for Secretary of Defense, whose appointment was, like so many others, vetoed by the zionist lobby for insufficient servility to Israel.

The sole exception that comes to mind is the Jonathan Pollard case, a grave and outrageous betrayal of American national security that reportedly resulted in the deaths of several field agents. Even so, Bill Clinton was very close to releasing Pollard under pressure from Netanyahu in 1998, were it not for CIA director George Tenet's threat to quit.

Officials say Mr. Tenet believed that he would lose his credibility with his rank-and-file in the intelligence community if he were to agree to Mr. Pollard's release from his life sentence.

''He knew that he was closely associated with these peace talks -- it wasn't like he was back at headquarters -- and he couldn't distance himself from this decision,'' said one American official.

Link

In his last presidential act, Clinton did pardon Marc Rich, billionaire, Mossad spy, Russian mafia co-conspirator and last but not least, generous benefactor to Jewish and Israeli causes, who had escaped to Switzerland (with his ill-gotten gains) to avoid prosecution in the U.S.

Marc Rich was a major supporter of Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, and many other influential zionist agents in the U.S. who pushed for his pardon with the Clintons and who became major supporters of Hillary Clinton's subsequent campaign for the Senate.

Was she, like so many other "American" politicians, bought and paid-for by the agents for a foreign state? Nah. Why on earth would anybody think that?

[OP ED]

No Israel in constant real and imagined peril

=

No Religious Right base for Conservative establishment power in USA.

...

140 million predispensationalist fundies with guns is a good reason to keep 7 million israeli "zionists" in business. [70 million votes?]

also most of our soldiers are this variety of christian.

...

$$$$$$$ + POWER = motive

hard to understand?

credibility is expendable.

[American Dream]

Alice, here is a quick response to some of the key points in your argument:

The coverup of the USS Liberty bombing shows that the U.S. Government did not care enough about the lives of the individuals in the military who suffered as a result. However, what's the huge deal about this? The United States Government routinely puts its service members in harm's way, gets them killed or injured, and then tries to coverup the results. So how much does this incident prove? Not much.

Just because the United States is alienating people in the Arab world by no means proves that they are doing it for the Israelis. The U.S.A. is alienating people in a lot of the rest of the world and yet that fact by itself by no means establishes who is responsible for these decisions..

Military industry in Israel does not just compete with American Military Industrial Complex, it also complements it. For example, they are able to provide military aid to states that Uncle Sam supports but doesn't want to be publicly associated with. They are also able to do research and develop weapons that the United States doesn't want to publicly be seen as supporting.

It is sometimes true that Israel may have an association with the neutralization of a political figure in the United States, as for example in the case of New Jersey's Governor McGreevey. However, it is a real stretch to blame the killing of JFK on Israel based on the kind of evidence you present. Yes, he did alienate elements of the Israeli elite by pursuing policies that were more "dovish" than they would like- however he sure pissed off a whole lot of powerful people inside the U.S. power structure in the same kind of way.

Those who followed after JFK- Johnson, Ford, Kissinger and the rest, can by no means be said to have been only responsive to the Israelis- they represented a wide array of elite interests. By no means have you proven that Israel/"the Zionists" have been running the United States since JFK.

Previously in this thread, I said:

There were many, many elite forces who supported the aggression, and many who profited from it as well. Certainly Israel is in the mix, but is it really believable that they are the primary, or even sole force, behind U.S. foreign policy?

One could focus on quite a few sectors of the power elite that supported these attacks, and also many that have reaped a benefit from them in one way or another. So why shouldn't acts of U.S. imperialism like this be considered as representing a convergence of elite interests rather than being all the work of one player within that elite?

This question still holds, and I wouldn't say we have yet seen a strong case for assuming that Israel controls the United States. Do they hold undue power, and do they use it wrongly? Sure, but that's a very different question...

[AlicetheKurious]

OP ED, you have it backward. "Christian" zionism, based on the aggressively marketed and advertised so-called Scofield Bible, is Christian in name only, a product and tool of zionist indoctrination and not the other way around. The "Christian" zionist movement is and always has been characterized by the use of corrupt, smooth-talking con-men acting as fronts for their zionist handlers, assigned to herd the sheep towards fanatic support for Israel, a job for which these front-men are lavishly rewarded.

This pattern goes back to the days when a down-on-his-luck petty criminal named Cyrus I. Scofield saw his fortunes reversed after hooking up with zionist millionaire lawyer Samuel Untermeyer, who among his other accomplishments was instrumental in the creation of the Federal Reserve.

In 1978, a minor preacher named Jerry Falwell was invited to visit Israel by then Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and awarded the Jabotinsky Prize. After his return to the U.S., Begin gave him a private Lear Jet. The following year, Falwell founded the Moral Majority, which went on to become a force to be reckoned with in American politics, and a massive source of political and financial support for Israel.

There are many "Christian" zionist shepherds, but one thing they all share is an incredibly expensive lifestyle, a lifestyle that is pretty much guaranteed to anyone who can deliver unconditional support for whatever Israel wants. It has very little to do with Christianity, which is consistently manipulated and distorted to conform to zionist demands, and not the other way around.

One fascinating thing about zionism is how differently it is packaged and re-packaged to appeal to very diverse markets:

Is it a socialist, humanist, secular, popular liberation movement to redeem the Jewish people through working on the land?

Is it a valuable instrument for greedy European empires to maintain their control over the oil-rich region?

Is it a fanatic, messianic movement to "cleanse" the land of non-Jews, "re"-build the temple and call forth the Jewish Messiah?

Is it a fanatic, messianic movement to prepare for the great conflagration that will destroy everybody but Christians, followed by the return of Christ and the glorious rapture?

Is it a refuge for the persecuted Jews from a Nazi world that hates them?

Is it a great place for organized criminals to do business?

Is it the front line of defense for "Judeo-Christian" "shared values" against the crazed medieval fanatics of Global Islam?

Yes!! And it can be many more things, or anything, depending on the occasion and who's asking.

It is a serious misunderstanding of the "Christian" zionist movement to regard it as anything but yet another in the zionists' bag of tricks.

The Scofield Reference Bible was not to be just another translation, subverting minor passages a little at a time. No, Scofield produced a revolutionary book that radically changed the context of the King James Version. It was designed to create a subculture around a new worship icon, the modern State of Israel, a state that did not yet exist, but which was already on the drawing boards of the committed, well-funded authors of World Zionism.
...
The Oxford University Press owned "The Scofield Reference Bible" from the beginning, as indicated by its copyright, and Scofield stated he received handsome royalties from Oxford. Oxford's advertisers and promoters succeeded in making Scofield's bible, with its Christian Zionist footnotes, a standard for interpreting scripture in Judeo-Christian churches, seminaries, and Bible study groups. It has been published in at least four editions since its introduction in 1908 and remains one of the largest selling Bibles ever.

The Scofield Reference Bible and its several clones is all but worshiped in the ranks of celebrity Christians, beginning with the first media icon, evangelist Billy Graham. Of particular importance to the Zionist penetration of American Christian churches has been the fast growth of national bible study organizations, such as Bible Study Fellowship and Precept Ministries. These draw millions of students from not only evangelical fundamentalist churches, but also from Catholic and mainline Protestant churches and non-church contacts. These invariably teach forms of "dispensationalism," which draw their theory, to various degrees, from the notes in the Oxford Bible.

