Jonathan Cook

A Thought Police for the Internet Age

There could be no better proof of the revolution – care of the internet – occurring in the accessibility of information and informed commentary than the reaction of our mainstream, corporate media.

For the first time, Western publics – or at least those who can afford a computer – have a way to bypass the gatekeepers of our democracies. Data our leaders once kept tightly under wraps can now be easily searched for, as can the analyses of those not paid to turn a blind eye to the constant and compelling evidence of Western hypocrisy. Wikileaks, in particular, has rapidly eroded the traditional hierarchical systems of information dissemination.

The media – at least the supposedly leftwing component of it – should be cheering on this revolution, if not directly enabling it. And yet, mostly they are trying to co-opt, tame or subvert it. Indeed, progressive broadcasters and writers increasingly use their platforms in the mainstream to discredit and ridicule the harbingers of the new age.

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Stephen Lendman

These US House members have paid hardly any attention at all to Israel's many war crimes. Now they heed their master's voice and yet again are shamelessly paying fealty to their beloved Zionist state. They wilfully ignore Israel's criminal use of white phosphorous (photo) and would pretend to know nothing about this (graphic).

of voluntary ignorance is not just immoral but criminal. They clearly are complicit in war crimes and genocide, just like the Germans were way back. (They also claimed to not have known about what was going on.) The US Congress members might do well to remember this: “The mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.” - Ed.

At a time when millions of Americans are in dire need, [people] might be [very angry] to learn that Congress gives tiny Israel "over $8 million per day of American tax money" during the nation's greatest ever economic Depression when all available resources should stay at home helping them and ending it.

Eighty-one House members, one fifth of the chamber, will visit Israel during the traditional summer recess, instead of addressing festering local issues at home during the nation's gravest economic crisis too serious to ignore.

Arriving first were 26 Democrats together, including Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (MD). Another 55 Republicans will follow in two groups, including 47 freshmen.

Heading each are House Minority Leader Eric Cantor (VA) and House Whip Kevin McCarthy (CA). Spouses are also going at an estimated cost of $8,000, including business-class flights, first-class hotels, meals, transportation, side trips, guides and incidentals.

Red carpet treatment is assured along with considerable pro-Israeli messaging, especially for new incoming freshmen. They'll meet with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, as well as PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Ramallah. Legitimate Hamas leaders are excluded.

Their entire week is choreographed and full, from early morning to late evening, including breakfast and dinner speakers, as well as meetings with other government officials.

For security reasons, their schedule isn't known, but while there, they'll get walking tours of Jerusalem's Old City, the Western Wall (Wailing Wall or Kotel), as well as visits to Masada, the Dead Sea, Holocaust memorial, Golan, Lebanese border, and Tel Aviv, with moments to relax by the Mediterranean.

Most of all, they'll get intensive pro-Israeli messaging to assure one-sided support, reinforced by party leaders back home.

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Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research

Brzezinski and Tim Osman (Osama bin Laden) discuss
the string of Jihads that Zbigniew never regrets...

The US government’s bin Laden story was so poorly crafted that it did not last 48 hours before being fundamentally altered.

Indeed, the new story put out on Tuesday by White House press secretary Jay Carney bears little resemblance to the original Sunday evening story. The fierce firefight did not occur. Osama bin Laden did not hide behind a woman. Indeed, bin Laden, Carney said, “was not armed.”

The firefight story was instantly suspicious as not a single SEAL got a scratch, despite being up against al Qaeda, described by former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld as ‘the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.”

Every original story detail has been changed. It wasn’t bin Laden’s wife who was murdered by the Navy SEALs , but the wife of an aide. It wasn’t bin Laden’s son, Khalid, who was murdered by the Navy SEALs, but son Hamza.

Carney blamed the changed story on “the fog of war.” But there was no firefight, so where did the “fog of war” come from?

The White House has also had to abandon the story that President Obama and his national security team watched tensely as events unfolded in real time (despite the White House having released photos of the team watching tensely), with the operation conveyed into the White House by cameras on the SEALs helmets. If Obama was watching the event as it happened, he would have noticed, one would hope, that there was no firefight and, thus, would not have told the public that bin Laden was killed in a firefight. Another reason the story had to be abandoned is that if the event was captured on video, every news service in the world would be asking for the video, but if the event was orchestrated theater, there would be no video.

