Only the Jewish Press Calls a Spade a Spade: New Pro-Iraq-War Group Is a Jewish Group

With Walt and Mearsheimer's Israel Lobby book about to burst onto the scene, the poverty of the existing debate over the Israel interest in American politics is demonstrated by the coverage of Freedom's Watch, the new rightwing group spending millions on television to urge the Congress to keep American forces in Iraq.

Only the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has the guts to say what is obvious, that "Pro-Surge Group Is Almost All Jewish" that four out of five board members of Freedom's Watch are Jewish, and the fifth board member is married to a Jew. I take this point further. A large number of Freedom's Watch's staff or backers have stated that Israel's security is central to their view of the Iraq war.

Matthew Brooks, a board member of the group, said two years back to justify this war: 

You know, as well as I, that Saddam Hussein launched scud missiles at

Israel

...

You know that Saddam paid a bounty of $25,000 to the families of Palestinian homicide bombers.

Brooks is director of a group called the Republican Jewish Coalition, which does not even accept the idea of a Palestinian state. It speaks only of a "Palestinian political entity" under the right circumstances. I think it's in America's interest to push for a Palestinian state!

Then there's Freedom's Watch board member and spokesman Ari Fleischer. Three years ago I heard him tell a Jewish audience in Cincinnati that they should vote for Bush because he had helped make Israel safer with the Iraq war. And as for the the director of the new group, Brad Blakeman, last year at the end of Israel's botched and gruesome Lebanon war, Blakeman, an Orthodox Jew, said on MSNBC:

 

 

Israel

... could have wiped out

Lebanon

in a day if they chose to.  They chose not to.
[Israel] knows exact what it‘s doing. Israel is protecting their borders. 

Israel

is fighting with one hand tied behind their back.  They‘re fighting according to international law. 

Blakeman had worked in the Bush White House. His brother Bruce told the Forward that Bush launched the Iraq war partly out of concern for Israel.

"The president realized not only that Saddam Hussein was a danger to America, but that Saddam Hussein had designs on attacking Israel," said Blakeman, whose brother Brad is a former Bush aide. "There was a concern that an attack on Israel would turn into a regional war, with Syria and Iran joining in on Iraq's side."

Among donors to Freedom's Watch are real estate kingpin Richard Fox, who is the head of the unreconstructed neoconservative Jewish Policy Center. And casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who has lately donated $60 million to Birthright, the program that seeks to indoctrinate young American Jews in a love of Israel by paying for a free trip there before they turn 26 (gentiles need not apply!).

Most of the leaders of this group live and breathe Israel, but this overarching concern is nowhere to be found in their calls on Americans to sacrifice more blood and treasure in Iraq. When they talk about threats to the region, they are talking about Israel's security. And the press lets them get away with this subterfuge, with the exception of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The Washington Post, for instance, was happy to suggest that the organization is a "White House front," but said nothing about the Jewish character of the board, or those Jews' view of Israel. Politico was also silent on the issue. In a second piece, the Washington Post reported that one board member leads neocon cipher Scooter Libby's defense committee.

I wish the Post would ask these guys what they think about Israel. Nope, they're all afraid to mention it.   

Again I note, there's nothing wrong with rightwingers expressing their views. The problem is when those views have a religious character that they're not upfront about, and that the press declines to discuss. Any one else bringing a religious worldview to American politics is described as doing just that. We constantly hear about the "evangelical" voters or the "Christian right." What about the Jewish right? Especially now, when there's a widespread apprehension in the country that the Israel-centric Jewish right pushed this disastrous war.

Comments

[Joachim Martillo]

I often wonder about the origins of Christians United for Israel.

I have received the organizations literature for a long time, and for many years it looked like standard Zionist hasbara and many of the names associated with the organization seem Jewish. In some places like Kansas City, it seems to have been run out of Jewish Federation offices.

Is Hagee a creation of the Zionist Lobby just as Madonna is a creation of the music industry?

Just throw in some high powered marketing, and it is possible to turn a mediocrity into a superstar. Jabotinskians have always tried to use Christian groups as fronts, and with the Camp David accords, suddenly the Israeli government had lots of unaccounted cash to spend on someone like Hagee in the late 70s.

[bill Pearlman]

Obviously Joechim our tentacles have somehow missed you. I mean you get our top secret lobby!!!!!!!!! literature. I'm going to personally kick this baby up to the elders in Jerusalem. And come to think of it I think we've let you go on for far too long. And since we're in charge of well, everything, and the rest of the world are unwilling dupes of our machinations. You wouldn't be much of a problem.

[Alan]

When one starts watching really closely the neo-con media and their policy recommendations, it is almost easy to predict what kind of propaganda campaigns will follow.

In this case, anyone who reads the National Review Online and the Weekly Standard knows that this whole "surge" diversion was conceived really fast as an answer to the Iraq Study Group's recommendations and the loss of the election. They had to provide an alternative really fast, and after a couple of weeks of numbness when all they could was attack the ISG's credibility in vain, they did. Within a few days, Kaplan and Kristol got this baby rolling, had an American Enterprise Institute team make a PowerPoint presentation in the White House and a desperate Bush was manipulated into going for it.

Now propaganda takes over. This is how Freedom Watch figures in this pattern, and so does the Pollack-O'Hanlon media blitz of a few weeks ago, preparing the ground for the major event, the slam-dunk, the Petreus "Report".

The only good thing that came from the ISG and Baker was that the neocons had to slow down their efforts to get Bush to attack Iran, their number one priority became to end those silly discussions about withdrawal. But once they succeed - hopefully after September and the Petreus "Report" - to end this discussion for now, expect the campaign against Iran to get back to full speed again.

It is not just the neo-cons btw. It is astonishing to see how the pro-Israel crowd, Left or Right, joins efforts to get the US to do Israel's bidding. Neo-con publications, Jewish billionaires, liberal commentators, senators like Lieberman, Brookings "scholars", they all work together in tandem.

As Tony Judt has said, "neo-conservatives generate brutish policies for which liberals provide the ethical fig-leaf". I would add the Jewish billionaires who provide the money needed for the necessary propaganda campaigns.

[bill Pearlman]

Alan:
I don't know how you did this, but you put it all together. Bush isn't really Bush, he was switched during the 2000 campaign. Kind of an invasion of the body snatchers thing. Now, we, the neocons. which has we all know equals bloodsucking Jew parasite war monger have now seized the reigns of power through the national review and the weekly standard. The ignorant masses think that they're magazines. But , not you Alan, they are really instruments that we use to consolidate out control over the banking system. Even if the average America never picks up one of our neferious publications we send out this mind control thing is so subtle it really doesn't make a difference. And alan, it's not going to shock you that it's all run by the elders in jerusalem, We all get a phone number on our bar mitzvahs.
I don't know how you put the pieces together Alan, but considering the fact that being anti-Israel, pro-hamas, is such a profile in courage that you take your life in your hands, well, has a full fledged member of the lobby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to kick your name up to the elders also. We've let you have free reign for too long my friend.