Among more traditional churches that encourage, and in some cases recommend, the use of the Scofield Reference Bible is the huge Southern Baptist Convention of America, whose capture is World Zionism's crowning achievement. Our report on Southern Baptist Zionism, entitled "The Cause of the Conflict: Fixing Blame.

Scofield, whose work is largely believed to be the product of Darby and others, wisely chose not to change the text of the King James Edition. Instead, he added hundreds of easy-to-read footnotes at the bottom of about half of the pages, and as the Old English grammar of the KJE becomes increasingly difficult for progressive generations of readers, students become increasingly dependent on the modern language footnotes.
...
Thanks to the work of a few dedicated researchers, much of the questionable personal history of Cyrus I. Scofield is available. It reveals he was not a Bible scholar as one might expect, but a political animal with the charm and talent for self-promotion of a Bill Clinton. Scofield's background reveals a criminal history, a deserted wife, a wrecked family, and a penchant for self-serving lies. He was exactly the sort of man the World Zionists might hire to bend Christian thought--a controllable man and one capable of carrying the secret to his grave. (See The Incredible Scofield and His Book by Joseph M. Canfield).

Other researchers have examined Scofield's eschatology and exposed his original work as apostate and heretic to traditional Christian views. Among these is a massive work by Stephen Sizer entitled Christian Zionism, Its History, Theology and Politics, Christ Church Vicarage, Virginia Water, GU25 4LD, England

...Our own examination of the Oxford Bible has gone in another direction, focusing not on what Scofield wrote, but on some of the many additions and deletions The Oxford University Press has continued to make to Scofield Reference Bible since his death in 1921. These alterations have further radicalized the Scofield Bible into a manual for the Christian worship of the State of Israel beyond what Schofield would have dreamed of. This un-Christian anti-Arab theology has permitted the theft of Palestine and 54 years of death and destruction against the Palestinians, with hardly a complaint from the Judeo-Christian mass media evangelists or most other American church leaders. We thank God for the exceptions.

It is no exaggeration to say that the 1967 Oxford 4th Edition deifies--makes a God of--the State of Israel, a state that did not even exist when Scofield wrote the original footnotes in 1908. ...

What proof does WHTT have to incriminate World Zionism in a scheme to control Christianity? For proof we offer the words themselves that were planted in the 1967 Edition, 20 years after the State of Israel was created in 1947, and 46 years after Scofield's death. The words tell us that those who control the Oxford Press recreated a bible to misguide Christians and sell flaming Zionism in the churches of America.

There is little reason to believe that Scofield knew or cared much about the Zionist movement, but at some point, he became involved in a close and secret relationship with Samuel Untermeyer, a New York lawyer whose firm still exists today and one of the wealthiest and most powerful World Zionists in America. Untermeyer controlled the unbreakable thread that connected him with Scofield. They shared a password and a common watering hole--and it appears that Untermeyer may have been the one who provided the money that Scofield himself lacked. Scofield's success as an international bible editor without portfolio and his lavish living in Europe could only have been accomplished with financial aid and international influence.

This connection might have remained hidden, were it not for the work of Joseph M. Canfield, the author and researcher who discovered clues to the thread in Scofield family papers. But even had the threads connecting Scofield to Untermeyer and Zionism never been exposed, it would still be obvious that that connection was there. It is significant that Oxford, not Scofield, owned the book, and that after Scofield's death, Oxford accelerated changes to it. Since the death of its original author and namesake, The Scofield Reference Bible has gone through several editions. Massive pro-Zionist notes were added to the 1967 edition, and some of Scofield's most significant notes from the original editions were removed where they apparently failed to further Zionist aims fast enough. Yet this edition retains the title, "The New Scofield Reference Bible, Holy Bible, Editor C.I. Scofield." ...

Oxford edited the former 1945 Edition of SRB in 1967, at the time of the Six Day War when Israel occupied Palestine. The new footnotes to the King James Bible presumptuously granted the rights to the Palestinians' land to the State of Israel and specifically denied the Arab Palestinians any such rights at all. One of the most brazen and outrageous of these NEWLY INSERTED footnotes states:

"FOR A NATION TO COMMIT THE SIN OF ANTI-SEMITISM BRINGS INEVITABLE JUDGMENT." (page 19-20, footnote (3) to Genesis 12:3.) (our emphasis added)

This statement sounds like something from Ariel Sharon, or the Chief Rabbi in Tel Aviv, or Theodore Herzl, the founder of Modern Zionism. But these exact words are found between the covers of the 1967 Edition of the Oxford Bible that is followed by millions of American churchgoers and students and is used by their leaders as a source for their preaching and teaching.

There is no word for "anti-Semitism" in the New Testament, nor is it found among the Ten Commandments. "Sin," this writer was taught, is a personal concept. It is something done by individuals in conflict with God's words, not by "nations." Even Sodom did not sin--its people did. The word "judgment" in the Bible always refers to God's action. In the Christian New Testament, Jesus promises both judgment and salvation for believing individuals, not for "nations."

There was also no "State of Israel" when Scofield wrote his original notes in his concocted Scofield Reference Bible in 1908. All references to Israel as a state were added AFTER 1947, when Israel was granted statehood by edict of the United Nations. The Oxford University Press simply rewrote its version of the Christian Bible in 1967 to make antipathy toward the "State of Israel" a "sin." Israel is made a god to be worshiped, not merely a "state." David Ben-Gurion could not have written it better. Perhaps he did write it!

http://christianparty.net/scofield.htm

1967 was a watershed year for the successful indoctrination of greater and greater numbers of "Christian" zionists -- the capture of Jerusalem by the zionists was marketed as proof that the 'prophecies' contained in their Scofield Bible were coming true.

The state of Israel was aggressively promoted among evangelical Christians as a spiritual, rather than a political issue, a marketing ploy that paralleled the one being used increasingly by zionists to recruit Jews, as Israel moved steadily away from the leftist themes that had characterized the earlier propaganda.

It was the rise of the right-wing Likud headed by Menachem Begin in the early '70s, however, that marked the merging of the Christian and Jewish messianic movements into the leviathan it is today, commanding a massive pool for fund-raising, political support and fanatic religious tourists and immigrants from the U.S.

When Israel captured Jerusalem in the 1967 war; dispensationalists were certain that the end was near. L. Nelson Bell, Billy Graham's father-in-law and editor of Christianity Today, wrote in July 1967: "That for the first time in more than 2,000 years Jerusalem is now completely in the hands of the Jews gives the student of the Bible a thrill and a renewed faith in the accuracy and validity of the Bible."

By the early 1970s numerous books, films and television specials publicized the premillennial dispensationalist perspective. Hal Lindsay made a virtual industry out of his book The Late Great Planet Earth: it sold more than 25 million copies and led to two films, as well as a consulting business with a clientele that has included several members of Congress, the Pentagon, and Ronald Reagan.

In the mid 1970s at least five trends converged that accelerated the rise of Christian Zionism. First, evangelical and charismatic movements became the fastest-growing branch of North American Christianity. Mainline Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church were declining both in budgets and attendance.