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Stephen Lendman

In his powerful 2006 book titled, "The Power of Israel in the United States," James Petras explained the enormous Jewish Lobby influence on US Middle East policies. Often harming American interests, they're pursued anyway because of its grassroots and high-level control over government, business leaders, academia, the clergy and mass media since at least the 1960s.

As a result, anyone challenging Israeli policy risks being intimidated, blackmailed, smeared, pressured, removed from positions of authority, or called a national security or terrorist threat, leaving them vulnerable to unprincipled ostracization, persecution or worse.

Among America's 52 Conference of Major American Jewish Organization(s) (CPMAJO), the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is the oldest, founded in 1897.

Established by B'nai Brith in 1913, perhaps the Anti-Definition League is best known.

However, in terms of its influence over US Middle East policies, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) stands out. Calling itself "America's Pro-Israel Lobby," it's represented Israeli interests since founded in 1953, then incorporated in 1963 as a division of the American Zionist Council (AZC), its precursor.

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Stephen Lendman

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181, the Palestine Partition Plan, granting 56% of historic Palestine to Jews (with one-third of the population), 42% to Palestinians, with Jerusalem designated an international city (a corpus separatum - separate body) under a UN Trusteeship Council. The area included all Jerusalem, Bethlelem, and Beit Sahour, to encompass Christian holy sites.

Resolution 181 called for an Independent Arab state by October 1, 1948, asking:

"all Governments and peoples to refrain from taking any action which might hamper or delay the carrying out of these recommendations," the Security Council to be empowered with "the necessary measures as provided for in the plan for its implementation."

However, Israel's 1948 "War of Independence" intervened, creating the Jewish state on May 14, 1948 on 78% of historic Palestine, excluding Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

On December 2, 1947, the General Assembly (GA) passed Resolution 32/40 A and B, stating its deep concern:

"that no just solution to the problem of Palestine has been achieved and that this problem therefore continues to aggravate the Middle East conflict, of which it is the core, and to endanger international peace and security."

It reaffirmed "that a just and lasting peace in the Middle East cannot be established without the achievement, inter alia, of a just solution of the problem of Palestine on the basis of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return and the right to national independence and sovereignty in Palestine, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations."

Urging the Security Council to act promptly on this matter, the GA declared, "commencing in 1978, the annual observance of 29 November as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people."

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Stephen Lendman

Founded by B'nai B'rith in 1913, its stated mission is

"to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all," calling itself "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency, (fighting) anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry...."

In fact, Abraham Foxman, its national director, uses high-mindedness and unfounded anti-semitism hysteria as cover for backing Jewish supremacy and the right of Israelis over Arabs, including by occupation and belligerently enforced apartheid.

One of the 52 listed Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organization (CPMAJO) Zionist organizations, ADL disseminates pro-Israeli propaganda and conducts smear campaigns against Israeli critics, under the guise of fighting anti-semitism and supporting human rights equitably. Overall, in fact, its long history is disturbing.

In the late 1930s and 40s, it spied on suspected communist sympathizers, working with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), later called the House Committee on Internal Security until abolished in 1975, its functions transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.

Later in the 1980s, it engaged in private spying, the San Francisco Chronicle reporting that, in April 1993, police raided its offices, revealing a political spy operation aided by a corrupt police officer, Tom Gerard. Working with Roy Bullock, a political informant, files about thousands of Arab Americans and hundreds left-of-center northern California organizations were pilfered.

Among them were the National Lawyers Guild, ACLU, NAACP, the Rainbow Coalition, Greenpeace, the Nation of Islam, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Bay Area anti-Apartheid Network, Asian Law Caucus, CISPES, and 20 Bay area labor unions, none supporting hate or revolutionary activities.

Later it was revealed that ADL conducted similar operations nationally through its LEARN program (Law Enforcement Agency Resource Network), infiltrating local law enforcement agencies, bribing police officers, and securing non-public information illegally.

