Netanyahu to a group of Israeli settlers in 2001: "I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction."
***
Yet another Israeli-monkey-on-America's-back story:
How four US presidents, including Obama and Trump, helped protect Israel's nuclear arsenal, Adam Entous, The New Yorker, 18/6/18)
"When a delegation of senior Israeli officials visited the Trump White House on February 13, 2017, they wanted to discuss several issues with their new American counterparts. Topping the list was a secret letter concerning a subject the Israelis had promised the Americans never to discuss publicly - Israel's undeclared nuclear arsenal. In a recent piece for The New Yorker, I described a tense scene in the West Wing as the Israeli delegation - which included Israel's Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer - tried to get the letter signed by President Donald Trump. By all accounts, the American Administration was eager to please the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Trump had promised to lavish with unprecedented support. But, at that chaotic moment, Trump's aides felt blindsided by the Israeli request. They knew nothing about the existence of any letters and were confused by the sense of urgency coming from the Israelis. The Americans had other pressing concerns - later that day, Michael Flynn, the national security adviser, would hand in his resignation letter - and they didn't appreciate feeling as though the Israelis were telling them what to do. 'This is our fuckin' house,' one of the Americans snapped.
"The White House's reaction was understandable. There had been a similar moment of surprise eight years earlier, when Barack Obama became President and received a similar request. The very existence of the letters had been a closely held secret. Only a select group of senior American officials, in three previous Administrations, knew of the letters and how Israeli leaders interpreted them as effectively an American pledge not to press the Jewish state to give up its nuclear weapons so long as it continued to face existential threats in the region. (American officials say the letters weren't that explicit and fell short of constituting a binding commitment.) When Trump's aides moved into the White House, they didn't find any copies of the previous letters left behind by their predecessors. The documents had been sent to the archives. The Israelis, however, had copies.
"Israel crossed the nuclear threshold on the eve of the Six-Day War, in 1967. At that time, it had three nuclear devices, according to Avner Cohen, a nuclear historian... Israeli efforts to build a bomb at the nuclear complex in Dimona had been a source of tension with Washington for nearly a decade, But, by the fall of 1969, when Golda Meir, Israel's Prime Minister, met with Richard Nixon at the White House, Israel's possession of nuclear weapons was a fait accompli and the two sides reached an unwritten understanding: the Israelis would not declare, test, or threaten to use their nuclear weapons, and the Americans would not pressure the Israelis to sign a landmark international nuclear-nonproliferation treaty known as the NPT. (Israel never became a signatory, and US efforts to inspect Dimona stopped.)
"Successive Israeli governments abided by the arrangement... often referred to as Israel's 'policy of ambiguity.' A joint document describing the agreement was never prepared. Instead, each side relied on its own notes, a former official said. President Gerald Ford abided by Nixon's deal... The Israelis first started to feel as though the unwritten Meir-Nixon arrangement was no longer sufficient during the Presisidency of George H.W. Bush, when, after the first Gulf War, in 1991, world powers talked about the possibility of creating a zone in the Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear arms.
"The first iteration of the secret letter was drafted during the Clinton Administration, as part of an agreement for Israel's participation in the 1998 Wye River negotiations with the Palestinians. In the letter, according to former officials, President Bill Clinton assured the Jewish state that no future American arms-control initiative would 'detract' from Israel's 'deterrent' capabilities, an oblique but clear reference to its nuclear arsenal. Later, Israeli officials inserted language to make clear to Washington that Israel would 'defend itself, by itself,' and that it would, therefore, not consider the American nuclear arsenal to be a substitute for Israeli nuclear arms. George W. Bush, when he became president, followed Clinton's lead, signing a similar letter, former officials told me.
"Then, in 2009, a new President, Barack Obama, took office. Almost from the start, Netanyahu was distrustful of Obama, and vice versa. 'With Obama, we were all crazy,' an Israeli official told me. That April, Obama delivered an aspirational speech in Prague, setting out 'America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.' Obama's advisers subsequently learned 'how paranoid Bibi was that Obama was going to try to take away Israel's nuclear weapons,' a former US official told me, adding, 'Of course, that was never our intent.' Obama signed an updated version of the letter in May, 2009.
"While Israeli officials interpreted the letters as an effective commitment by successive American Presidents not to pressure Israel regarding its nuclear arsenal, US officials told me that they viewed the letters as less categorical. 'It was not a blanket 'We'll never ask Israel to give up its nuclear weapons.' It was more 'We accepted the Israeli argument that they're not going to disarm under current conditions in the Middle East,' a former US official told me...