The election of Jimmy Carter; a Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher; to the presidency in 1976 increased the visibility and legitimacy of the once-marginalized evangelical movement. Time magazine declared 1976 "the year of the evangelical." Still, the mainstream media seemed confused by the various traditions and polarities within the complex evangelical movement, failing to distinguish between the diverse political and theological voices clamoring to claim the term "evangelical" for their particular viewpoint.

Israel's occupation of Arab lands after 1967 created tension between many Jewish organizations and the mainline Protestant, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic communities. Many Jewish organizations, particularly lobbying groups such as the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), turned to the growing evangelical community for support. As Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum of the American Jewish Committee stated, "The evangelical community is the largest and fastest-growing bloc of pro-Jewish sentiment in this country." AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) added staff to focus on relationships with evangelicals and fundamentalists. The Israeli ministry of tourism eyed evangelicals as a major new market for Holy Land tours and thus a source of revenue.

The fourth factor that stimulated the emerging evangelical Christian Zionist movement's political agenda was the election of Menachem Begin as Israel's prime minister in May 1977. Prior to Begin's election, Israeli politics had been dominated by the secular Labor Party. Begin's Likud Party was dominated by hard-line military figures such as Raphael Eitan and Ariel Sharon, and supported by the increasingly powerful settler movement and by small Orthodox religious parties. Likud constituencies used the biblical names "Judea and Samaria" for the West Bank and employed a religious argument to justify Israel's confiscation of Arab land for settlements: since God gave the land exclusively to Jews, they have a divine right to settle anywhere in Eretz Israel. Evangelicals welcomed the Likud leaders and endorsed their political and religious agendas.

The final development that accelerated the alliance between Likud and the Religious Right was Carter's March 1977 statement that he supported Palestinian human rights, including the "right to a homeland." Likud, when it came to power just two months later; immediately reached out to Christian evangelicals. Likud's strategy was simple: split evangelical and fundamentalist Christians from Carter's political base and rally support among conservative Christians for Israel's opposition to the United Nations' proposed Middle East Peace Conference.

Within weeks, full-page advertisements appeared in major U.S. newspapers stating, "The time has come for evangelical Christians to affirm their belief in biblical prophecy and Israel's divine right to the land." Targeting Soviet involvement in the UN conference, the ad went on to say: "We affirm as evangelicals our belief in the promised land to the Jewish people . . . . We would view with grave concern any effort to carve out of the Jewish homeland another nation or political entity."

The ad was financed and coordinated by Jerusalem's Institute for Holy Land Studies, an evangelical organization with a Christian Zionist orientation. Several leading dispensationalists signed the ad, including Kenneth Kantzer of Christianity Today and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, singer Pat Boone, and dispensationalist theologian and Dallas Theological Seminary president John Walvoord.

The advertising campaign was one of the first public signs of a Likud-evangelical alliance. A former employee of the American Jewish Committee, Jerry Strober, who had coordinated the campaign, made the political connection in a statement to Newsweek: "[The evangelicals] are Carter's constituency and he [had] better listen to them... The real source of strength the Jews have in this country is from the evangelicals."

At times the new alliance was uncomfortable for Jewish leaders. On one such occasion, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Bailey Smith, stated that "God does not hear the prayers of the Jews." Within weeks, the AIC took Smith on a trip to Israel and corrected his views. While Christian Zionists and Jewish organizations agree on many points, the Christian Right's enthusiasm for evangelizing Jews remains an unresolved point of tension.

Evangelicals, major Jewish organizations and the pro-Israel lobby supported Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election. Carter's loss of the evangelical vote played a significant role in his defeat. Likud policy was aggressively represented by AIPAC both on Capitol Hill and within the Reagan administration. For example, when Israel decided to invade Lebanon in the spring of 1982, Begin sent Ariel Sharon, his defense minister, to Washington to enlist the Reagan administration's support. By late May, Sharon was reportedly given the green light by Secretary of State Alexander Haig. Within days of the June invasion, full-page ads appeared in leading newspapers requesting evangelical support for the invasion.

Begin developed a unique relationship with Reagan and many fundamentalist leaders, especially Jerry Falwell. Falwell and his Moral Majority had long supported Israel. In 1979, Grace Halsell reports, Israel gave Falwell a Lear jet and in 1981 gave him the prestigious Jabotinsky Award during an elaborate dinner ceremony in New York. When Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear plant in 1981, Begin called Falwell before he called Reagan. He requested that Falwell "explain to the Christian public the reasons for the bombing."

In March 1985, while speaking to the conservative Rabbinical Assembly in Miami, FaIwell pledged to "mobilize 70 million conservative Christians for Israel and against anti-Semitism." He also takes credit for converting Senator Jesse Helms (R., N.C.) into one of Israel's staunchest allies. Helms soon became chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Reagan administration regularly conducted briefings and seminars for its Christian Right supporters, briefings in which the pro-Likud lobby (Americans for a Safe Israel and AIPAC) participated. Among the approximately 150 Christian fundamentalist leaders invited to each event were Hal Lindsay, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Bakker; Pat Robertson and Tim and Bev LeHaye.

Reagan himself was a committed Christian Zionist. His support for Israel derived from both strategic political concerns and a vague dispensationalist perspective. He told Tom Dine, AIPAC's executive director; "I turn back to your ancient prophets in the Old Testament and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if we re the generation that is going to see that come about." The remark was published by the Jerusalem Post and widely distributed by the Associated Press.

Netanyahu's 1996 defeat of Shimon Peres brought Likud back to power. During his years as Israel's representative at the UN, Netanyahu spoke regularly on the Christian Bight's "Prayer Breakfast for Israel" circuit and similar venues. Within a few months of his election, in conjunction with the Israeli ministry on tourism, he convened the Israel Christian Advocacy Council. Seventeen American evangelical and fundamentalist leaders were flown to Israel for a tour of the Holy Land and a conference at which they pledged support for what was essentially a Likud agenda.

Included in the delegation were Don Argue, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; Brandt Gustavson, president of the National Religious Broadcasters (an organization that oversees approximately 90 percent of Christian radio and television broadcasting in North America); and Donald Wildmon, president of the American Family Association. The evangelical leaders signed a pledge expressing the hope that "America never; never desert Israel."

Several members of the Advisory Council backed the pro-Israel advertisement in the April 10, 1997, New York Times. Titled "Christians Call for a United Jerusalem," the ad may have been a direct response to a December 1996 Times ad sponsored by Churches for Middle East Peace, calling for a "Shared Jerusalem."

The Christian Zionist ad claimed that its signatories reach more than 100,000 Christians weekly and called for evangelicals to support the Likud position on Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem. Using several familiar dispensationalist themes, the ad claimed: "Jerusalem has been the spiritual and political capital of only the Jewish people for 3,000 years." Citing Genesis 12:17, Leviticus 26:44-45 and Deuteronomy 7:7-8, it spoke of Israel's biblical claim to the land. The ad was signed by Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network; Ralph Reed, then director of the Christian Coalition; Ed McAteer of the Religious Roundtable; and Falwell, among others. Voicing one of Netanyahu's themes, the ad asked that Israel "not be pressured to concede on issues of Jerusalem in the final status negotiations with the Palestinians."