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Jews For Justice in the Middle East / If Americans Knew

[PART I]

Zionism and the Holocaust

The U.N. decisions to partition Palestine and then to grant admission to the state of Israel were made, on one level, as an emotional response to the horrors of the Holocaust, Under more normal circumstances, the compelling claims to sovereignty of the Arab majority would have prevailed. This reaction of guilt on the part of the Western allies was understandable, but that doesn’t mean the Palestinians should have to pay for crimes committed by others—a classic example of two wrongs not making a right.

The Holocaust is often used as the final argument in favor of Zionism, but is this connection justified? There are several aspects to consider in answering that question honestly. First, we will examine the historical record of what the Zionist movement actually did to help save European Jewry from the Nazis.

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Jews For Justice in the Middle East / If Americans Knew

[PART II] As the periodic bloodshed continues in the Middle East, the search for an equitable solution must come to grips with the root cause of the conflict. The conventional wisdom is that, even if both sides are at fault, the Palestinians are irrational “terrorists” who have no point of view worth listening to. Our position, however, is that the Palestinians have a real grievance: their homeland for over a thousand years was taken, without their consent and mostly by force, during the creation of the state of Israel. And all subsequent crimes — on both sides — inevitably follow from this original injustice.

This paper outlines the history of Palestine to show how this process occurred and what a moral solution to the region’s problems should consist of. If you care about the people of the Middle East, Jewish and Arab, you owe it to yourself to read this account of the other side of the historical record.

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Alison Weir

The New York Times, whose regional bureau chief has a son in the Israeli military, reports that Israel has just appointed a panel charged with investigating its attack on an aid flotilla that killed nine aid volunteers, including a 19-year-old American.

Isabel Kershner, who is an Israeli citizen and has refused to answer questions about her possible family ties to the Israeli military, writes the report.

Kershner reports that the White House hailed the announcement of the panel as an “important step forward,” stating that “the structure and terms of reference of Israel’s proposed independent public commission can meet the standard of a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation.”

In her story, Kershner reports that the panel will include eminent Irish Nobel Peace Laureate Lord David Trimble as an observer, but omits the fact that Trimble is a leader of the newly formed pro-Israel organization “Friends of Israel” and is close to Netanyahu associate Dore Gold.

Irish journalist Patrick Roberts writes, “This is a little like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.”

Kershner reports that the other foreign observer is Brig. Gen. Ken Watkins, former judge advocate general of Canadian Forces, but fails to mention that Watkins is known for stonewalling a 2009 House of Commons investigation into Afghan prisoner abuse.

One House of Commons member commented at the time about Watkins’ lack of cooperation with the investigation: "Obviously the cover-up continues."

Kershner informs readers that the panel will be led by a retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice, but fails to mention reports that he does not believe in such a panel and opposed foreign participation.

Kershner reports in the bottom half of her story that Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper calls the proposed panel a “farce,” but does not mention that this is a longstanding pattern for Israeli governmental investigations (and lack thereof) into military human rights abuses.

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Debbie Menon

Debbie Menon argues that Washington’s support for Israel is tragic, immoral and extremely damaging to Americans given that US “congressional representatives continue to put Israel’s interests before the interests of Americans”.

In a recent article in the journal Foreign Policy entitled “Petraeus wasn’t the first”, Mark Perry describes succinctly the opposition to US support for Israel, the rationale for this support and how American publishers cover it up.

The article is extremely valuable reading, recommends Alison Weir, the executive director of the website If Americans Knew. “It corrects misconceptions that so many Americans have on the causation of US support for Israel, including even some who are otherwise well informed on Palestine,” she asserts.

Mark Perry is correct in all respects. He quotes Joe Hoar, who remind him that it’s all old history. “What’s the news here? Hasn’t this been said before?” and hasn’t it all been done before?

Indeed, have humans ever learned from history? I think it says something about the nature of our species when you reflect that Albert Einstein once said that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Key elements of the US government have always opposed the concept of a Zionist Israel, ever since the state and defence departments advised President Harry Truman not to sign up to the Zionist project, which he nevertheless did but with reservations, qualifications and conditions that were immediately ignored.

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