Suspicion: Former IDF Intel chief exposed billionaire Egyptian Mossad agent Marwan

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Israel E News


Suspicion: Former IDF Intel chief exposed billionaire Egyptian Mossad agent Marwan

Filed under: Israeli politics, Middle East, Business, IDF/Military, Mossad/Israeli intelligence, News, Intelligence (foreign), Law and courts, Scandals

On: Friday, July 18, 2008

By: Israel e News

Israeli investigators looking into suspicions that Eli Zeira, head of IDF intelligence during Yom Kippur War, revealed identity of Egyptian who warned Israel of coming Egyptian army attack

Ashraf Marwan

Israel Police and Shin Bet investigators are looking into suspicions that former IDF Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. (res.) Eli Zeira exposed Mossad agent Ashraf Marwan, an Egyptian billionaire who warned Israel prior to the onset of the Yom Kippur War in October 1973.

Zeira, who was head of IDF intelligence during the war, is suspected of severe offences related to State security.

Since the 1990s, Israeli intelligence officials, including Zeira himself, have claimed that Marwan was a double agent who disclosed vital information on the Egyptian forces but also said they would launch an attack in the evening, when they actually attacked on the morning of October 6.

Marwan, the controversial son-in-law of Egypt's late President Gamal Abdel Nasser, died in June 2007 of a ruptured aorta caused when he fell from a window of his flat on the fifth floor of Carlton House Terrace in London. Some said Israel assassinated Marwan, while others claimed he was depressed and committed suicide.
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'Degree in chemical engineering'

In September 2002, the London-based Israeli historian Ahron Bregman published a book that included allegations that Marwan was Israeli's "master spy" in Cairo. In a subsequent interview with Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, Bregman again named Marwan as Israel's disputed source.

Despite these allegations being made public, Marwan seemed to avoid any retaliation from Egypt. On October 6, 2004, two year after being named as a spy, Israeli intelligence officers observed Marwan being greeted warmly by current Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak; the only possible explanation, asserts Bregman, was that Marwan had been a double agent

According to the Israeli media reports, Marwan first walked into the Israeli Embassy in London in 1969 and volunteered to give information but was turned down. He later was allegedly recruited by the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad.

Born to a father who was a military officer in Nasser's presidential guard, Marwan joined the army himself after he completed a degree in chemical engineering. He later worked as an assistant to Nasser and after Nasser's death in 1970, he became a political and security adviser to Anwar Sadat.

In the 1970s, Marwan worked as head of Egypt's huge government-owned military industry complex before he retired and moved to Britain 25 years ago to work in business.

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Ynet


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Fury Over Amnesty Report

http://www.totallyjewish.com/
Fury Over Amnesty Report
by Jeremy Last - Thursday 7th June 2007

Israel has hit back at a report by human rights group Amnesty International released to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War which calls for Israel to be prosecuted in the world's courts for committing war crimes against the Palestinians.

Entitled

"Enduring Occupation: Palestinians under siege in the West Bank,"

the Amnesty report includes chapters with headings such as "Israeli settlements – the reason for the restrictions" and "violations of international law."

In a statement released on Monday, the Israeli justice ministry dismissed the report as "one-sided, immoral, and riddled with mistakes and numerous factual and legal inaccuracies."

Using personal stories as examples, the report focuses on the plight of the Palestinians who are forced to go through roadblocks and checkpoints to travel around the West Bank.

Dismissing Israel's reasoning behind creating "a web of military checkpoints and blockades," the report's authors wrote: "The Israeli authorities contend that this regime of closures and restrictions is necessary to prevent Palestinians from entering Israel to carry out suicide bombings and other attacks. However all the checkpoints, gates, blocked roads are located inside the West Bank, not between the West Bank and Israel."

Accusing Israel of breaking the law, the report added: "The stringent restrictions on movement imposed for years by the Israeli authorities on more than two million Palestinians who live in the West Bank are unlawful as they are disproportionate, discriminatory and violate the right to freedom of movement."

The justice ministry spokesman complained that the Amnesty report all but ignores the "centrality of Palestinian terrorism" to the conflict and its results as well as Israel's human rights record.

"The report's total disregard of the conduct of Palestinian terrorist organizations and of the war crimes that they perpetrate daily, when they directly and indiscriminately target civilian populations while using the local population as human shields, is another outstanding example of the significant problems embodied in the report," the spokesman said.

"Israel views with the utmost importance the safeguarding of human rights and invests abundant resources in doing so, in keeping with its commitment to values and to international law."

In the report Amnesty International called for Israel to dismantle all West Bank settlements and roadblocks but also urged Palestinians to end attacks on Israeli civilians, claiming that an international force is needed to monitor both sides.

"For 40 years, the international community has failed adequately to address the Israeli-Palestinian problem; it cannot, must not, wait another 40 years to do so," Amnesty regional director Malcolm Smart said.

The Jerusalem based organisation NGO Monitor called on those involved in the publication of the report to resign. In a statement NGO Monitor sid the Amnesty report "provides more evidence of AI's strong political agenda on Arab-Israeli issues."

Instead of working to improve human rights, the NGO Monitor said Amnesty International "undermine the basis of universal human rights."

"This Amnesty report, following tendentious condemnations of Israel, demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of this organization. We call on the members of Amnesty International, including Amnon Vidan who heads the Israeli branch to submit their resignations in protest," said Gerald Steinberg, Executive Director of NGO Monitor.

'The USS Liberty': America's Most Shameful Secret

'The USS Liberty': America's Most Shameful Secret
by Eric S. Margolis

NEW YORK – On the fourth day of the 1967 Arab Israeli War, the intelligence ship 'USS Liberty' was steaming slowly in international waters, 14 miles off the Sinai Peninsula. Israeli armored forces were racing deep into Sinai in hot pursuit of the retreating Egyptian army.