Likud also turned to evangelical and fundamentalist Christians to offset the decline in contributions for Israel from the American Jewish community. In response to the increasing power of the Orthodox parties in Netanyahu's government and the second-class status these parties assigned to non-Orthodox Jews, Reformed and Conservative Jewish communities cut back their usual generous contributions to the Jewish National Fund and other agencies in the U.S. that support Israel. But the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, led by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein of Chicago, raised more than $5 million for the United Jewish Appeal, almost all of it from evangelicals and fundamentalists.

In a separate initiative, John Hagee, pastor of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, and a signer of the Christians for a United Jerusalem Statement, announced in February of this year that his church was giving more than $1 million to Israel. He claimed that the money would be used to help resettle Jews from the former Soviet Union in the West Bank and Jerusalem. "We feel like the coming of Soviet Jews to Israel is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy," Hagee stated. When asked if he realized that his support of Israel's Likud policies was at cross-purposes with U.S. government policy and possibly illegal, Hagee retorted: "I am a Bible scholar and a theologian and from my perspective, the law of God transcends the law of the United States government and the U.S. State Department."

While the U.S. and European governments in 1997 were pressing Netanyahu to negotiate with the Palestinians, the prime minister's public relations specialists developed another strategy involving the cooperation of Christian Zionist organizations in Jerusalem. The initial phase of this strategy was launched in an October 22, 1997, report on Israeli Radio (Kol Israel) News, a report claiming that the Palestinian National Authority (PA) was persecuting Christians.

Two days later the Jerusalem Post published an article charging that, according to a new Israeli government report, "the few Christians remaining in PA-controlled areas are subjected to brutal and relentless persecution." The report alleged that "'Christian cemeteries have been destroyed, monasteries have had their telephone lines cut, and there have been break-ins to convents.'" Moreover; the Palestinian Authority "has taken control of the churches and is pressuring Christian leaders to serve as mouthpieces for Yasser Arafat and opponents of Israel"

A month later; Congressman J. C. Watts (R., Okla.) reiterated these charges in the Washington Times, blaming Arafat and the PA for the Christian exodus from the Holy Land and calling into question the $307 million in grants the U.S. has given the PA.

Palestinian Christian leaders were quick to respond. Said Bethlehem mayor Hanna Nasser, a Christian: "Our churches have complete freedom, and I've never heard that they've been under pressure." Mitri Raheb, pastor of Bethlehem's Lutheran church, challenged the Israeli report as pure propaganda. He noted that while Bethlehem was under Israeli occupation, his house had been robbed and his car stolen twice; but "there have been no robberies since the Palestinian Authority has taken over. On the contrary, there is a greater sense of security now than there was under occupation."

Last May, Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding and Open Doors International sent a 14-member team to the Holy Land to investigate the allegations of persecution. The delegation interviewed more than 60 spokespersons in Israel and the Palestinian territories, including a number of Christian leaders; Uri Mor, director of the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs in the Department of Christian Communities; and several Christian Zionist leaders.

The delegation concluded that though there were isolated incidents of discrimination and increased tension between Christian and Muslim communities in certain areas, there were no cases that could be characterized as persecution in the territories under the Palestinian Authority. Four converts from Islam to Christianity had experienced pressure from their families and communities. One or two who had criminal backgrounds had been pressured by the PA. But in neither case could the context and reasons for the pressure be construed as persecution. Furthermore, though some Christian Palestinians are concerned that if Islamic law (Shari'a) becomes the law of the Palestinian areas, the religious freedom of Christians maybe restricted in the future, no evidence of this development is present.

The investigative team found "disturbing indications of political motivations behind [the] recent publicity about Christian persecution." The team learned that a Christian Zionist group, the International Christian Embassy--Jerusalem, had cooperated with the office of David Bar-llan, Netanyahu's chief spokesman, in exaggerating accounts of Christian persecution and circulating them to the international press. A staff member of the U. S. consulate in Jerusalem interviewed Mor; the Israeli religious affairs official, who stated that the report was intended to be an internal document, but Bar-llan's office leaked it to the Christian and secular media.

Asked why the prime minister's office would do such a thing, Mor noted that Bar-llan uses such information as his "bread and butter" in the Israeli propaganda war against the PA. Clearly, there was no attempt by either the Israeli government or the Christian Embassy to note the criminal status of some claiming to be persecuted, or to distinguish between persecution and understandable pressure from families or communities opposing a member's conversion to another faith.

It is true that Palestinian Christians are leaving the Holy Land. But it is not because of Muslim persecution. They are leaving because of the brutality of Israeli occupation and because Israel's resistance to negotiating a just peace with the Palestinians makes them despair about the future.

At this juncture, it appears that the hardline Likud position has the backing of both houses of Congress, the major Jewish lobbies, and the Christian Right. President Clinton and those who advocate the Israeli Labor Party peace formula, or the Oslo Accords, have little leverage with Likud. Palestinian Christians and their supporters fear that the Christian Right's alliance with Likud may in the end serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy, heightening tensions in the region and leading to a new round of conflict in the Holy Land, which the Christian Zionists will readily interpret as "the final battle."

http://www.religion-online.org/showarti ... ?title=216

[AlicetheKurious]

Alice, here is a quick response to some of the key points in your argument:

The coverup of the USS Liberty bombing shows that the U.S. Government did not care enough about the lives of the individuals in the military who suffered as a result. However, what's the huge deal about this? The United States Government routinely puts its service members in harm's way, gets them killed or injured, and then tries to coverup the results. So how much does this incident prove? Not much.

But it wasn't the USG that put these service members 'in harm's way' -- it was America's supposed allies that coldbloodedly bombed and napalmed the clearly-marked American ship. How did this attack benefit America's "elites"? Face it, Israel shafted their U.S. "benefactors" with the collusion of internal traitors, who placed loyalty to their zionist masters above the lives of American servicemen (sound familiar?). There is no other way to frame it, or make the picture any prettier.

Just because the United States is alienating people in the Arab world by no means proves that they are doing it for the Israelis. The U.S.A. is alienating people in a lot of the rest of the world and yet that fact by itself by no means establishes who is responsible for these decisions..

Regardless of whether or not the US is alienating people in the rest of the world, in the Arab world it serves no purpose and provides no benefit to the US, even to US 'elites'. On the contrary, once again the US has consistently betrayed its own vital strategic interests in that region, at great financial and political cost, with Israel as the beneficiary.

It's shocking to see the contrast between how decades of American subservience to Israel has dirtied its image around the world, and how it was perceived back in 1956, when Eisenhower firmly stood up to Israel and forced it to withdraw from the Sinai:

The greatest winner turned out to be the most reluctant participant, Dwight David Eisenhower. The U.S. president’s principled stand against aggression won him high praise around the world. His U.N. ambassador, Henry Cabot Lodge, reported that he was deluged by other U.N. members with congratulations about America’s conduct. From Cairo, a center of the Third World, Ambassador Raymond Hare cabled: “The U.S. has suddenly emerged as a real champion of right.”

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/may03/0305026.html

No matter how many billions you throw at pr firms and media fronts, you just can't buy that kind of goodwill.