[David]

Joachim, I suspect you already know this, but the executive director of Hagee's Christians United for Israel is David Brog. Brog, author of the recent book, Standing With Israel, is a committed Jew who studied law in Tel Aviv.
http://davidbrog.com/displayarticlebyauthor.php?id=12

I wish Phil would stop conflating religion with ethnic tribalism. With exceptions, the Israel-firsters are completely secular. Go to that video of the Christian Zionist convention if you want to see people whose ideology is religiously based. We're talking about something very different here.

I suspect Phil was just trying to avoid the whole minefield of "is-it-a-religion-no-it's-a-race-no-it's-an-ethnicity"; but sooner or later we're going to have to discuss just what it really is, and it doesn't help to use language sloppily.

[bill Pearlman]

David, Lets discuss the Moslems for a second. Are they are a race, a religion, or a just a death cult. One other thing. I would say that AIPACS anual budget is probably smaller than what the Saudi Royal family drops on casinos and blond hookers during a typical weekend. What say you.

[Alan]

The "surge" was the brainchild of Kristol and Kagan, at least publicly - meaning I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that someone in Israel came up with it and Kristol then presented the idea in the Weekly Standard. Then Kagan and a few others went to the White House and did that PowerPoint presentation to Bush. Then Bush decided to go for it. This is all in the public record. See for example:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL22Ak01.html

Then we had Kimberly Kagan (supposedly) writing the glorious "surge" reports for the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal.

Now we have Freedom Watch running those ridiculous ads in support of the "surge". And it has been reported who is behind this.

As for the liberal commentators providing the fig-leaf, take your pick! Too many to choose from.

And the Brookings Institution? Pollack-O'Hanlon? Read Glenn Greenwald's "The truth behind the Pollack-O'Hanlon trip to Iraq":

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/08/12/ohanlon/

And the upcoming Petreus "Report"? Here is Greenwald again on this guy's credibility:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/19/petraeus/index.html

[Alan]

Corrections:

1) In my first post, I wrote: "Within a few days, Kaplan and Kristol got this baby rolling...". Obviously, I meant Frederick Kagan and Kristol.

2) I also misspelled Gen. Petraeus name. My apologies.

[Alan]

Grrr. Now I forgot an apostrophe. Should have been "... Gen Petraeus' name". I need another vacation.

[bill Pearlman]

Alan:
I already told you that you nailed Bill Kristol has the elders point man in the United States. Bush is really a Mossad agent, and Cheyneys real name is Moses. Or is that just his code name. Your right man, You got it, now go collect CAIR's man of the year award. You deserve it.

[cooper]

Christian Zionism is nothing new among evangelicals; it was religious without the overtly political edge back in the 1970's and 1980's. Pressure from within or without has turned the movement among many denominations into the slavering pro-war contingent that it now seems to be.

I have a relative who made one of the Christian tours of The Holy Land back in the mid 60's. They weren't spit on like some of the groups back in that time, before evangelicals were discovered to be cash cows. Apparently their tour guide company knew the ropes and the neighborhoods to avoid. This relative's group watched a man training a beautiful horse on the beach near Tel Aviv. The man happened to be bald, with an eye patch, and of military bearing. So my relative handed him a Bible tract and told him about Jesus; he was very courteous but declined offers of further information.

I've often wondered if she so enraged Moshe that he arranged for the USS Liberty to get hosed...

[Alan]

Hmmm. I rarely see you that nervous Bill.

Anyway, I don't know about Kristol, but to my mind there is no doubt that Perle and Ledeen (who have been both investigated by the FBI for passing US classified information to Israel) and Abrams are Israeli "assets". And Bush is just an idiot.

But Cheney is difficult to explain. Several policymakers who know him well say he is a "different man". For instance, Scowcroft said to The New Yorker, "I don't recognize my friend Dick Cheney anymore." And Lawrence Wilkerson said: "I don't recognize him either. He's not the secretary of defense that I saw for three years in the Pentagon. He's a different man."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/themes/cheney.html

Some people have suggested blackmail, but I don't find this explanation satisfactory. I just don't know what happened to him. Why don't you ask the Elders and tell us?

[LanceThruster]

Pearlman trying to be witty and erudite is neither funny nor informed.

[Rowan Berkeley]

Phil, since you haven't replied to my request to remove the post forged in my name from your archive, I am complaining to Wordpress (of whom I am also a customer).

This may involve your blog being suspended, but all I am asking is that the forged posts in my name on the following page be removed, since they have cost me real world opportunities.
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2007/01/david_gregory_p.html

[Voice of the Reader]

Dammit Phil - Delete the posts little Rowan keeps complaining about. I'm tired of hearing his whining about this. It's getting in the way of all the jew bashing and that is the main attraction of your little blog.

[Montag]

The one good thing about the ads run by this group is that they're too heavy handed to be persuasive. On YouTube their ads got very poor ratings befitting baloney. They keep linking Iraq to 9/11 which is bogus. It's sad really, since the people in the ads don't want their sacrifices to have been in vain, and yet remaining in Iraq will only result in more vain sacrifices. The Army ran a recruiting commercial touting a Hispanic soldier and then had to pull it when he was killed in Iraq, because it had become an embarrassment.

I guess the joke is that if "Freedom's Watch" is an example of "Jewish cleverness," then they're highly overrated. American Jews are very much against the war. What's that phrase Abbie Hoffman used against Judge Julius Hoffman during the Chicago Seven Trial? He said in Yiddish that the Judge was "a henchman for the Goyim." That pretty much sums up this group.

[David]

Phil Weiss, you can't be responsible for controlling all the comments here, but you really ought to delete that fake post that Rowan pointed out. It's not fair to him. Also, the post is one of those "he's an antisemite" ones, and we all have a responsibility to trash and ridicule every claim of "antisemitism" we come across. The word no longer has any meaning and it's use has resulted in too much harm to the world.

[bill Pearlman]

Alan, you've brilliantly pieced things together. But theres nothing you can do about it. We've attained control of the United States and Europe. We run it all, ( personally I'm going to make a request that we throw you out of your house ) Next, I think we should take control of Saudi Arabia and sell mecca and medina to Disney, which we of course control, (I'm thinking theme park). One of these days I'll get into the Kennedy assasination.

[Klaus Bloemker]

conflating religion end ethnicity
____________________________________

The Jewish people IS the religious community. A non-believing, non-observant Jew is a member of that community who lives in sin. To be Jewish is like belonging to a club from which there is no resignation.

I was wrong when I said some time ago Bill Pearlman could quit that club by revoking his contract with Yahwe. He can't, his only choice is to become a Jew who lives in sin. As far as Israel is concerned they don't care whether their supporters live in 'sin'.

[Rowan Berkeley]

Hi Rowan,

Thank you for your report. TypePad users may exercise their freedom of speech on a wide variety of topics, including expressing negative opinions about another person. Six Apart is not in a position to determine the authenticity of comments or names associated with thise commens, or whether or not such opinions are true or false, as this determination can only be made in a court of law. Under the Communications Decency Act, the responsibility for any false opinions lies with the account holder, not Six Apart. We suggest you attempt to resolve this issue directly with the account holder.