'Liberty,' a World War II freighter, had been converted into an intelligence vessel by the top-secret US National Security Agency, and packed with the latest signals and electronic interception equipment. The ship bristled with antennas and electronic 'ears' including TRSSCOMM, a system that delivered real-time intercepts to Washington by bouncing a stream of microwaves off the moon.

'Liberty' had been rushed to Sinai to monitor communications of the belligerents in the Third Arab Israeli War: Israel and her foes, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

At 0800 hrs, 8 June, 1967, eight Israeli recon flights flew over 'Liberty,' which was flying a large American flag. At 1400 hrs, waves of low-flying Israeli Mystere and Mirage-III fighter-bombers repeatedly attacked the American vessel with rockets, napalm, and cannon. The air attacks lasted 20 minutes, concentrating on the ship's electronic antennas and dishes. The 'Liberty' was left afire, listing sharply. Eight of her crew lay dead, a hundred seriously wounded, including the captain, Commander William McGonagle.

At 1424 hrs, three Israeli torpedo boats attacked, raking the burning 'Liberty' with 20mm and 40mm shells. At 1431hrs an Israeli torpedo hit the 'Liberty' midship, precisely where the signals intelligence systems were located. Twenty-five more Americans died.

Israeli gunboats circled the wounded 'Liberty,' firing at crewmen trying to fight the fires. At 1515, the crew were ordered to abandon ship. The Israeli warships closed and poured machine gun fire into the crowded life rafts, sinking two. As American sailors were being massacred in cold blood, a rescue mission by US Sixth Fleet carrier aircraft was mysteriously aborted on orders from the White House.

An hour after the attack, Israeli warships and planes returned. Commander McGonagle gave the order. 'prepare to repel borders.' But the Israelis, probably fearful of intervention by the US Sixth Fleet, departed. 'Liberty' was left shattered but still defiant, her flag flying.

• The Israeli attacks killed 34 US seamen and wounded 171 out of a crew of 297, the worst loss of American naval personnel from hostile action since World War II.

Less than an hour after the attack, Israel told Washington its forces had committed a 'tragic error.' Later, Israel claimed it had mistaken 'Liberty' for an ancient Egyptian horse transport. US Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, and Joint Chiefs of Staff head, Admiral Thomas Moorer, insisted the Israeli attack was deliberate and designed to sink 'Liberty.' So did three CIA reports; one asserted Israel's Defense Minister, Gen. Moshe Dayan, had personally ordered the attack.

• In contrast to American outrage over North Korea's assault on the intelligence ship 'Pueblo,' Iraq's mistaken missile strike on the USS 'Stark,' last fall's bombing of the USS 'Cole' in Aden, and the recent US-China air incident, the savaging of 'Liberty' was quickly hushed up by President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.

The White House and Congress immediately accepted Israel's explanation and let the matter drop. Israel later paid a token reparation of US $6 million. There were reports two Israeli pilots who had refused to attack 'Liberty' were jailed for 18 years.

Surviving 'Liberty' crew members would not be silenced. They kept demanding an open inquiry and tried to tell their story of deliberate attack to the media. Israel's government worked behind the scenes to thwart these efforts, going so far as having American pro-Israel groups accuse 'Liberty's' survivors of being 'anti-Semites' and 'Israel-haters.' Major TV networks cancelled interviews with the crew. A book about the 'Liberty' by crewman James Ennes' was dropped from distribution. The Israel lobby branded him 'an Arab propagandist.'

The attack on 'Liberty' was fading into obscurity until last week, when intelligence expert James Bamford came out with Body of Secrets, his latest book about the National Security Agency. In a stunning revelation, Bamford writes that unknown to Israel, a US Navy EC-121 intelligence aircraft was flying high overhead the 'Liberty,' electronically recorded the attack. The US aircraft crew provides evidence that the Israeli pilots knew full well that they were attacking a US Navy ship flying the American flag.

Why did Israel try to sink a naval vessel of its benefactor and ally? Most likely because 'Liberty's' intercepts flatly contradicted Israel's claim, made at the war's beginning on 5 June, that Egypt had attacked Israel, and that Israel's massive air assault on three Arab nations was in retaliation. In fact, Israel began the war by a devastating, Pearl-Harbor style surprise attack that caught the Arabs in bed and destroyed their entire air forces.

Israel was also preparing to attack Syria to seize its strategic Golan Heights. Washington warned Israel not to invade Syria, which had remained inactive while Israel fought Egypt. Bamford says Israel's offensive against Syria was abruptly postponed when 'Liberty' appeared off Sinai, then launched once it was knocked out of action. Israel's claim that Syria had attacked it could have been disproved by 'Liberty.'

Most significant, 'Liberty's' intercepts may have shown that Israel seized upon sharply rising Arab-Israeli tensions in May-June 1967 to launch a long-planned war to invade and annex the West Bank, Jerusalem, Golan and Sinai.

Far more shocking was Washington's response. Writes Bamford: 'Despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel attacked the ship and killed American servicemen deliberately, the Johnson Administration and Congress covered up the entire incident.' Why?

Domestic politics. Johnson, a man never noted for high moral values, preferred to cover up the attack rather than anger a key constituency and major financial backer of the Democratic Party. Congress was even less eager to touch this 'third rail' issue.

Commander McGonagle was quietly awarded the Medal of Honor for his and his men's heroism – not in the White House, as is usual, but in an obscure ceremony at the Washington Navy Yard. Crew member's graves were inscribed, 'died in the Eastern Mediterranean..' as if they had be killed by disease, rather than hostile action.

A member of President Johnson's staff believed there was a more complex reason for the cover-up: Johnson offered Jewish liberals unconditional backing of Israel, and a cover-up of the 'Liberty' attack, in exchange for the liberal toning down their strident criticism of his policies in the then raging Vietnam War.