Military industry in Israel does not just compete with American Military Industrial Complex, it also complements it. For example, they are able to provide military aid to states that Uncle Sam supports but doesn't want to be publicly associated with. They are also able to do research and develop weapons that the United States doesn't want to publicly be seen as supporting.

That's simply nonsense. The CIA has many ways to transfer weapons where it wants them, they hardly need Israel for that. On the contrary, Israel is the one that inserts itself as the middle-man in a lot of shady deals so it can skim the profits from both sides, as its agents have been known to do.

As for research and development, that's rich, considering the fact that Israeli industrial spies constitute a massive burden on America's sensitive high-tech industries:

Virtually every U.S. government body concerned with security has confirmed that Israeli espionage takes place, though it is frequently not exposed because FBI officers know that investigating these crimes is frustrating and does no favors for their careers. But Israel always features prominently in the annual FBI report called “Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage.” The 2005 report states, “Israel has an active program to gather proprietary information within the United States. These collection activities are primarily directed at obtaining information on military systems and advanced computing applications that can be used in Israel’s sizable armaments industry.” It adds that Israel recruits spies, uses electronic methods, and carries out computer intrusion to gain the information.

The focus on U.S. military secrets is not limited to information needed for the defense of Israel, as was argued when Pollard was arrested. Some of the information he stole was of such value that many high-ranking intelligence officers believe the Soviet Union agreed to the release of tens of thousands of Russian Jews for resettlement in Israel in exchange. In early 1996, the Office of Naval Investigations concluded that Israel had transferred sensitive military technology to China. In 2000, the Israeli government attempted to sell China the sophisticated Phalcon early warning aircraft, which was based on U.S.-licensed technology. A 2005 FBI report noted that the thefts eroded U.S. military advantage, enabling foreign powers to obtain hugely expensive technologies that had taken years to develop.

In 1996, ten years after the agreement that concluded the Pollard affair, the Pentagon’s Defense Investigative Service warned defense contractors that Israel had “espionage intentions and capabilities” here and was aggressively trying to steal military and intelligence secrets. It also cited a security threat posed by individuals who have “strong ethnic ties” to Israel, stating that “Placing Israeli nationals in key industries … is a technique utilized with great success.” The memo cited illegal transfer of proprietary information from an Illinois optics firm in 1986, after the Pollard arrest, as well as the theft of test equipment for a radar system in the mid-1980s. A storm of outrage from the Anti-Defamation League led to the Pentagon’s withdrawal of the memo, an apology that predictably blamed the language on “a low-ranking individual,” and a promise that no similar warning would be written again.

But the issue of Israeli spying would not go away. Soon after, the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, completed an examination of espionage directed against American defense and security industries. The report described how Israeli citizens residing in the U.S. had stolen sensitive technology to manufacture artillery gun tubes, obtained classified plans for a reconnaissance system, and passed sensitive aerospace designs to unauthorized users. An Israeli company was caught monitoring a Department of Defense telecommunications system to obtain classified information, while other Israeli entities targeted avionics, missile telemetry, aircraft communications, software systems, and advanced materials and coatings used in missile re-entry. Independently, a Defense Department source confirmed the GAO report, citing “dozens of other spy cases within the U.S. Defense industry.” The GAO concluded that Israel “conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any U.S. ally.”

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/jun/02/00006/

It is sometimes true that Israel may have an association with the neutralization of a political figure in the United States, as for example in the case of New Jersey's Governor McGreevey. However, it is a real stretch to blame the killing of JFK on Israel based on the kind of evidence you present. Yes, he did alienate elements of the Israeli elite by pursuing policies that were more "dovish" than they would like- however he sure pissed off a whole lot of powerful people inside the U.S. power structure in the same kind of way.

No, he did not "alienate elements of the Israeli elite", or 'piss them off', either. David Ben-Gurion, the architect of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the subsequent establishment of his precious Jewish state there, was a ruthless, cold-blooded killer who commanded the loyalty of zionist agents embedded in organized crime networks, political operatives and intelligence cadres all over the U.S. and Europe. By thwarting Israeli plans to acquire nuclear weapons, Ben-Gurion came to see Kennedy as an enemy, not only to everything he had worked for, not only to the zionist state, but as an existential threat to 'the Jewish people'.

By the fall of 1963, Ben-Gurion had hit a brick wall with Kennedy, and time was quickly running out. Ben-Gurion had an urgent motive and, through his close ties with the mafia and the CIA in the US, ample means and opportunity to carry out the assassination, which he did, instantly solving the problem once and for all.

According to the Israeli prime minister's biographer, Dan Kurzman: "Lonely and depressed, Ben-Gurion felt strangely helpless. Leadership of Israel was slipping from his withered hands... Ben-Gurion began to show signs of paranoia. Enemies were closing in on him from all sides. A mere declaration by Egypt, Syria and Iraq in April 1963 that they would unite and demolish the "Zionist threat" threw him into near-panic."

... All of this, of course, contributed immensely to the problems between Kennedy and Ben-Gurion. Seymour Hersh writes: "Kennedy's relationship with Ben-Gurion remained at an impasse over Dimona, and the correspondence between the two became increasingly sour. None of those letters has been made public."

... Like much of the secret government files on the JFK assassination, the Kennedy exchanges with Ben-Gurion also have not been released - not even to U.S. government officials with full security clearances who have attempted to write classified histories of the period.

"It was not a friendly exchange," according to Ben-Gurion's writer, Yuval Neeman. "Kennedy was writing like a bully. It was brutal." Ben-Gurion's response was not passive either.

All of this exacerbated tensions-fierce tensions-between the American President and the Israeli leader. Kennedy's impatience was building. Relations between the United States and Israel were unlike they had ever been before. According to Hersh, "The president made sure that the Israeli prime minister paid for his defiance." When Ben-Gurion once again sought the opportunity for a formal, ballyhooed state visit to Washington, Kennedy rebuffed him.

... It was then that Ben-Gurion made his position all too clear. He was convinced that what he perceived to be Kennedy's intransigence was an all-out threat to the continued survival of the Jewish State. JFK was perceived as an enemy of the Jewish people.

In one of his final communications with Kennedy, Ben-Gurion wrote: "Mr. President, my people have the right to exist.. . and this existence is in danger." It was at this time that Ben-Gurion demanded that Kennedy sign a security treaty with Israel. Kennedy refused.

On June 16, 1963 Ben-Gurion abruptly resigned as prime minister and defense minister. ...The primary reason behind Ben-Gurion's departure was the Israeli leader's inability to pressure JFK into accepting Israel's demands. According to Hersh: "There was no way for the Israeli public... to suspect that there was yet another factor in Ben-Gurion's demise: his increasingly bitter impasse with Kennedy over a nuclear-armed Israel."
... In Ben-Gurion's eyes, John F. Kennedy was an enemy of the Jewish people and of his beloved state of Israel.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Assas ... ht_FJ.html

Those who followed after JFK- Johnson, Ford, Kissinger and the rest, can by no means be said to have been only responsive to the Israelis- they represented a wide array of elite interests. By no means have you proven that Israel/"the Zionists" have been running the United States since JFK.

What I have demonstrated, through numerous examples (and I could have provided so many more), is that when zionist interests conflict with American interests, invariably it is the zionist interests that prevail, and that this is directly attributable to the work of zionist agents embedded within the the United States political, economic and media establishment.