Thanks,
Zalary
TypePad Technical Services
Six Apart, Ltd.

JUST REMOVE THE FAKE COMMENTS, PHIL, PLEASE

[Pvt. Keepout]

"The United States has given Israel $51.3 billion in military grants...most of it after 1974...$11.2 billion in loans for military equipment, plus $31 billion in economic grants, not to mention loan guarantees or joint military projects. But major conditions on these military grants have meant that 74 percent of it has remained in the U.S. to purchase American arms. Since it creates jobs and profits in many districts, Congress is more than ready to respond to the cajoling of the Israel lobby. This vast sum has both enabled and forced Israel to prepare to fight an American-style war. But the US since 1950 has failed to win any of its big wars."
Israel's Last Chance by Gabriel Kolko, AntWar.Com, March 17, 2007
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/kolko.php?articleid=10689

Thanks for all the money.
BAE Systems, Bechtel, Boeing, Elbit Systems, General Dynamics, Halliburton KBR, Honeywell, IMI, L-3 Communications, Lockheed Martin, Northrop, Rafael, Raytheon, SAIC, SIBAT, United Technologies, etc., etc., etc.
Sorry about your kids.

[Rowan Berkeley]

Phil:

Please, please, please remove the fake comments. I beg of you. I'll do anything to untarnish my sullied reputation. All I have is my good name. Only you can fix it. My Hebrew teacher thinks that I am a bad guy and this really hurts me. I can't get dinner reservations and it's making my hemorrhoids act up.

Regards,

Rowan

[Alan]

Rowan, Phil has often admitted he rarely reads his comments section. Your best chance is to e-mail him directly. If he is not responding, maybe he is on vacation or something. Or maybe his e-mail filter thinks your e-mails are spam and deletes them automatically, in which case your best bet is to use other accounts and friends to e-mail him. Someone should get through.

[Joachim Martillo]

I worked with Israeli defense corporations for many years. The State of Israel long ago found ways to get around the restrictions of buying American by setting up wholly owned American subsidiaries of Israeli corporations or by creating American holding corporations, purchasing equipment from them and sending the money back to Israel.

I also am unconvinced that all billionaire supporters of Israel love it for purely Zionist reasons. Israel and Egypt have about the same level of financial transparency. If a businessman wants to make a transaction opaque, doing it through Israel is a good way to achieve the goal.

When I read the writings of Herzl, Nordau and Jabotinsky, I also have the impression that mainly they wanted to create a movement in which they could have the leadership positions that they believed to be theirs by right.

Ahavat Yisrael and devotion to the land was not in their personalities. Imagining any of them actually permanently settling in Palestine is difficult while Eastern European ethnic Ashkenazim were simply a vehicle for them to achieve their political goals.

[Rowan Berkeley]

It seems to me that there are probably quite a few right wingers who would support me in a slander action against you, Phil.

In fact, the web is crawling with people who hate your guts.

Did you consider that before deciding to ignore my requests to remove the criminal slander?

[mikey]

Jumpin Jehozaphats, if the Jewish cabal is so friggin SMART, how come a bunch of goyisches lunkhead blog commentators got em ALL FIGURED OUT?? Hey, mebbe its true, maybe you goyim's is da MASTA RACE. You so SMAAAART!!!!!

[mikey]

Jumpin Jehozaphats, if the Jewish cabal is so friggin SMART, how come a bunch of goyisches lunkhead blog commentators got em ALL FIGURED OUT?? Hey, mebbe its true, maybe you goyim's is da MASTA RACE. You so SMAAAART!!!!!

[mikeymikey]

N BERK"LEY SEZ "I am asking is that the forged posts in my name on the following page be removed, since they have cost me real world opportunities."

Goodness, wut's this world comin to, when being an anti-Semitic peabrain be costin an internetwit "real world opportunities"??? It's a shanda!!!

[Winston]

Rowan - Phil admitted earlier that he is afraid of reading his comments. Not kidding. Your best bet is too simply post some comments on the page in question explaining that someone else is using your name and then explain how your genuine views differ from whatever they have tried to tie to your good name. I'm sure any fair minded person would be able to discern truth from fiction in that case. If you have your own blog you may wish to make clear how your views differ from whatever ideas people are associating you with.

[Bill Pearlman]

Absolutely Joechim, I can see where YOU would be the first guy on the list of hires for an Israeli defense company,no question about.

[Moshe Goldberg]

Phil - In reading your blog I think you are really focusing on selective evidence in order to bolster your beliefs.

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=14420

Beating The ‘Rachel Corrie’ Rap
The Palestinian narrative gets a thorough airing Off Broadway, with nuanced scripts and shrewd marketing.
Eric Herschthal - Staff Writer

It appears safe to say that the ghosts looming after the raucous New York debut last October of “My Name is Rachel Corrie” — the politically explosive play about an American killed by an Israeli bulldozer while guarding a Palestinian home — have departed.

How else can one explain the popular and critical success of two Off-Broadway productions — “Masked,” written by Israeli Ilan Hatsor, and “The Black Eyed,” by Palestinian-American Betty Shamieh — both of which opened earlier this month?

Both plays view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict exclusively from a Palestinian perspective, but neither has attracted the public outrage, production mishaps or sheer spectacle that defined “Rachel Corrie.”

Slated to run at the New York Theatre Workshop in March of 2006, “Rachel Corrie” was derailed after the theater’s director, James C. Nicola, decided it would create too much controversy. Six months later, it ran at the Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Village, backed by different producers. It had a two-month stay, a month longer than expected, but most performances were accompanied by activists handing out pamphlets both for and against the Palestinian cause.

What might be called “the Rachel Corrie effect” — fear that plays dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would be impossible to produce so close on the heels of that production — has largely been unsubstantiated.

And people involved with both “Masked” and “The Black Eyed” think they know why: A mix of carefully crafted marketing strategies, and, perhaps more importantly, scripts that avoid simplistic political judgments, have made both productions examples of how to do political theater, and how to do it without all the mess.

“I always thought it would be an issue,” said Sam Gold, director of “The Black Eyed,” about getting both financial and popular support in the wake of “Rachel Corrie.”

“But it never became one,” he said.

His play imagines four Arab women — ranging from the biblical Delilah to a modern-day Palestinian suicide bomber — who debate the morality of martyrdom. All the women defend their actions with conviction.

While Delilah and Aiesha, the suicide bomber, justify their violent tactics, Tamam, the wife of a murdered Muslim during the first Crusades, along with a character known only as “The Architect,” denounce death, whatever the injustice. The play remains ambivalent as to whom the heroes are.

Shamieh, who is of Christian Palestinian heritage, “does not take a position,” said Hala Nassar, a professor of modern culture and literature at Yale, who spoke at a post-performance discussion. “She just puts it out there for you — even the martyrs themselves are questioning their own actions.”