Israel, which claims it fought a war of self defense in 1967 and had no prior territorial ambitions, will be much displeased by Bamford's revelations. Those who believe Israel illegally occupies the West Bank and Golan will be emboldened.

Much more important, the US government's long, disgraceful cover-up of the premeditated attack on 'Liberty' has now burst into the open and demands full-scale investigation. After 34 years, the voices of 'Liberty's' dead and wounded seamen must finally be heard.

May 2, 2001

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2001

Eric Margolis [send him mail] is foreign correspondent for the Toronto Sun.

USS Liberty survivor assails former Navy lawyer's view

USS Liberty survivor assails former Navy lawyer's view
July 22, 2007 12:00 AM

Among the saddest aspects of the USS Liberty story is that it brings out of hiding a phalanx of die-hard Liberty opponents who exhaust themselves trying to disprove our eyewitness accounts and experiences.

• I was a lieutenant on the bridge of USS Liberty for several hours up to and during the early minutes of the attack.
  
• Although wounded, I remained awake, alert and in touch with my men throughout.
  
• Among other things, it was obvious from the extended, prolonged, close attack on our clearly marked ship that this was no accident.
  
• Other evidence collected later confirmed that impression, as did intercepts of the attacking pilots who clearly knew they were attacking an American ship.

The facts are:

• The attack was preceded by hours of close reconnaissance by Israeli aircraft. We were fired upon for more than 75 minutes.
  
• The attack included 40 minutes of very close machine-gunning of firefighters and stretcher-bearers long after the attackers viewed our flag and clear markings in English from less than 50 feet away.

U.S. Air Force intercept operators heard the pilots repeatedly identifying us as American during the attack. There was no doubt that the pilots knew they were killing Americans. This is widely known within the U.S. intelligence community, despite the heated denials of our attackers and their American supporters.

The attack ended only after the Israelis machine-gunned our life rafts in the water, a war crime that we have reported repeatedly to a disinterested government.

Contrary to A. Jay Cristol's false claim (in Viewpoints last week), numerous U.S. officials, including

• Secretary of State Dean Rusk,
• Joint Chiefs Chairman Tom Moorer,
• National Security Agency Director Gen. Marshall Carter,
• CIA Director Richard Helms and
• many other former senior officers from all of the U.S. intelligence agencies, have agreed that the attack was deliberate.

Cristol seeks to discredit our eyewitness accounts by maligning our motives and falsely claiming Arab financing and influence. Contrary to Cristol's false claims, the Liberty Veterans Association was organized by Master Chief Petty Officer Stan White and myself with no help from former congressmen or anyone else. Just paying the phone bills for this effort was a strain on both of our household budgets. We had no financial support and certainly no Arab money.

Cristol's little essay leans heavily on what he calls the "Navy Court of Inquiry" transcript. He neglects to mention that the court's own legal counsel swears that the transcript was illegally changed in Washington after it was signed. Key testimony, including my own as officer of the deck, was blocked from the record or removed. (See www.ussliberty.org/bostondeclaration.pdf.)

Cristol likens the attack to friendly fire. Rusk said of this case,

"Accidents do not occur through repeated attacks by surface vessels and aircraft. ... (This attack) involved combined forces. The ship was flying an American flag. . . . I did not accept the Israeli explanation."

(See www.ussliberty.org/supporters.htm for the full statement and others by senior U.S. officials who dispute Cristol.)

Cristol claims that several congressional investigations have concluded that the attack was an accident. False. (See www.ussliberty.org/thebiglie.htm.)

The librarian of Congress reported on July 26, 2006, that there has never been a congressional investigation. Liberty survivors offer $10,000 cash to anyone who can prove that there has been. Neither Cristol nor anyone else has applied for that award. (See www.ussliberty.org/challenge.htm.)

Cristol blames the Liberty Veterans Association for causing survivors distress. On the contrary, the association and its camaraderie have been our greatest comfort. Since the Cristol apologia last Sunday, I have heard from several angry shipmates who are still traumatized by the deaths of their shipmates. Now, many are having sleepless nights and other post-traumatic stress disorder effects renewed specifically by the denials and false statements in Cristol's article.

Cristol always seems perplexed that we crew members take the attack on our ship personally and can't understand why we won't accept that it might have been an accident. The explanation is simple. Cristol's Navy "career" was that of a weekend warrior reserve lawyer. He never served in combat or anywhere near combat. He has never been shot at. Those of us who suffered through an hour long, well-coordinated, combined arms (air/ship) attack against our ship, seeing our shipmates killed and wounded, know the difference between an accident and a deliberate attack. Cristol obviously does not. To have our eyewitness accounts dismissed by someone who wasn't there and knows nothing about what happened only worsens the trauma we still experience.

The false accounts of our opponents illustrate once again why we survivors have sought for 40 years to have a full, complete, open investigation where we can testify under oath. Catch us in a lie and we go to jail. We are prepared to take that risk. Our opponents fear giving us that opportunity. Our story is true. Cristol's is not.

James Ennes, a retired Navy officer, is author of "Assault on the Liberty."

05.The 1967 War and Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza

05.The 1967 War and the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem

Did the Egyptians actually start the 1967 war, as Israel originally claimed?

"The former Commander of the Air Force, General Ezer Weitzman, regarded as a hawk, stated that there was 'no threat of destruction' but that the attack on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was nevertheless justified so that Israel could 'exist according the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies.'...Menahem Begin had the following remarks to make:

'In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.'

"Noam Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."

Was the 1967 war defenisve? - continued

"I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it." Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Chief of Staff in 1967, in Le Monde, 2/28/68

Moshe Dayan posthumously speaks out on the Golan Heights

"Moshe Dayan, the celebrated commander who, as Defense Minister in 1967, gave the order to conquer the Golan...[said] many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland...[Dayan stated] 'They didn't even try to hide their greed for the land...We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot.