Instead of ignoring the evidence, why don't you provide some evidence that the contrary is true? All you have to do is list some examples of American 'elites' who stood up to Israel and didn't consequently have their careers or lives destroyed.

There were many, many elite forces who supported the aggression, and many who profited from it as well. Certainly Israel is in the mix, but is it really believable that they are the primary, or even sole force, behind U.S. foreign policy?

One could focus on quite a few sectors of the power elite that supported these attacks, and also many that have reaped a benefit from them in one way or another. So why shouldn't acts of U.S. imperialism like this be considered as representing a convergence of elite interests rather than being all the work of one player within that elite?

This question still holds, and I wouldn't say we have yet seen a strong case for assuming that Israel controls the United States. Do they hold undue power, and do they use it wrongly? Sure, but that's a very different question...

Because "convergence of elite interests" is so mealy-mouthed and vague that it means nothing. I demonstrated that the destruction of Iraq and its dissolution as a state and as a society was explicitly articulated as a primary strategic objective by zionist strategists closely associated with Israel's Likud party over decades before it was finally implemented.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, your analysis ignores the fact that Iraq under Saddam served the interests of "big oil" far better than it does now, as well as American imperial interests in the region, and that this was very well understood by the oil camp in the U.S. and by the State Department before it was purged of American loyalists so they could be replaced with zionist agents.

No. It was Israel that wanted the Iraqi state dismantled, its cultural and historical heritage ravaged, its intellectuals and scientists assassinated, and its people fragmented into ethnic and religious factions.

Did American weapons manufacturers and private contractors benefit? Of course they did, just as hundreds of Israeli contracting firms and "advisers" rode into Iraq on the backs of the American invaders. But it's important to distinguish between those who formulate the plans and execute them, and opportunists after the fact. The former dispose of the means, motive and opportunity to commit the murder -- the latter feed on the bloody remains.

Until recently, a group of Zionists ran their own intelligence service inside the Pentagon. This was known as the Office of Special Plans, and was overseen by Douglas Feith, an under-secretary of defence, extreme Zionist and opponent of any negotiated peace with the Palestinians. It was the Office of Special Plans that supplied Downing Street with much of its scuttlebutt about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction; more often than not, the original source was Israel.

Israel can also claim responsibility for the law passed by Congress that imposes sanctions on Syria and in effect threatens it with the same fate as Iraq unless it agrees to the demands of Tel Aviv. Israel is the guiding hand behind Bush's bellicose campaign against the "nuclear threat" posed by Iran. Today, in occupied Iraq, Israeli special forces are teaching the Americans how to "wall in" a hostile population, in the same way that Israel has walled in the Palestinians in pursuit of the Zionist dream of an apartheid state. The author David Hirst describes the "Israelisation of US foreign policy" as being "now operational as well as ideological."

- John Pilger

In any case, I'd be very interested to see if you have anything besides vague generalizations to support your argument. For example, tell me more about these "many, many elite forces who supported the aggression", and try to be specific.

[American Dream]

AlicetheKurious wrote:

American Dream wrote:

The coverup of the USS Liberty bombing shows that the U.S. Government did not care enough about the lives of the individuals in the military who suffered as a result. However, what's the huge deal about this? The United States Government routinely puts its service members in harm's way, gets them killed or injured, and then tries to coverup the results. So how much does this incident prove? Not much.

But it wasn't the USG that put these service members 'in harm's way' -- it was America's supposed allies that coldbloodedly bombed and napalmed the clearly-marked American ship. How did this attack benefit America's "elites"? Face it, Israel shafted their U.S. "benefactors" with the collusion of internal traitors, who placed loyalty to their zionist masters above the lives of American servicemen (sound familiar?). There is no other way to frame it, or make the picture any prettier.

There is an assumption here that the role of America's military rulers is to protect its servicemen and military toys at any cost. There is plenty of precedent for leaders treating these sorts of assets as disposable, and replaceable. Thus, this is hardly good evidence that Israel must therefore rule America.


AlicetheKurious wrote:

Regardless of whether or not the US is alienating people in the rest of the world, in the Arab world it serves no purpose and provides no benefit to the US, even to US 'elites'. On the contrary, once again the US has consistently betrayed its own vital strategic interests in that region, at great financial and political cost, with Israel as the beneficiary.

Sorry, I don't think this proves that Israel runs the U.S Government. The United States is pursuing a geopolitical strategy oriented towards global hegemony. In this strategy, Israel is a key ally, and goals include dominance of energy resources and the containment of Russia and China.


AlicetheKurious wrote:

American Dream wrote:
Military industry in Israel does not just compete with American Military Industrial Complex, it also complements it. For example, they are able to provide military aid to states that Uncle Sam supports but doesn't want to be publicly associated with. They are also able to do research and develop weapons that the United States doesn't want to publicly be seen as supporting.

That's simply nonsense. The CIA has many ways to transfer weapons where it wants them, they hardly need Israel for that. On the contrary, Israel is the one that inserts itself as the middle-man in a lot of shady deals so it can skim the profits from both sides, as its agents have been known to do.

No, not "simply nonsense". Israel has long aided Uncle Sam by arming political players that Sam doesn't want to touch. Both profit from such arrangements.

As to spying- yes, Israel does commit extensive military and industrial espionage inside the United States. One would hope that the FBI complaints would lead a critical thinker towards a more nuanced view wherein Israel and the United States have a complex relationship, neither one "the tail" nor "the dog", but rather key allies who sometimes have competing interests.

As to the assassination of JFK, it's simply not credible to blame it all on Israel. The Michael Collins Piper book you quote from is a great example of a selective argument leading towards a illogical conclusion. It is here that my model of a "convergence of elite interests" is very, very relevant. Peter Dale Scott represents a much better alternative to Michael Collins Piper in this regard.


AlicetheKurious wrote:

What I have demonstrated, through numerous examples (and I could have provided so many more), is that when zionist interests conflict with American interests, invariably it is the zionist interests that prevail, and that this is directly attributable to the work of zionist agents embedded within the the United States political, economic and media establishment.

Here also, I think the "convergence of elite interests" model applies. You often confuse the popular interest with elite interest in making these arguments- not at all the same thing. I'll say- sure, "the Zionists" have a place at the table and people who oppose them can be taken out. It seems like you're saying the Zionists have the only place at the table, which is a very different thing. Of course people get taken out for opposing the CIA, the Pentagon, the Republican Party, all the time, so why reject a convergence of elite interests? It seems like you want to say that the elephant is only its trunk...


AlicetheKurious wrote:

tell me more about these "many, many elite forces who supported the aggression", and try to be specific.

So the U.S. attacked Iraq twice, and the attack was directly organized by a group of high government officials. Some of these officials may have ties to the Israeli State, but they also represent a lot of other elite interests as well. While I don't have knowledge of the inner machinations of the system- and nobody but a real "insider" does- we can certainly look towards a whole lot of interested parties besides Israel. A few that would come to mind include the various oil companies, the military itself, the CIA and other intelligence agencies, elite think tanks like CFR, bankers and other financiers, the weapons industry, providers of military support services like KBR, mercenary companies like Blackwater, CACI and others. et cetera etcetera. Please note that I'm not asserting that I know exactly who met in what smoky room and schemed it all- I'm not convinced it worked that way. It is likely that such imperial adventures are seen as necessary by the majority of America's capitalist class- to keep waving a club over the World's head, to keep the economy from collapsing, et cetera.