Avoiding judgment has been crucial to the play’s success, said Gold. “The Black Eyed” has been showing to mostly at-capacity audiences, as was the case when this reporter attended a recent Thursday evening performance. It will close, as planned, after more than a month on stage on Sunday, Aug. 19.

“To me, the play is about women, about neuroses, about Arabs — I don’t think it speaks to one community,” said Gold. The 29-year-old director, who is Jewish, came across Shamieh’s play at the Hanger Theatre Lab in upstate Ithaca, in the summer of 2002. Gold was part of a panel responsible for choosing the 10 best plays worthy of production, and deciding which of those he himself would workshop and direct. He chose “The Black Eyed” and has been working on it with Shamieh for the past five years.

For her part, Shamieh said in an e-mail, “I see the play as a showdown of the pacifist and the militant.” She added that she “tried [her] best to have each character fully articulate their differing perspective.” Still, she avoided making any clear judgment on the issue of martyrdom — even if it involves suicide bombing.

That fact in itself could expose the play to controversy. But none has arisen, those involved with the play said.

Nassar, the Yale professor, said however that the play was still vulnerable. “I’m afraid of how some Westerners [might] receive this play.” She strongly condemned suicide bombing, but added that Western audiences “should look at it from another perspective. Look at what breeds it.”

“The Black Eyed,” oddly enough, has been showing at the New York Theatre Workshop, the same complex that scrapped production of “My Name is Rachel Corrie.”

Nicola, the theater’s artistic director, declined to comment on the “Rachel Corrie” controversy, but the theater’s managing director, Lynn Moffat, acknowledged that there was initial concern.

“We thought that there might [be] some questions from people about ‘Rachel Corrie,’ but that was the extent of it,” Moffat wrote in an e-mail. She said the marketing strategy — ads placed in The New York Times, Time Out magazine and elsewhere — remained the same though.

The producers and director behind “Masked” — which focuses on three Palestinian brothers forced to choose between joining the first intifada or being accused of collaboration — said they had been unaware that “The Black Eyed” would be debuting simultaneously with their play. But since, they have begun cross-marketing with one another.

That is just the latest in a carefully planned marketing strategy that has been a key element to that play’s ability to stave off controversy, producers say. The marketing plan focused on limiting publicity during its pre-production and preview phases.

For instance, initial preview performances, which began in mid-July, were reserved mostly for targeted Jewish and Muslim groups. Press releases and ad placements also began about three weeks prior to the play’s opening, rather than a more customary two to three months, said Seth A. Goldstein, one of the show’s main producers.

Marketing also involved hiring a special “community outreach” consultant who drummed up support from varied Jewish organizations, some of whose leaders now participate in the “Urgent Conversations” series that follows many of the show’s performances.

The DR2 Theatre, where “Masked” is being staged, announced this week that it was extending performances through Nov. 4. Though it had scheduled an open run, the last performance was originally scheduled for Sept. 23.

Still, Goldstein said, “it was harder for us to raise money because of ‘Rachel Corrie.’” He added that at least one Jewish leader backed out of a post-performance discussion after that leader’s organization expressed concern over the play’s content. Goldstein would not name either the leader or his organization.

Nonetheless, recent post-performance discussions have featured several local rabbis, Jewish artists and activists, and even Ruth Dayan, first wife of the iconic Israeli Gen. Moshe Dayan. (She is also a distant cousin of the director.)

While producers said it was initially difficult to get Arabs and Muslims to participate in the play, both as panelists and as audience members, recent weeks have been more successful.

Last week, Imam Samer Alraey, an assistant sheik at the Islamic Cultural Center, participated in a post-performance discussion, and this Sunday, Linda Sarsour, the director of the Arab American Association of New York, will be a post-performance discussant. At a recent post-performance discussion, too, a Palestinian in the audience voiced his admiration of the work.

“The idea that an Israeli wrote this,” said Ami Dayan, the Israeli-born director, in an interview from his home in Colorado, “resonates with an Arab audience.”

Dayan has noted that “Masked” was one of the first highly touted plays written by an Israeli, in 1990, to view the conflict exclusively from the Palestinian perspective. When the play first debuted in Israel, at the well-regarded Acco Fringe Festival, it won the top prize, and has since been translated into dozens of languages and performed in scores of countries.

Goldstein also realized that its Israeli provenance — despite its indirect slights at Israel, as evidenced by scenes discussing the killing of a 7-year-old Palestinian by the Israeli military — made it more palatable to a Jewish audience. “Because it’s an Israeli writer,” Goldstein said, “it’s a comfortable context.”

Like the team behind “The Black Eyed,” Hatsor, who wrote “Masked,” said in an e-mail from Israel that it was his play’s non-polemical nature that ultimately has made it a success, both internationally and now in New York.

“As a playwright, I’m not neutral,” he wrote. “But I try to bring my audience as many points of view as I can. That’s the advantage of theater, and I use it.”

[Joachim Martillo]

The title more or less says it all. The people that objected to the staging of "My Name is Rachel Corrie" want right and wrong to be muddy if it is no longer possible to depict Zionism as heroic and virtuous.

http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9616728

New play

The muddiness of right and wrong

Aug 9th 2007
From The Economist print edition

-------------

Betty accepts a lot of the Zionist narrative in The Black-Eyed. I understand why she does it, but I would not. I suppose that is the reason she can get production funding, and I cannot.

For a more Palestinian understanding of the issue of terrorism in the context of the theft of Palestine by racist Central and Eastern Europeans, I recommend Susan Abulhawa's "The Scar of David."

If you want the impression of a horrified observer, you can take a look at:

http://members.aol.com/ThorsProvoni/twoweeks.pdf -- Two Weeks in September: A Desperate Palestinian Refugee Family agree to star in an Israeli pornographic film in order to pay for medical treatment for a desperately ill child -- inspired by true events.

http://members.aol.com/ThorsProvoni/NewTwoWeddings.pdf -- Devorah's Two Weddings: When an Israeli American woman, who is a returnee to Judaism, realizes at her wedding to a similar return that she is making a big mistake, she fixates on her new husband's opposite, the Palestinian violinist that plays at her wedding -- all inspired by true events, but I moved the story from Jerusalem to Boston.

A director friend suggested some modifications to Two Weeks in September to get it past the Wiesenthal Center. The changes may be okay, but the current version may take too much time to reach the critical turning point.

An Israeli peace activist recognized all the real people on which the characters of Two Weeks in September were based, but she felt my depiction of checkpoints was too harsh. I thought I was too kind. In 10 years, I never had a good experience at a checkpoint.

Just a further note on Devorah's Two Weddings.

Even though I was inspired by a real story, I worked it into the frame of The Heartbreak Kid.

Spielberg's remake of the classic Elaine May/Neil Simon film will hit the theaters Oct. 5. I thought it was supposed to use some of the ideas from Trop belle pour toi (Blier, Depardieu, 1989), but the trailer (http://tinyurl.com/yr9tmu) makes the story seem rather adolescent -- not surprising for a film directed by the (ugh!) Farrelly brothers (Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, Something about Mary).