And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was...The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.'" The New York Times, May 11, 1997

The history of Israeli expansionism

"The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan; one does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today. But the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them." David Ben-Gurion, in 1936, quoted in Noam Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."

Expansionism - continued

"The main danger which Israel, as a 'Jewish state', poses to its own people, to other Jews and to its neighbors, is its ideologically motivated pursuit of territorial expansion and the inevitable series of wars resulting from this aim...No zionist politician has ever repudiated Ben-Gurion's idea that Israeli policies must be based (within the limits of practical considerations) on the restoration of Biblical borders as the borders of the Jewish state." Israeli professor, Israel Shahak, "Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of 3000 Years."

Expansionism - continued

In Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharatt's personal diaries, there is an excerpt from May of 1955 in which he quotes Moshe Dayan as follows: "[Israel] must see the sword as the main, if not the only, instrument with which to keep its morale high and to retain its moral tension. Toward this end it may, no—it must—invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of provocation-and-revenge...And above all—let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries, so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space." Quoted in Livia Rokach, "Israel's Sacred Terrorism."

But wasn't the occupation of Arab lands necessary to protect Israel's security?

"Senator [J.William Fulbright] proposed in 1970 that America should guarantee Israel's security in a formal treaty, protecting her with armed forces if necessary. In return, Israel would retire to the borders of 1967. The UN Security Council would guarantee this arrangement, and thereby bring the Soviet Union—then a supplier of arms and political aid to the Arabs—into compliance. As Israeli troops were withdrawn from the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank they would be replaced by a UN peacekeeping force. Israel would agree to accept a certain number of Palestinians and the rest would be settled in a Palestinian state outside Israel.

"The plan drew favorable editorial support in the United States. The proposal, however, was flatly rejected by Israel. 'The whole affair disgusted Fulbright,' writes [his biographer Randall] Woods. 'The Israelis were not even willing to act in their own self-interest.'" Allan Brownfield in "Issues of the American Council for Judaism." Fall 1997.[Ed.-This was one of many such proposals]

What happened after the 1967 war ended?

"In violation of international law, Israel has confiscated over 52 percent of the land in the West Bank and 30 percent of the Gaza Strip for military use or for settlement by Jewish civilians...From 1967 to 1982, Israel's military government demolished 1,338 Palestinian homes on the West Bank. Over this period, more than 300,000 Palestinians were detained without trial for various periods by Israeli security forces." Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation," ed. Lockman and Beinin.

World opinion on the legality of Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza.

"Under the UN Charter there can lawfully be no territorial gains from war, even by a state acting in self-defense. The response of other states to Israel's occupation shows a virtually unanimous opinion that even if Israel's action was defensive, its retention of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was not...The [UN] General Assembly characterized Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as a denial of self determination and hence a 'serious and increasing threat to international peace and security.' "John Quigley, "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice."

Examples of the effects of Israeli occupation

"A study of students at Bethlehem University reported by the Coordinating Committee of International NGOs in Jerusalem showed that many families frequently go five days a week without running water...The study goes further to report that, 'water quotas restrict usage by Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, while Israeli settlers have almost unlimited amounts.'

"A summer trip to a Jewish settlement on the edge of the Judean desert less than five miles from Bethlehem confirmed this water inequity for us. While Bethlehemites were buying water from tank trucks at highly inflated rates, the lawns were green in the settlement. Sprinklers were going at mid day in the hot August sunshine. Sounds of children swimming in the outdoor pool added to the unreality." Betty Jane Bailey, in "The Link", December 1996.

Israeli occupation - continued

"You have to remember that 90 percent of children two years old or more have experienced—some many, many times—the [Israeli] army breaking into the home, beating relatives, destroying things. Many were beaten themselves, had bones broken, were shot, tear gassed, or had these things happen to siblings and neighbors...The emotional aspect of the child is affected by the [lack of] security. He needs to feel safe. We see the consequences later if he does not. In our research, we have found that children who are exposed to trauma tend to be more extreme in their behaviors and, later, in their political beliefs." Dr Samir Quota, director of research for the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, quoted in "The Journal of Palestine Studies," Summer 1996, p.84

Israeli occupation - continued

"There is nothing quite like the misery one feels listening to a 35-year-old [Palestinian] man who worked fifteen years as an illegal day laborer in Israel in order to save up money to build a house for his family only to be shocked one day upon returning from work to find that the house and all that was in it had been flattened by an Israeli bulldozer. When I asked why this was done—the land, after all, was his—I was told that a paper given to him the next day by an Israeli soldier stated that he had built the structure without a license. Where else in the world are people required to have a license (always denied them) to build on their own property? Jews can build, but never Palestinians. This is apartheid." Edward Said, in "The Nation", May 4, 1998.

All Jewish settlements in territories occupied in the 1967 war are a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions, which Israel has signed.

"The Geneva Convention requires an occupying power to change the existing order as little as possible during its tenure. One aspect of this obligation is that it must leave the territory to the people it finds there. It may not bring its own people to populate the territory. This prohibition is found in the convention's Article 49, which states, 'The occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.'" John Quigley, "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice."

Excerpts from the U.S. State Department's reports during the first Intifada

"Following are some excerpts from the U.S. State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices from 1988 to 1991:

1988: 'Many avoidable deaths and injuries' were caused because Israeli soldiers frequently used gunfire in situations that did not present mortal danger to troops...IDF troops used clubs to break limbs and beat Palestinians who were not directly involved in disturbances or resisting arrest..At least thirteen Palestinians have been reported to have died from beatings...'

1989: Human rights groups charged that the plainclothes security personnel acted as death squads who killed Palestinian activists without warning, after they had surrendered, or after they had been subdued...