Also Alice, in your previous posting you provided an argument for why the Scofield Bible is the product of a Zionist plot. In doing so you relied upon the Christian Party for your material and you linked to them too. I want to remind you of the posting guidelines, which state:"This is an anti-fascist board. Propagation of fascist, neo-Nazi and "white pride" causes, including sympathetically linking to sites which advocate such, will not be permitted. This includes revisionist histories of the Holocaust. "

The people you quoted are very much Holocaust revisionists, and very racist in general. Here is what they say with regards to Buford Furrow the psycho racist who shot up the Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles:

Every day in this country, 49 Americans are murdered, and 8 of them are White men who were murdered by Blacks. Since Buford Furrow SHOT, not killed, 5 jews, 52,038 Americans were murdered, of which 8,496 were White men who were killed by Blacks.

What is it about jews that they have to try to reach back three years to find a White man who assaulted a jew, when they could just point to the 8 Whites who were MURDERED just yesterday?

Is it because jews believe these 8 Whites "preferred sex with cows", or they weren't "God's chosen people" like the 5 kikes Buford shot, or can a jew provide some other esoteric explanation which us goyim might possibly grasp?

Do jews have any sense for why people just do NOT care what happens to jews? This is SUPPOSED to be a two way street, but jews are so STUPID and arrogant that they can't even grasp the concept.

Here is a copy of a statement that, if you follow their links, explains some of their beliefs, which include the idea that increasing complaints of rape are the product of a feminist plot. It is copied from the "NWO page" of that site, and the links follow from there. It would be great to hear from you which specific beliefs they hold that you would firmly reject, especially since some of their beliefs do overlap with yours. Please note that I am by no means accusing you of having the same beliefs as them- rather I am inviting you to clarify what the difference is, and why it matters. Because I do think drawing a clear line between rational anti-Zionism and irrational racism matters greatly, and I imagine that you would say that you do too. It would be therefore quite helpful for you to clearly explain where and how you draw the line between your own beliefs and those of the people that you quoted from...

911 caused by our AMORAL support of "Israel".
Opinions about the jew:
Two thirds of Americans blame 911 on the jew.
Three quarters blame 911 on NWO/White House.
FINALLY: Anglicans Vote to Divest From Concerns in Israel-Occupied Areas
What is a jew:
The source of all evil: The Talmud.
"Israel" doesn't exist according to jews.
Most jews are Ashkenazi jews.
American jews condemn 'jews' in Israel.
Israel costs US $10 billion per YEAR which now totals $1.6 trillion.
The legacy of Buford Furrow.
The "black jews" in Israel.
TIMSS confirms that jews are "feeble minded ... morons".
Ashkenazi jew describes zionist discrimination against Sephardic jews.
The jew Chertoff.
While our precious jews condemns Trent Lott for "racism", their Knessett in "Israel" tests DNA of immigrants to make sure they're jewish enough.
The jews at Pandagon.
The porn industry is headed by jews.
"Never again!"
Never again let jews destroy a US warship like the USS LIberty!
Never again let jews like Pinhas Lavon see the light of day!
Never again let a proclamation like the one signed by 151 of 153 nations and 3,000 NGO's in Durban go unheeded!
Never again let jews use 911 to destroy our liberties!
Never again let women be raped by jews!
Never again let jews assassinate a President like they did Kennedy.
Never again let Israel violate 68 UN Resolutions.
Never again let jews steal top secret KH-ll Satellite technology.
Never again let jew LIES like Anne Frank's be published here.
Never again let mass murderers like Baruch Goldstein, who advocated bombing of Mosques, be honored by jews.
Never again let jews like Dershowitz and Emmerson, who advocate torture, become US citizens.
Never again let Israel, who has never repaid a US "loan", "borrow" another dime.
Never again Operation Northwoods.
Never again let jews execute Muslims like these jews caught on webcam.
Never again let infamous jewish massacres go unpunished.
Never again let jews like Ariel Sharon, who advocates assassination of parents "to prevent suicide bombing", and who has been indicted as a war criminal, become "allies".
Never again let jews pull off another holocaust hoax.
Never again let jews kill 64 million fellow Christians in Russia.
Never again let jews kill 150 million fellow Christians in WWII.
Never again let jews imprison White men like David Duke.
Never again let Arabs hate Americans just because of jews.
Never again become an "ally" to a jew with such a one-sided "ethic".
Never again will we let jew criminals like Rafi Eitan come to the US.
Never again will JDL Terrorist Goldman violate the Patriot Act.
How jews spy on you:
All our Personal Computers are tapped by Cydoor.
All our internet traffic is monitored by Narus.
All our most secret telephone calls are recorded by Comverse.
All our bank privacy is compromised by Promis.
Congress is misled by CALEA.
Boeing aircraft, sabotaged by Home Run, ram into the WTC and Pentagon.
American Airlines pilot describes his persecution by the ADL.
200 Mossad agents in American prisons for spying on their "ally".
The Mafia is jew.
Treachery of jews--"One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail":
Rabbi advocates assassinations.
Nathan Lewis ("top jew lawyer") advocates killing families of Palestinian fighters.
Perlmutter advocates Israel's use of nuclear weapons.
Ehud Barak advocates killing of Syrians.
85% of jews in Israel advocate mass invasion of Arab territory.
Snuff jews exposed.
UN condemned our "ally" Israel as an apartheid state JUST THREE DAYS before 9-11.
Why won't we condemn the killing in Palestine?
"Friendship" With Only One "Friend".
Charley Reese of Orlando Sentinel reports truth about jewish treachery.
Confession of Rabbi Rabbinovitch.
Richard Butler on Israel's infinite hypocrisy.
Solution:
Become a jew traitor.
Ban the jews.
Issue this expulsion order.

[AlicetheKurious]

American Dream said:

Also Alice, in your previous posting you provided an argument for why the Scofield Bible is the product of a Zionist plot. In doing so you relied upon the Christian Party for your material and you linked to them too.

I shouldn't have linked to "the Christian Party" without checking them out. I was familiar with the history of the Scofield Bible, but I wanted a summary short enough to cut and paste into my post. I actually thought it was a Christian religious website. My bad.

That doesn't, of course, change the facts about Christian zionism, which can easily be verified by anyone who's interested.

There is an assumption here that the role of America's military rulers is to protect its servicemen and military toys at any cost. There is plenty of precedent for leaders treating these sorts of assets as disposable, and replaceable. Thus, this is hardly good evidence that Israel must therefore rule America.

Are you suggesting that 'the role of America's rulers' is to use its servicemen and "military toys" to further the zionist agenda, even when this brings no conceivable benefit to Americans, elite or not? And of course, when Israel massacres American servicemen, the role of American rulers is to cover it up?

Since those are the facts...what does that indicate about who America's rulers serve?