I may not be a professional screenwriter, but I think my approach in Devorah's Two Weddings to this sort of story works better and represents a better updating of the Jewish cultural milieu from the 1970s to the 2000s.

Ruth Wisse hated the original Heartbreak Kid. I am sure she would hate Devorah's Two Weddings even more.

[Klaus Bloemker]

Rowan Berkeley
_______________

From what I remember, Rowan is intellectually a couple of notches above the usual anti-Semitic suspects. Why does he care? Immanuel Kant was an anti-Semite by today's Jewish mind-police standards but he had quite a following among German Jews of the enlightenment. Karl Popper - besides Wittgenstein probably THE philosopher of the 20th centuary - considered Judaism's concept of 'the chosen people' an "evil concept" - so what?
People who equate criticism of Judaism with Nazi-thought would have been a couple of notches below Karl Popper's contempt (and Kant's if he had lived in our times).

[kei & yuri (LAT)]

Phillip Weiss, onetime commenter Rowan Berkeley was slandered by a typical internet Zionist namestealer who cost him a treasured seat in his Hebrew class and the respect of his teacher.
Rowan is very upset. Having been namestolen almost every day since we first appeared at Eschaton years ago, we tried telling him to get over it. Of course, we've never lost a friendship over this kind of garbage.
We don't expect you to sort through comments and worry over the style and vocabulary (the namestealer, as is apparently a rule, is a moron), but you have yourself gone through this self-righteous Jewish bullshit. You could mention his case in a post about the damage this petty pretend Gideon's Rebels crap causes.
Anyway, he says he is going to complain to the ISP and try to make as trouble as possible (we did say he's angry).

[liberal white boy]

Do you have something against blond hookers Mr. Pearlman? Or just Arabs and blond hookers?

[bill Pearlman]

No, I don't discriminate between hookers. Wouldn't be right. But the Saudi royal family leans toward blonds. Look, the average Arab despot could finance 20 Aipacs but they have other priorities. Hell, what Arafat stole alone could finance a few presidential campaigns. They just have other things they want to do.

[LanceThruster]

The Rowan Berkeley situation seems quite a problem as even some of the posts requesting deletions seem possibly fraudulent. I have had serveral sites actually change the text of what I wrote (Jewlicious.com for one) but as far as I know, no one has tried to usurp my identity (though there is at least one other unique LanceThruster it seems). It's sadly telling that those claiming to have a credible argument resort to such tactics. It appears "by any means necessary" and "war by deception" are alive and well with the Z-Team.

[PenisPusher]

You tell 'em LT. You so bad. Ummmmph.

[LanceThruster]

Yawn.

[David]

Freedom Watch board member Matthew Brooks: "You know that Saddam paid a bounty of $25,000 to the families of Palestinian homicide bombers."

I'm always amazed when Zionists have the chutzpah to bring this subject up, reminding us as it does of Israel's policy of collective punishment. Not only will the house of a suicide bomber's family be demolished, but also the houses of his relatives. (With 20,000 leveled so far, it's clear that Israel is looking for every opportunity to get rid of Palestinian houses.)

Under those conditions, is money sent to the families best described as a bounty or aid?

[Alan]

People don't realise what we are dealing with here.

Read and weep:

1) Who is Sibel Edmonds?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds

2) "What the heck is Sibel Edmonds’ Case about? And why should I care?"

http://www.outlawjournalism.com/news/?p=4584

3) Sibel Edmonds on the hijacking of a nation:

Part I:
http://nswbc.org/Op%20Ed/Op-ed-Part1-Nov15-06.htm

Part II:
http://nswbc.org/Op%20Ed/Part2-FNL-Nov29-06.htm

4) Interviews:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9774.htm
http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=6934
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/horton.php?articleid=7032

[bill Pearlman]

Well Dave, some might call it incentive. If for example you and your family were wiped out by a suicide bomber you might feel differently. But, I guess Jews just kind of have it coming. Am I right.

[Joachim Martillo]

If the criminal Zionist invader population returned the property that it stole, restored the residence rights of which the native population was deprived, turned over the genocidal Zionist leadership to the Hague for trial, and paid compensatory and exemplary damages for the crimes of Zionism, I have little doubt that suicide attacks would cease.

Pearlman whining is typical. "We Jews are not responsible for the suffering that we have created. The fault lies with the people that we have wronged."

I call it the "Polish Jewish estate manager's lament."

"I am just doing what is in the best interests of the Polish lord. So what if I profit even more than he, and the serfs suffer unbearably."

Often when the Polish lord actually understood what the estate manager was doing, the lord would execute the manager, and of course the Jewish community would whine about opression (especially when the family of estate manager bribed the local rabbis to eulogize the executed estate manager) even though the actions of such an estate manager tended to make the serfs hostile to Jews and even though dissociation from and condemnation of the estate manger would have been both rational and ethical for the ordinary Jews that received no benefit whatsoever from the estate manager's greed.

I have read several cases of such executions including one by a Potocki prince noted for his Judeophilia.

In any case, because I have worked in areas where there was a danger of a suicide attack, I have had the discussion about blame with my wife, and after explaining all that I had seen of Zionist brutality, I told her that in the event of my death she should blame only the Zionist government, the Zionist military, the Zionist civilian population and racist ethnic Ashkenazi American traitors that have manipulated the US government into supporting Zionist criminality.

I discussed the issue with an Israeli Palestinian friend, whose family business was subjected to a suicide attack, and he took exactly the same postion.

And I should add that Vladimir Jabotinsky recommended to German Jews in 1939 that they should undertake suicide attacks against German non-Jews (whether Nazi or not) even though conditions for Jews in Nazi Germany in 1939 were far superior to the conditions under which Palestinians live in the Occupied Territories.

As I remember, Elie Wiesel justified the murder of a British civilian policeman in mandatory Palestine in his novel, "Dawn," because it served Zionist ethnic fundamentalism and the goal of stealing Palestine from the native population.

If we do not call Zionist racists hypocrites, we have to agree that they have a strong case of situational ethics.

[bill Pearlman]

Ah the Polish Jewish estate managers lament. Love the rhetorical flourish Joechim. But certainly the Polish Jews deserved execution did they not. The same way that israeli Jews deserve suicide bombings, and Argentinian Jews had it coming to them also. But what of the bombings in England. Certainly the English government, the BBC, the Guardian, are not under control of the racist, oppressive, genocidal, ethnic Ashkenazi conspiracy, are `they?

[Anonymous]

"to the families of Palestinian homicide bombers"

So the "suicide bombers" are a thing of the past. Richard Witty must be proud.

[Anonymous]

"Rowan Berkeley - From what I remember, Rowan is intellectually a couple of notches above the usual anti-Semitic suspects. Why does he care?"

The day MickeyMickey and PenisPusher start writting books and signing 'Immanuel Kant'and 'Karl Popper' we will have the opportunitty to ask the philosophers' enraged ghosts why do they care.