1991: [The report] added that the human rights groups had published 'detailed credible reports of torture, abuse and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees in prisons and detention centers." Former Congressman Paul Findley, "Deliberate Deceptions."

Jerusalem - Eternal, Indivisible Capital of Israel?

"Writing in The Jerusalem Report (Feb. 28, 2000), Leslie Susser points out that the current boundaries were drawn after the Six-Day War. Responsibility for drawing those lines fell to Central Command Chief Rehavan Ze'evi. The line he drew 'took in not only the five square kilometers of Arab East Jerusalem—but also 65 square kilometers of surrounding open country and villages, most of which never had any municipal link to Jerusalem. Overnight they became part of Israel's eternal and indivisible capital.'" Allan Brownfield in The Washington Report On Middle East Affairs, May 2000.

end of section 05.The 1967 War and Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza

next is section 06.The History of Terrorism in the Region

Galloway and the Stampeding of Arab Jews

Galloway and the Stampeding of Arab Jews
Friday October 07th 2005, 5:39 pm

It really irks the Zionists and their neocon fellow travelers George Galloway has the gall to cite the historical record and thus criticize the settler state of Israel for its immoral use of “dirty tricks.” For instance, Patrick Devenny, as noted on this blog earlier in the week, basically assigned Galloway to the status of a far left lunatic for telling the talk show radio host Alex Jones and his audience the following:

“They (Zionists) created the conditions in the Arab countries and in some European countries to stampede Jewish people out of the countries that they had been living in for many hundreds of years and stampede them into the Zionist state.”

In a response to Devenny’s initial blog entry on Horowitz’ Moonbat Central, I pointed out how indeed a number of German Zionists attempted to collaborate with Hitler and the Nazis, with mixed results. Predictably, Devenny dismissed this collaboration as

“inconsequential and foolish” and the efforts of “misguided Zionists who, in 1933, could not comprehend the extent of Nazi hatred of Jews.”

Devenny also dismisses Galloway’s assertion the Israeli state connived to “stampede” Jews out of Arab countries.

“Just remember that statement—which echoes the worst vitriol spouted by neo-Nazis and holocaust deniers—the next time someone asks you to take Galloway seriously,”

Devenny concludes in response to Galloway’s remarks, quoted above. “A very dangerous man.” But if we are to consider Galloway dangerous, we must also consider the historical record dangerous—or dangerous for prevaricating Zionists, anyway.

Earlier today I received an email with a link to an account written by Naeim Giladi, a Jew from Iraq who was “rescued” by the fledgling Israeli state. John F. Mahoney, Executive Director of Americans for Middle East Understanding, writes in a forward to Giladi’s article posted on the Bint Jbeil website, that

“Israeli historian Ilan Pappe looked at the hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians whose lives were uprooted to make room for foreigners who would come to populate confiscated land. Most were Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe. But over half a million other Jews came from Islamic lands. Zionist propagandists claim that Israel ‘rescued’ these Jews from their anti-Jewish, Muslim neighbors. One of those ‘rescued’ Jews—Naeim Giladi—knows otherwise.”

In his book,

Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews,

Giladi discusses the crimes committed by Zionists in their frenzy to import raw Jewish labor. Newly-vacated farmlands had to be ploughed to provide food for the immigrants and the military ranks had to be filled with conscripts to defend the stolen lands. Mr. Giladi couldn’t get his book published in Israel, and even in the U.S. he discovered he could do so only if he used his own money.

Giladi begins his article, The Jews of Iraq, with the following statement:

I write this article for the same reason I wrote my book: to tell the American people, and especially American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews; and that, to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous occasions rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors. I write about what the first prime minister of Israel called “cruel Zionism.” I write about it because I was part of it.

As an impressionable 18 year old in 1947, Giladi was part of the “Zionist underground” in Iraq, deeply involved in “smuggling young Iraqi Jews like myself out of Iraq, into Iran, and then on to the Promised Land of the soon-to-be established Israel.” Giladi was apprehended by the Iraqi authorities and imprisoned in Abu Ghraib, but he soon escaped and made his way to Palestine. Upon his arrival, Giladi was subject to racism (he was of Arabic origin and not an Ashkenazi Jew) and witnessed the “transfer” of Palestinian Arabs out of the city of al-Majdal. Both acts disturbed him profoundly. Giladi writes:

I was disillusioned at what I found in the Promised Land, disillusioned personally, disillusioned at the institutionalized racism, disillusioned at what I was beginning to learn about Zionism’s cruelties. The principal interest Israel had in Jews from Islamic countries was as a supply of cheap labor, especially for the farm work that was beneath the urbanized Eastern European Jews. Ben Gurion needed the “Oriental” Jews to farm the thousands of acres of land left by Palestinians who were driven out by Israeli forces in 1948.

According to Giladi’s recounting of events, it was

“Britain’s pro-Zionist attitude in Palestine” that ultimately “triggered a growing anti-Zionist backlash in Iraq, as it did in all Arab countries.”

Giladi quotes Sir Francis Humphreys, Britain’s Ambassador in Baghdad, who wrote in 1934:

“Zionism has sown dissension between Jews and Arabs, and bitterness has grown up between the two peoples which did not previously exist.”

However, if we are to believe Zionist historians and commentators, the Arabs have always persecuted and abused Jews in Arab countries. Giladi tells us otherwise:

The original Jews found Babylon, with its nourishing Tigris and Euphrates rivers, to be truly a land of milk, honey, abundance—and opportunity. Although Jews, like other minorities in what became Iraq, experienced periods of oppression and discrimination depending on the rulers of the period, their general trajectory over two and one-half millennia was upward.

Under the late Ottoman rule, for example, Jewish social and religious institutions, schools, and medical facilities flourished without outside interference, and Jews were prominent in government and business.