As to spying- yes, Israel does commit extensive military and industrial espionage inside the United States. One would hope that the FBI complaints would lead a critical thinker towards a more nuanced view wherein Israel and the United States have a complex relationship, neither one "the tail" nor "the dog", but rather key allies who sometimes have competing interests.

Not really so complex or nuanced, except in your mind -- Israelis are a bit more blunt:

"Believe me, America accepts all our decisions,"

- Moldavian nightclub bouncer-turned-Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman

"In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour," Olmert said.

"I said 'get me President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me.

"I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour."

- former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, referring to a UN resolution that Condoleezza Rice had helped to write, and for which she had committed the U.S. to a "yes" vote.

Translation: "America is Israel's bitch." So much for dogs and tails.

As to the assassination of JFK, it's simply not credible to blame it all on Israel. The Michael Collins Piper book you quote from is a great example of a selective argument leading towards a illogical conclusion. It is here that my model of a "convergence of elite interests" is very, very relevant. Peter Dale Scott represents a much better alternative to Michael Collins Piper in this regard.

Hardly "selective" -- Final Judgment is probably the single most comprehensive study of the JFK assassination ever done, very meticulously documented, too. It doesn't contradict Peter Dale Scott, as far as I know, but it does go much farther than perhaps Scott was willing to go. This may have more to do with Scott's willingness to risk his career (and perhaps his life), than with the facts of the case itself.

I'll say- sure, "the Zionists" have a place at the table and people who oppose them can be taken out. It seems like you're saying the Zionists have the only place at the table, which is a very different thing.

No, I'm saying there are trap-doors beneath every seat at that table, and the zionists hold the buttons that open them.

A few that would come to mind include the various oil companies, the military itself, the CIA and other intelligence agencies, elite think tanks like CFR, bankers and other financiers, the weapons industry, providers of military support services like KBR, mercenary companies like Blackwater, CACI and others. et cetera etcetera. Please note that I'm not asserting that I know exactly who met in what smoky room and schemed it all- I'm not convinced it worked that way. It is likely that such imperial adventures are seen as necessary by the majority of America's capitalist class- to keep waving a club over the World's head, to keep the economy from collapsing, et cetera.

They may "come to mind", but that's a far cry from posting the kind of detailed evidence I've presented (in this thread and elsewhere), naming names and examining in detail their motives, means and opportunity. You're just rattling off words.

Not that this is especially nonsensical in the context of your other unsupported claims, but I'm curious about why you think one motive for the Iraq invasion was "to keep the economy from collapsing." If that were true, it sure backfired, eh? Man, those 'elites' must be so dumb!

[American Dream]

I looked up the author of the Scofield Bible critique before, and what I found were mostly extreme racist sites ala Vanguard running any mention of him at all. Seems like a very sketchy source to cite to me.

In regards to the Christian Party, I would love to hear what you do and don't agree with in their platform, and why. This seems quite relevant since your talking points quite often parallel those of groups such as that, and I'm imagining that you recognize that it is important to articulate principled differences with groups such as them.

[OP ED]

I looked up the author of the Scofield Bible critique before, and what I found were mostly extreme racist sites ala Vanguard running any mention of him at all. Seems like a very sketchy source to cite to me.

In regards to the Christian Party, I would love to hear what you do and don't agree with in their platform, and why. This seems quite relevant since your talking points quite often parallel those of groups such as that, and I'm imagining that you recognize that it is important to articulate principled differences with groups such as them.

as much as i disagree with many of alice's simplifications to zionism, i see no point in having her answer for other peoples' views. we don't make anyone else do that.

[American Dream]

No one is making Alice answer for other people's views. She posted something from a white supremacist site that contains material she apparently agrees with. She is being asked where and how she differs and she may be declining to respond. That is her perogative of course, but I do think it is telling...

[nathan28]

IIRC Scofield and his wacky theories in his editorial commentary in the footnotes--which many, many people in the US have confused for being present in the Bible when God gave it to George Washington during the Sermon on the Mount--pre-date Zionism by about half a century at least.

[OP ED]

OP ED, you have it backward. "Christian" zionism, based on the aggressively marketed and advertised so-called Scofield Bible, is Christian in name only, a product and tool of zionist indoctrination and not the other way around. The "Christian" zionist movement is and always has been characterized by the use of corrupt, smooth-talking con-men acting as fronts for their zionist handlers, assigned to herd the sheep towards fanatic support for Israel, a job for which these front-men are lavishly rewarded.

no, i do not have it backward. rather, you seem to be focusing on an extremely tiny piece of american christian history and retroactively applying its effects.

Christianity has always considered itself the rightful heirs of spiritual and political power in Jerusalem. This goes back to the Late Roman Empire wherein Christians had direct political control of Palestine as a Roman Province.

The Crusades were, in some cases, yet another example of the by then mostly European forces of Christianity attempting to gain political control over their own "holy lands".

...

the notion that Christain obsession with Israel or that its interpretations of the bible wherein Israel figures prominently only began after the design of the scofield bible is ludicrous.

this should hardly be suprising as "christianity" itself is an outgrowth of post-jewish nationalism from about the time of Caesar.

the requirement of an existant israel for literalism to exist in biblical scholarship is readily obvious even in Greek. it has figured as a centerpiece of christian apocalypticism since at least the time of Augustine. [i can quote him if you like]

....

the reduction of all American imperialism to mere errand running for "zionism" is ludicrous as well. the fact that you do not see how the last seventy years have massively benefitted the establishment in USA merely reveals your own blind spot.
[evidence of confirmation bias]

[OP ED]

No one is making Alice answer for other people's views. She posted something from a white supremacist site that contains material she apparently agrees with. She is being asked where and how she differs and she may be declining to respond. That is her perogative of course, but I do think it is telling...

actually she responded before you asked, dear. perhaps you should reread.

I shouldn't have linked to "the Christian Party" without checking them out. I was familiar with the history of the Scofield Bible, but I wanted a summary short enough to cut and paste into my post. I actually thought it was a Christian religious website. My bad.

the assertions re: scofield were largely true, btw. i was personally already familiar with them.

[i also think they're irrelevant as they're only a modern capstone to an antique artifice]

[AlicetheKurious]

American Dream said:

In regards to the Christian Party, I would love to hear what you do and don't agree with in their platform, and why.

Since as I said before, I have never visited their site before, and don't know what "their platform" is, I'm not really in a position to discuss it.

Furthermore, I will not devote any time to an in-depth study of it for the purpose of responding to your creepy, insinuating interrogation. You have some nerve expecting me to.

However, since you describe it as an "extreme racist site", I will say that I am not, nor have I ever been, a racist, let alone an extreme racist.

Nice diversion, though.

nathan28 said:

IIRC Scofield and his wacky theories in his editorial commentary in the footnotes--which many, many people in the US have confused for being present in the Bible when God gave it to George Washington during the Sermon on the Mount--pre-date Zionism by about half a century at least.

No, the Scofield Bible was published in 1909. It predates the zionist state by 39 years, not the zionist movement, which actually began in the mid-1800s with groups of Eastern Jewish immigrants settling on land in Palestine purchased mainly by Lord Rothschild. Theodor Herzl's pamphlet The Jewish State was published in 1896, and the first Zionist Congress was held in Basle, Switzerland the following year.