I guess Rowan is making a point here: his name is his own and only his mind may speak through it. I agree with him and regret he is absent from this forum.

[Joachim Martillo]

Let's be clear if I have not. I will have a lot more sympathy for Israeli Jews if the State of Israel returns the property it stole, restores Palestinian residence rights, and pays compensation for damages.

Until then, the Zionist thieves and interlopers simply have no legitimate complaint when desperate Palestinians do a fraction to Zionists of what Zionists have done to Palestinians.

And I cannot think of a legitimate pragmatic, ideological, or ethnical reason why the USA should support Zionist criminality.

So tell me Bill. If you have to choose between US and Israeli interests, which would you choose? All American Israel supporters must answer that question.

[Bill Pearlman]

Well, Joechim I'm a pretty right wing Jewish Republican guy. You on the other hand are a anti-semitic, neo-nazi, jihadi,lunatic, Moslem. So, I'm going to say that are perception of US interests are going to differ.

[Joachim Martillo]

I asked a general question that is independent of an individual's judgment of interests.

If you have to choose between US and Israeli interests, which would you choose?

The US and Israel are distinct countries. Do you disagree that situations could arise in which US and Israeli interests conflict?

Are you able to distinguish US interests from Israeli interests?

[Bill Pearlman]

Very much so Joechim, what about you. Between America and Al-Quada, America, and Hamas, America and Hezbollah, America and Iran. What side do you come down on

[David]

Pearlman has already answered this question in another thread. He said his ultimate loyalties would lie with the state he has chosen not to live in. (Because of "antisemitism.")

[Bill Pearlman]

David, I know your prone to making things up. But I believe your hanging your hat in Spain. Where do you stand?

[Joachim Martillo]

My primary political loyalties lie with the USA. If I have to choose between the interests of the USA and those of any country, I choose the USA. You still have not answered, Bill.

Al-Qa`ida a criminal organization while Hamas and Hizbu-llah are political parties, whose political program like those of the French Socialist Party might not be congruent with US strategic foreign policy, but we do not expect foreign political parties to agree with the US government at all times anymore than we expect the Democrats and Republicans to agree at all times.

But if I were a US official proposing foreign policy choices, I would recommend policies to benefit the USA. Many ethnic Ashkenazi Americans in such a role are proposing policies designed to benefit the State of Israel to the harm of the USA.

At a time when the USA is mobilized for armed conflict, such behavior of US government officials comes very close to seditious conspiracy (a Title 18 violation), and ethnic Ashkenazi Americans have to start explaining their loyalties especially when so many ethnic Ashkenazim are accusing Muslim Americans of supporting terrorism and of disloyalty to the USA.

[Alan]

For Bill, the term "US and/or Israeli interests" means the interests of the part of the Jewish Elite he serves. Understanding code is essential in understanding what people like Bill really mean when they speak or write, and how seemingly absurd statements and beliefs actually make sense.

For instance, Bill's usual accusation that Phil and commentators here want "the destruction of Israel" means the destruction of his Eretz (Greater) Israel fantasy, because that's what he understands as Israel, not the actual country most of us have in mind.

When he uses the word "Jew", he usually has in mind those who share his biblical fantasies and who would not hesitate to do anything, and I mean anything, to that end. He means those who have a Jewish identity crisis and who think being radical in their support for Israel would somehow validate their Jewishness.

Some code:

Occupied = "disputed"
Settlement = "neighborhood"
Ethnic cleansing = "transfer"
Resistance = "terrorism"
Utter domination = "peace", and so on.

The neo-cons also have a very distinct and elaborate code, where terms like "freedom", "democracy", "peace" etc have a very different meaning than what the uninitiated assume, and in order to understand this, reading Orwell is essential - even though the term "doublespeak" is not his. See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink

[Bill Pearlman]

Alan, just to start off, eretz means land, not greater. If anybody has an identity crisis its Phil and his fellow travelers who validate themselves by making opposition to Israel the sum total of their Jewish identity. The legal status of the west bank happens to be disputed. Define the difference to me between a settlement and neighborhood. By your definition any Jewish presence at all is a "settlement". Ethnic cleansing, transfer, where exactly is that happening. The Palestinian population always seems to be going up. Well, to me dead Jews is terrorism, to you it's resistance. Utter domination= peace. I don't even understand where your going with that one.

[Alan]

David Horowitz “Declares” Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week for October 22-26.

“During the week of October 22-26, 2007, the nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever – Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.”

http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=59#more-59

[Alan]

Bill wrote: "Alan, just to start off, eretz means land, not greater."

Yeah Bill, but the concept of biblical Eretz Israel corresponds to what is understood today as Greater Israel, since we are talking about a land that in some interpretations stretches from Egypt to the Euphrates and which in any case is much larger than present day Israel.

"The Tanakh (or Hebrew Bible, referred to also as the "Old Testament" by Christians) contains several descriptions of the borders of the land.[1] These descriptions encompass a region that extends from the "River of Egypt"[2] to the Euphrates. Areas known to be included are the modern State of Israel, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), the Gaza Strip, and parts of modern-day Syria and Lebanon. The biblically described region also encompasses the Sinai Peninsula, which is widely believed to encompass the route of the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt. The land allocated east of the Jordan River in Numbers 34:1-15 includes much of Jordan."

See maps and different descriptions of the actual borders:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Israel

[Alan]

Meanwhile, as Horowitz tries to save us from "Islamo-Fascism, the other people who brought to us the great "cakewalk" continue pressing for "freedom" in Iran:

"Just four days after the American Enterprise Institute will launch its September 6 “All or Nothing” campaign to save the Surge, it will debut “Freedom Scholar” Michael Ledeen’s forthcoming book, “The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots’ Quest for Destruction” (St. Martin’s Press), a rehash of neo-con arguments for “regime change” – by military force, if necessary – in Tehran."

http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=58#more-58

You gotta love the "Freedom Agenda".

[Joachim Martillo]

Just a note on the term greater Israel, with the qualification that my command of idiomatic modern Israeli Hebrew is shaky.

I remember the slogan from the 80s:

Eretz shalom tov meeretz shlemah.

A land (of Israel) [Eretz] at peace (shalom) is better than a greater (shalem -- complete) land of Israel.

In the classical Hebrew I studied in prep school, I believe the proper phraseology would be:

Tov eretz hashalom mehaaretz hashlemah.

Classical Hebrew like modern Arabic requires determination where Modern Israeli Hebrew is indefinite in imitation of German and Polish or Russian idiom.

[Phil Weiss]

Hi Rowan, sorry as Alan pointed out I am out of it a lot, apologies. I will remove those comments now. I share your anger over misrepresentation and wish there were a way to police it automatically. Phil

[Alan]

Phil, you could offer the option to "lock" a nickname with a valid e-mail address for anyone who so wishes. Thus, unless a provocateur knows the e-mail address of the commentator, he can't use his/her nickname. That would be good for the regulars. Others could still post real fast without going through this.