The British engineered riots in the Jewish quarter of Baghdad, according to Giladi.

“Yosef Meir, one of the most prominent activists in the Zionist underground movement in Iraq, known then as Yehoshafat, claims it was the British” who started the riots. “Meir, who now works for the Israeli Defense Ministry, argues that, in order to make it appear that the regent [Abd al-Ilah] was returning as the savior who would reestablish law and order, the British stirred up the riots against the most vulnerable and visible segment in the city, the Jews. And, not surprisingly, the riots ended as soon as the regent’s loyal soldiers entered the capital.”

Giladi cites David Kimche, an operative with British Intelligence during WW II and with the Mossad after the war.

“Later he became Director General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the position he held in 1982 when he addressed a forum at the British Institute for International Affairs in London,” writes Giladi. “In responding to hostile questions about Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and the refugee camp massacres in Beirut, Kimche went on the attack, reminding the audience that there was scant concern in the British Foreign Office when British Gurkha units participated in the murder of 500 Jews in the streets of Baghdad in 1941.”

It was the anti-Jewish riots of 1941 that

“gave the Zionists in Palestine a pretext to set up a Zionist underground in Iraq, first in Baghdad, then in other cities such as Basra, Amara, Hillah, Diwaneia, Abril and Karkouk,” according to Giladi.

However, it was not until 1950 that Jews began to leave Iraq in large numbers. On March 19, 1950,

“a bomb went off at the American Cultural Center and Library in Baghdad, causing property damage and injuring a number of people. The center was a favorite meeting place for young Jews.”

A couple weeks later, on April 8, Baghdad’s El-Dar El-Bida Café, where Jews were celebrating Passover, was bombed.

“The next day, many Jews, most of them poor with nothing to lose, jammed emigration offices to renounce their citizenship and to apply for permission to leave for Israel. So many applied, in fact, that the police had to open registration offices in Jewish schools and synagogues,” Giladi explains.

In the following weeks, the Jewish-owned Beit-Lawi Automobile Company was bombed; the El-Batawin area of Baghdad where most rich Jews and middle class Iraqis lived was bombed; the Jewish-owned Stanley Shashua building on El-Rashid street was bombed.

“On January 14, 1951, at 7 p.m., a grenade was thrown at a group of Jews outside the Masouda Shem-Tov Synagogue. The explosive struck a high-voltage cable, electrocuting three Jews, one a young boy, Itzhak Elmacher, and wounding over 30 others. Following the attack, the exodus of Jews jumped to between 600-700 per day.”

Giladi quotes Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior CIA officer, who wrote:

In attempts to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel…. Although the Iraqi police later provided our embassy with evidence to show that the synagogue and library bombings, as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-American leaflet campaigns, had been the work of an underground Zionist organization, most of the world believed reports that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of the Iraqi Jews whom the Zionists had “rescued” really just in order to increase Israel’s Jewish population.”

By 1953, according to Giladi,

“all but 6,000 of an estimated 125,000 Iraqi Jews had fled to Israel…. An ancient, cultured, prosperous community had been uprooted and its people transplanted to a land dominated by East European Jews, whose culture was not only foreign but entirely hateful to them.”

In conclusion, Naeim Giladi writes:

Alexis de Tocqueville once observed that it is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth. Certainly it has been easier for the world to accept the Zionist lie that Jews were evicted from Muslim lands because of anti-Semitism, and that Israelis, never the Arabs, were the pursuers of peace. The truth is far more discerning: bigger players on the world stage were pulling the strings….

We Jews from Islamic lands did not leave our ancestral homes because of any natural enmity between Jews and Muslims. And we Arabs—I say Arab because that is the language my wife and I still speak at home—we Arabs on numerous occasions have sought peace with the State of the Jews. And finally, as a U.S. citizen and taxpayer, let me say that we Americans need to stop supporting racial discrimination in Israel and the cruel expropriation of lands in the West Bank, Gaza, South Lebanon and the Golan Heights.

Giladi’s story underscores precisely the assertion George Galloway made on Alex Jones’ radio program—to a documented degree, Zionists “stampeded” (or euphemistically “rescued”) Jews from Arab countries and corralled them in Israel, where they endured second class citizen status, a step or so above indigenous Arabs.

“The reality is [the Zionists] have used Jewish people, and they have used them with this ideology of Zionism, to create this little Hitler State on the Mediterranean, to act as an advance guard for their own interests in the Arab world, and we’re all paying for it, the Palestinians have paid for it, the Arabs have paid for it, and now the American people are paying for it, and why should we? We don’t want to live our lives in a permanent state of warfare and division,” Galloway told Jones.

Indeed, we are paying for it, as the invasion and occupation of Iraq, to a large degree, is in the interest of Israel.

“Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990—it’s the threat against Israel,” declared Philip Zelikow, executive director of Bush’s nine eleven whitewash commission. ”And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.”

In other words, the American people were duped into supporting the invasion, in large part in the interest of Israel. Galloway rightfully characterizes this deception as “dirty tricks” devised to reduce us to “live our lives in a permanent state of warfare and division,” as engineered by vicious neocons and Likudite Zionists.

Naturally, mentioning Naeim Giladi’s account of the “Zionist underground” in Iraq using terrorism to “stampede” Iraqi Jews into a desperate emigration to Israel—arriving penniless and dependent on the welfare of racist Ashkenazi Jews in need of field hands—will be considered anti-Semitic by Israel’s apologists, most notably those over at Moonbat Central.

“It’s permissible to discuss the power of every other group, from the Black Muslims to the Christian Right, but the much greater power of the Jewish establishment is off-limits,” notes Joseph Sobran.