Anyway, it seems the Kagan family are trying really hard to surpass the Podhoretzes in warmongering. You gotta love their family values:

The Iran Dossier
Iraq Report VI: Iran's proxy war against the U.S. in Iraq.

by Kimberly Kagan

http://www.weeklystandard.com/

Glenn Greenwald has a very pessimistic entry in his blog today regarding the campaign to bring "freedom" to Iran:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/08/29/iran/index.html

I've got only one thing to say to the Israel-first crowd: Be careful what you wish for. If the US goes to war with Iran, the backlash against you will be like a tsunami. And the anti-Semitism canard won't help you out. Remember my words.

[bill Pearlman]

Nice touch on that last one Alan. Do you have video of Hitler's Reichstag speeches. sounds very familiar.

[Arie Brand]

Alan raised the question as to what motivates Cheney and quoted various people who state that the Cheney of today seems to be quite different from the Cheney they knew in the past.

I read the stuff to which Alan provided a link and I am surprised that nowhere the point was made that between the Cheney of today and the man they knew in the past fell some of his key appointments: his CEO-function at Halliburton and, later, as Vice President, his chairmanship of the National Energy Policy Development Group that reported to Bush the Lesser in 2001.

Cheney might have come to see a frightening prospect when so engaged: the US not being able to cover its need for OIL.

Here are some telling passages of a speech he gave in 1999 at the London Institute of Petroleum, when he was still CEO of Halliburton. I have capitalised a key passage in it.

“From the standpoint of the oil industry obviously - and I'll talk a little later on about gas - for over a hundred years we as an industry have had to deal with the pesky problem that once you find oil and pump it out of the ground you've got to turn around and find more or go out of business. Producing oil is obviously a self-depleting activity. Every year you've got to find and develop reserves equal to your output just to stand still, just to stay even. This is as true for companies as well in the broader economic sense it is for the world. A new merged company like Exxon-Mobil will have to secure over a billion and a half barrels of new oil equivalent reserves every year just to replace existing production. It's like making one hundred per cent interest; discovering another major field of some five hundred million barrels equivalent every four months or finding two Hibernias a year. For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. OIL REMAINS FUNDAMENTALLY A GOVERNMENT BUSINESS. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, THE MIDDLE EAST WITH TWO THIRDS OF THE WORLD'S OIL AND THE LOWEST COST, IS STILL WHERE THE PRIZE ULTIMATELY LIES, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow."

That 'pesky problem' Cheney refers to is indeed life size. No reserves equal to the world's output of oil have been discovered for quite some time. The man who put these passages of Cheney's speech on the web, Professor Aleklett of Sweden, has emphasized that more than most.

In the same speech Cheney complained that the oil industry didn't have political influence commensurate with its importance. As VP he obviously has done something about that.

“Oil is the only large industry whose leverage has not been all that effective in the political arena. Textiles, electronics, agriculture all seem oftentimes to be more influential. Our constituency is not only oilmen from Louisiana and Texas, but software writers in Massachusetts and especially steel producers in Pennsylvania. I am struck that this industry is so strong technically and financially yet not as politically successful or influential as are often smaller industries. We need to earn credibility to have our views heard.”

He also complained about the obstacle provided by US-imposed economic sanctions. As VP he has done something about that as well (Libya !).

In the report by the National Energy Policy Development Group that was, as said, chaired by Cheney, the great importance of the Middle East for the world's oil supply was again emphasized:

“By 2020, Gulf oil producers are projected to supply between 54 and 67 percent of the world’s oil. Thus, the global economy will almost certainly continue to depend on the supply of oil from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members, particularly in the Gulf. This region will remain vital to U.S. interests”.

Cheney's motivation seems, given his convictions on this matter, not all that obscure. It doesn't seem to be concern for Israel (he was after all a key cabinet member in the administration of Bush Major who had little love to spare for that obnoxious country). Couldn't it be that he has decided to play, in the wish for the US to lay a hand on the world's main remaining oil reserves, the prime US card: its military strength?

That he is, in the judgment of many, playing it wrongly is another matter.

[DavidM]

Excellent post Arie Brand. Indeed.

[Alan]

Yes Arie, very good post but the whole argument about Oil is very debatable. And there is a very good case to be made that Big Oil can easily be made a convenient scapegoat for reasons other than its true role in this war. Also, Big Oil has wanted for a long time to get a piece of the Iran action with no success. Certainly Cheney does not have the interests of the Oil industry in mind when he obsessively advocates for confrontation with Iran. If he did, he would be negotiating or he would at least allow US Oil companies to do business with Iran, either directly or indirectly.

As far as Iraq goes, many insiders for the Oil industry have said that what really matters to them is stability. Contrary to the "cakewalk" optimism trumpeted for propaganda reasons, in Europe and the US Oil industry insiders had many doubts about the Iraq campaign, which have been indeed validated.

I don't have much time to find and post related links (maybe David could) but I will post here James Petras who has been writing a lot about this issue claiming that the Oil industry was not happy about this war:

"... In contrast to the successful vast propaganda, congressional and media campaigns, organized and funded by the pro-Israel lobbies for the war policies, there is no public record of the big oil companies supporting the Iraq war, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon or the military threats of preemptive attacks on Iran. Interviews with investment bankers, oil company executives and a thorough review of the major Petroleum Institute publications over the past seven years provide conclusive evidence that ‘Big Oil’ was deeply interested in negotiating oil agreements with Saddam Hussein and the Iranian Islamic government. ‘Big Oil’ perceives US Middle East wars as a threat to their long-standing profitable relations with all the conservative Arab oil states in the Gulf. Despite the strategic position in the US economy and their great wealth '‘Big Oil' was totally incapable of countering their political power and organized influence of the pro-Israel lobby. In fact Big Oil was totally marginalized by the White House National Security Advisor for the Middle East, Elliot Abrams, a fanatical Zionist and militarist.

Despite the massive and sustained pro-war activity of the leading Zionist organizations inside and outside of the government and despite the absence of any overt or covert pro-war campaign by ‘Big Oil’, the leaders of the US peace movement have refused to attack the pro-Israel war lobby and continue to mouth unfounded clichés about the role of ‘Big Oil’ in the Middle East conflicts.

The apparently ‘radical’ slogans against the oil industry by some leading intellectual critics of the war has served as a ‘cover’ to avoid the much more challenging task of taking on the powerful, Zionist lobby. There are several reasons for the failure of the leaders of the peace movement to confront the militant Zionist lobby. One is fear of the powerful propaganda and smear campaign which the pro-Israel lobby is expert at mounting, with its aggressive accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ and its capacity to blacklist critics, leading to job loss, career destruction, public abuse and death threats.

The second reason that peace leaders fail to criticize the leading pro-war lobby is because of the influence of pro-Israel ‘progressives’ in the movement. These progressives condition their support of ‘peace in Iraq’ only if the movement does not criticize the pro-war Israel lobby in and outside the US government, the role of Israel as a belligerent partner to the US in Lebanon, Palestine and Kurdish Northern Iraq. A movement claiming to be in favor of peace, which refuses to attack the main proponents of war, is pursuing irrelevance: it deflects attention from the pro-Israel high officials in the government and the lobbyists in Congress who back the war and set the White House’s Middle East agenda. By focusing attention exclusively on President Bush, the peace leaders failed to confront the majority pro-Israel Democratic congress people who fund Bush’s war, back his escalation of troops and give unconditional support to Israel’s military option for Iran."

http://petras.lahaine.org/articulo.php?p=1704

**********

On the other hand, the geopolitical importance of the Middle East due to its energy reserves has been acknowledged for decades and is indeed the reason of US involvement. (In 1953 Mossadegh was overthrown in Iran by the US and British governments for daring to try to nationalize the Oil industry.) And it's also no secret. See USCENTCOM's description of its mission:

www.milnet.com/pentagon/centcom/toc.htm

a) Mission (www.milnet.com/pentagon/centcom/chap1/over1.htm)

The mission of the U.S. Central Command is four-fold:

* Promote and protect the interests of the United States
* Ensure uninterrupted access to regional resources
* Assist friendly states in providing for their own security and contributing to collective defense
* Deter attempts by hostile regional states to achieve geo-political gains by threat or use of force.

b) Oil (www.milnet.com/pentagon/centcom/chap1/aor.htm)

Unrestricted access by the industrial nations of the world to the Central Region's vast oil reserves remains an imperative. Despite previous oil price shocks which caused many nations to temporarily pursue energy alternatives, no appreciable decline in the world's demand for oil is predicted in the foreseeable future. Oil remains a relatively cheap source of energy, limiting incentive to explore alternatives. The narrow crescent of land extending west from Iran and south to the United Arab Emirates contains over two-thirds of the world's proven oil reserves. With declining oil production in the U.S., Russia, and Southeast Asia, world dependence on Gulf oil is expected to rise from one-fourth today to about one-third by the late 1990's. Without costly major development of Russia's oil production capabilities, the world's demand for oil can only be met by the vast oil reserves of the Arabian Gulf region.

c) Access (www.milnet.com/pentagon/centcom/chap1/aor.htm)

This growing global dependence on Gulf oil and the large volume of other trade through the region make unrestricted access to the area vital. The three strategic chokepoints - the Suez Canal, the Bab al Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz - are key to maritime freedom in the region. Control of any of these by a non-friendly power could seriously disrupt trade and restrict access to the region's oil resources. Consequently, it is vital that the sea lines of communication (SLOCs) which pass through these chokepoints are kept open. Unrestricted transit is not only critical to the international merchant fleets, but is also an imperative for the introduction of forces necessary to combat hostile actions which might threaten the oil fields themselves. "

**********

Also, the fact that the American Enterprise Institute has many Oil companies funding it certainly helps to make your argument compelling. In my opinion, the neo-cons were motivated by what they thought would be good for Israel and then managed to get the Military Industrial Complex onboard while overcoming Big Oil's doubts by persuading them that everyone would profit. However, the argument that this war was indeed primarily a "war for oil" and that this was the primary motivation of Bush and Cheney is not something which can be proven right now, and so far it seems that Petras is right when he says that Big Oil didn't lobby them for this to happen. And as I said earlier, it definitely doesn't explain Cheney's obsession with Iran, since Big Oil wants to do business with Iran, not stay away while China and Russia get all the contracts. And since an occupation of Iran to take control of the energy reserves is out of the question, Cheney's stance is definitely contrary to what the Oil industry would want. In final analysis, all those countries, Iraq, Iran and Syria are Israel's enemies, not America's.

[Joachim Martillo]

If Big Oil were really motivating Cheney above all else, would not his staff look rather different.

Oil company funding of the AEI does not prove much. In the USA we think of oil as an industry of the Rockefellers, the Gettys or the Bushes, and in the Middle East we think of Sheikh Yamani, the family of ibn Saud, the Sabbah family etc, but in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Russia oil was very much a Jewish business, and many Jewish immigrants to N. America and W. Europe brough oil industry expertise with them.

Such immigrants helped to found small to middling oil companies throughout the world. Often their ethnic Ashkenazi tribalism and loyalty to the State of Israel trumps their business interests, which would probably have included lifting sanctions on Iraq and enabling Saddam Hussein sell the vast amount of oil that he wanted to put on the market.

[Arie Brand]

The flaw in Petras' argument seems to me that he doesn't consider the possibility that there might be a discrepancy between the interests of Big Oil and America's national interest in this matter, at any case that Cheney might see the issue in this light

As he emphasized: oil remains primarily a governmental business. Oil companies do not have the clout to impose a situation that is in America's national interest, as Cheney sees it.

It could well be that Cheney believes he is serving this interest. Why would a man in his late sixties, who has suffered various heart attacks, and has more wealth than he can ever consume, serve a segmental interest ? This is, in all probability, his last post. It is tragic for him, and for us all, that he seems to be making a monumental cock-up of it.

[Alan]

Arie, in your second paragraph, second sentence, you probably meant to write:

"Oil companies do not have the clout to impose a situation that is [NOT] in America's national interest, as Cheney sees it."

Is that correct? You forgot the word "not"?

[Arie Brand]

No, what I meant to say was that oil companies are neither interested in America's national interest nor have the clout to impose a situation favourable to this if they were.

They are aware of the impending shortage of oil. Theirs is an international business. Their interest is to make as much money out of this situation as possible before the screen falls. To lay their hands on the last remaining main supply of it in the interest of one particular state is probably not their predominant concern.

But it might be Cheney's.

[Joachim Martillo]

I may be overoptimistic, but researchers are probably further along with algal-production of biodiesel than publically published papers indicate.

[David Seaton]

Summing up: one of the things that saddens me most in all this business, for someone, like me, who grew up seeing Jewish people risking their lives in the civil rights movement as "freedom riders" and who spent his weekends on a "Young Red Guards" kibbutz in the 70s is to see people like Phil, Tony Judt, Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky forced into the role of "good Germans".

[Mark Konrad]

Ah yes, the endlessly repeated meme about those "tough" israelis.
-
If they're so tough then they oughtta do something themselves about those mean ol' Iranians they're so worried about.
-
Bibi has been over here in the States lecturing Americans about "another holocaust" (yawn) that the Iranians have in store for them. The Americans "let holocaust #1 occur" according to Bibi. He didn't mention the many thousands of Americans who were killed or gravely injured fighting the Germans in WWII of course.
-
If the israelis are frightened of the Iranians then the israelis need to do something about it themselves, not come over to America and insult Americans then expect Americans to ship out and die fighting israel's enemies (does israel have any friends by the way? Besides American politicians I mean. Why is that?).
-
It's not very convincing to talk about how big and tough the israelis are while the israelis are sniveling about those bad ol' scary Iranians and demanding the U.S. military beat them up. "Go kill them for us" says Bibi.