It is, as well, off-limits to mention and argue historical fact at variance with the pro-Israel orthodoxy. With each passing day, the mention of such established fact moves further into the territory of criminalized behavior, as the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act becomes law and with the passage of the Global anti-Semitism Review Act last October the State Department has become a de facto anti-Semitism ministry with an appointed anti-Semitism envoy.

American treachery in the attack on the USS Liberty much deeper than previously assumed

Crescent And Cross

American treachery in the attack on the USS Liberty much deeper than previously assumed

For those who follow the intrigues and explosive events surrounding the relationship between America and Israel over the last 4 decades it is easy to “get into a rut” so to speak and blame every single catastrophic event solely on the treachery of Israel. The tragedy though (and certainly the part hardest to swallow by patriotic Americans who would just as soon take their own lives as betray their fellow countrymen) is that there have been and are players on the American side of the equation whose hands are just as dirty as those of their Israeli counterparts. Whether it was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the assassination of JFK, the bombing of the Twin Towers in 1993, the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in 1995 or the events taking place on 9/11, the fact is that the only way these could have taken place is if elements within the US government infrastructure cooperated with the planning, execution and subsequent dissemination of propaganda in the aftermath of these operations.

Now, a new and terrible tale has surfaced indicating yet again that elements of the US government were involved at the highest level in even more criminal acts against the very same American people whom she is charged with protecting. The case in question involves the June 8^th, 1967 attack on the USS Liberty by the air and naval forces of the state of Israel during the height of the Arab-Israeli War that led to the deaths of 34 American servicemen. Long-believed that players within the Johnson administration simply assisted in the cover-up of the attack so as “not to embarrass” America’s greatest ally, Israel, it now it appears that American political, intelligence and military persons played a key role in setting up the Liberty for the purpose of igniting WWIII in what was code-named “Operation Cyanide”.

It was a heady time, to be sure. The US and the USSR were neck-deep in what was called the Cold War and by all appearances it seemed that a shooting match between the two superpowers was an inevitability. The reader should keep in mind that this was only a few short years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and a time when America seemed unable to stop the spread of communism in Asia and other parts of the world. In the Middle East, states such as Egypt, with dynamic, fiery and recalcitrant leaders such as Nasser were forming strong bonds with the Soviets for military and economic aid. Using the same rational that led to America inserting herself militarily into areas such as Korea and Vietnam, it was believed that if not stopped the Soviets would entrench themselves in the Middle East to the point that America’s access to the oil of that region would be directly jeopardized and that, just as the communists had predicted decades before, the West would be conquered “without a shot being fired”.

It has long been assumed that Israel’s deliberate attack on the USS Liberty was just another of her made-to-order false flag operations done simply for the purpose of dragging an unwilling America into a Middle East war on the side of the Jewish state. However,new information uncovered by former BBC investigative journalist Peter Hounam reveals that America–and more specifically the administration of Lyndon Johnson–was not as much the unsuspecting victim in all of this that she has claimed these last 40 years. Based on relatively new evidence, the attack on the Liberty was actually part of a much larger plan and that the Liberty incident was just one domino in a series of them that had as the ultimate goal a real-live shooting war between the US and the USSR. Had the Liberty been sunk with no witnesses as planned, the world would be a much different place now as a result, and certainly not for the better.

In short, what was planned for that awful day in American history was that the a defenseless, unarmed American ship sailing in international waters off the coast of Egypt be sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean and that the Soviets and their Arab allies (in particular Egypt) would be blamed for the event. As with the sinking of the USS Maine nearly 70 years earlier, the cry would be “Remember the USS Liberty” and America’s “justifiable” response to such a horrendous act would be the launching of nuclear weapons against Egypt, the USSR’s ally. Working in tandem with the US would be allies such as Israel, Great Britain and, interestingly, Australia. The end result would be a Middle East free of any Soviet presence, leaving America and her ally Israel in possession of Arab oil for the foreseeable future and in a better position to dictate terms to the communists.

In the minds of powerful men such as these–men who sit in comfortable offices and expensive chairs and who do not have to answer to anyone for their actions, the rationale for such an act is simple–better that 300 men die in the service of their country than that the ‘free world’ fall into the clutches of Soviet communism. What prevented all of this from taking place was that–simply by the grace of God–the Liberty did not sink and the world was spared, at least temporarily.

Of course there is no official confirmation of Operation Cyanide. In fact there is no mention of it at all. In various interviews that have been conducted over the years, individuals from Secretary of Defense McNamara to Dean Rusk to Richard Helms to Mossad spy chief Rafael Eitan have demonstrated great intellectual and verbal energy for men their age when discussing various items but who then clam up instantaneously when Operation Cyanide is mentioned as if they were witnesses to a Mafia hit and feared for their lives.

Nevertheless the smaller players who were involved at that time have a different tale to tell, and piecing together all the small parts that they individually bring to the table fleshes out a picture that, although not crystal clear, is clear enough to suggest that America was involved in the murder of 34 of her young men on June 8^th 1967 in a much deeper fashion than previously thought. For the sake of those men who died that day and for those who survived the attack physically but who have endured the assault of lies that has been waged against them these last 40 years, the truth concerning what took place that day must be told. In the opinion of many, the Liberty incident may very well hold the key to freeing America from the bondage she suffers under men such as those who have murdered–not only her people, but as well her political system.

Beginning in June, AFP will begin running a series of exclusive articles going into deeper detail the mechanics of “Operation Cyanide” with an individual who worked in US Intelligence circles and has first-hand knowledge of the events that took place before, during and after June 8^th 1967. What he has to say has never before been published.

Mark Glenn–Correspondent, American Free Press

americanfreepress@yahoo.com

www.americanfreepress.net

May 31st, 2007

General who helped redraw the borders of Israel says road map to peace is a lie

General who helped redraw the borders of Israel says road map to peace is a lie
The man who commanded Gaza and the West Bank from the last day of the Six Day War talks to Donald Macintyre in Tel Aviv
Published: 10 June 2007

Immediately after the Six Day War, 40 years ago, Shlomo Gazit was put in charge of Gaza and the West Bank. Today, the retired general is in favour of talks with Hamas, describes the road map as a "pretext" for Israel not to negotiate with the Palestinians, and thinks the idea that the US can or should veto a peace process between Jerusalem and Damascus is a "nonsense".

At first sight Mr Gazit could be a classic military hawk. A tough, unsentimental man with 37 years in the Israeli Defence Forces behind him, he has never been slow in condemning Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians. Yet he enjoys the unique distinction of having, from the heart of the Israeli military, proposed in writing a Palestinian state exactly 40 years ago yesterday - 24 hours before the war had even ended.

And he has never been more convinced than now that such a state, its negotiated borders based on those that preceded the war, and involving withdrawal from most of the West Bank Jewish settlements, remains the only answer to the conflict.

Mr Gazit, who in June 1967 was head of the assessment department in military intelligence, says he remembers little of the day-to-day progress of the war. The reason is that on 5 June 1967 he strolled over to a jubilant air force command to be given reports of the spectacularly successful assault on Egyptian airfields - which arguably won the war on its first day.

He also learned, however, that his 23-year-old nephew, Dan Engel, was one of the few Israeli pilots reported missing. "I spent the rest of the week in a kind of trance," he says.

His grief did not stop him producing a remarkably clear-sighted - and, for the times, heretical - memorandum on 9 June that proposed "the establishment of an independent Palestinian state [without military forces] in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip". The Old City, holy to three great religions, and taken over by triumphant Israeli forces only 48 hours earlier, should "become an 'open city' with an independent status resembling the Vatican".

The memo went to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, to Defence Minister Moshe Dayan and to Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin. "Unfortunately, not one of them responded to the document," Mr Gazit would later write. "No discussion was held, nor was any action taken."

For a man who spent much of his army service in intelligence, Mr Gazit has an unflinching awareness of its limitations. But it's not so much for the war itself as for the aftermath that Mr Gazit's experience and insights have been of such lasting value.

He set out as far as possible to implement the charismatic Dayan's notion of an "invisible occupation" - one that was progressively undermined by the relentless growth of settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, and of the military apparatus protecting them.

While acknowledging that the post-war Israeli Labour government allowed that process to start, Mr Gazit blames Menachem Begin's Likud, which swept to power in 1977, for the policy of "creeping annexation". That paved the way for the 250,000 settlers in the West Bank today, and helped to "destroy any hope" of the 1978 Camp David accords leading to full Palestinian autonomy. "When Labour left office, there were maybe 5,000 settlers," he says. "Begin said, 'We're going to have 100,000.' I wish we [only] had 100,000 today."

On the Oslo accords, the ex-general, who represented Israel in back-channel discussions with the Palestinians in the 1990s, says he is "not one of those who thought that Oslo was doomed from the very beginning". But he thinks that postponement of discussion of a final settlement until the end of a series of "confidence-building measures" was a "totally wrong concept". He adds: "If I wanted to reach an agreement I would say first, 'these are the principles of a final settlement'."

The assassination of the Labour Prime Minister of the time, Yitzhak Rabin, by a Jewish extremist probably dealt the fatal blow to the Oslo process, he admits. But he also believes that "one of the biggest mistakes made by us" after Rabin's death was the assassination of the senior Hamas militant and bomb-maker, Yahiya Ayyash, in January 1996. It was followed by 60 Israeli deaths in four horrific suicide bombings over the next two months, hastening the collapse of Oslo and Shimon Peres's premiership.

"Arafat told me he could not tell the extremists they had no right to avenge the killing of Ayyash,"

he says.

Had Ariel Sharon not had his massive stroke in January 2006, Mr Gazit believes he would have realised that withdrawal from Gaza was not going to be enough to fulfil the demographic objective that had come to preoccupy him - ensuring a Jewish majority in the territory controlled by Israel. As a result, he thinks, Mr Sharon would have embarked on withdrawals from the West Bank.

Where does Israel stand now? Four decades ago, the Khartoum Arab summit of August 1967 famously said "no" to negotiations, to recognition of Israel and to peace. Mr Gazit - now at Tel Aviv University's Institute of National Strategic Studies - is among those who have questioned whether the summit did torpedo peace hopes as absolutely as Israel has always claimed. However, he points out that in any case this year's Arab summit in Riyadh - which promised recognition of Israel in return for a withdrawal to 1967 borders - turned the three Khartoum "nos" into three "yeses".

On top of that, he says, opinion polls show that a clear majority of the Israeli public want an agreement on a two-state solution. They realise that "small is beautiful, and that if Israel wants to survive as a Jewish state, we have to get rid of the territories".

Nor does he see any problem in Israel talking directly to Hamas, elected to run the Palestinian Authority in January 2006, "not because I'm a lover of Hamas, but because you can't ignore it" - and because he believes that it is impossible to reach agreement without at least its tacit consent.

In the veteran's view, "conditions are very ripe to reach an agreement" with the Palestinians, but as he wrote last week on the joint Israeli-Palestinian Bitterlemons website, the problem is weak leadership on both sides of the conflict.

"It will be sad and painful if... yet more confrontations and more sacrifices... are required before we can fully reap the fruits of [the 1967] war."

That said, Mr Gazit still believes that the Palestinian state he envisaged as the Six Day War continued to rage 40 years ago will happen. A man who has never bowed to the conventional wisdom of the moment, Mr Gazit declares that "ultimately, I'm very optimistic".

Further reading: 'Trapped Fools: Thirty Years of Israeli Policy in the Territories' by Shlomo Gazit ( Frank Cass)