"Ahead of a nonproliferation conference in 2010, Netanyahu became concerned, once again, that Israel would come under international pressure to disarm. In response, Obama made a public statement that echoed the contents of the secret letters, without revealing their existence. 'We discussed issues that arose out of the nuclear nonproliferation conference,' Obama said, after meeting with Netanyahu on July 6, 2010. 'And I reiterated to the Prime Minister that there is no change in US policy when it comes to these issues. We strongly believe that, given its size, its history, the region that it's in, and the threats that are levelled against... it, that Israel has unique security requirements. It's got to be able to respond to threats or any combination of threats in the region. And that's why we remain unwavering in our commitment to Israel's security. And the United States will never ask Israel to take any steps that would undermine their security interests'."
Showing posts with label Israeli nukes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israeli nukes. Show all posts
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Sunday, April 22, 2018
The Next War
Ominous drumbeats in Friday's Australian, from its full-page interview with Israel's new ambassador to these shores, Mark Sofer:
"... the insidious beachhead of Iranian military power pushing into Syria, which shares a border with Israel." (A NOTE TO IRAN: GO HOME, Adam Creighton)
"... Iran is 'crossing a red line'."
"'The Iranians are sitting there, threatening our existence... '"
"... an Iranian government so belligerent that even Arab nations - former enemies of Israel - are looking to Israel to help contain it."
If Israel isn't gearing up for a war this year...
Some other highlights:
"Sofer is at pains to draw a distinction between the Iranian people - 'very erudite' - and the 'half-crazed lunatics' running the theocracy in Tehran."
Says the representative of the half-crazed lunatics running the theocracy in Tel Aviv...
(Remember what happened after another half-crazed lunatic, George W. Bush, drew the same distinction between the Iraqi people and their leader? "Iraq's talented people, rich culture, and tremendous potential have been hijacked by Saddam Hussein." (A vision for Iraq & the Iraqi people, 16/3/03))
"The country is more than pulling its weight in humanitarian terms. 'We're accepting into Israel a huge amount [sic] of Syrian wounded into our hospitals. We don't make a song and dance about it,' he says, referring to the tens of thousands of Syrians being treated for wounds in the north of the country."
And the Oscar goes to...
"The ambassador displays his nation's famously coy attitude to its own military capabilities. 'We're not a nuclear power. We have always said so, and will always say so,' he says when asked about his country's nuclear development. Try finding a source that argues Israel doesn't have a sizeable battery of nuclear weapons. Can anyone blame Israel, though?"
Certainly, you can't, Adam - not if you want to keep your job at the Australian.
"... the insidious beachhead of Iranian military power pushing into Syria, which shares a border with Israel." (A NOTE TO IRAN: GO HOME, Adam Creighton)
"... Iran is 'crossing a red line'."
"'The Iranians are sitting there, threatening our existence... '"
"... an Iranian government so belligerent that even Arab nations - former enemies of Israel - are looking to Israel to help contain it."
If Israel isn't gearing up for a war this year...
Some other highlights:
"Sofer is at pains to draw a distinction between the Iranian people - 'very erudite' - and the 'half-crazed lunatics' running the theocracy in Tehran."
Says the representative of the half-crazed lunatics running the theocracy in Tel Aviv...
(Remember what happened after another half-crazed lunatic, George W. Bush, drew the same distinction between the Iraqi people and their leader? "Iraq's talented people, rich culture, and tremendous potential have been hijacked by Saddam Hussein." (A vision for Iraq & the Iraqi people, 16/3/03))
"The country is more than pulling its weight in humanitarian terms. 'We're accepting into Israel a huge amount [sic] of Syrian wounded into our hospitals. We don't make a song and dance about it,' he says, referring to the tens of thousands of Syrians being treated for wounds in the north of the country."
And the Oscar goes to...
"The ambassador displays his nation's famously coy attitude to its own military capabilities. 'We're not a nuclear power. We have always said so, and will always say so,' he says when asked about his country's nuclear development. Try finding a source that argues Israel doesn't have a sizeable battery of nuclear weapons. Can anyone blame Israel, though?"
Certainly, you can't, Adam - not if you want to keep your job at the Australian.
Thursday, September 21, 2017
When Rudd Went Rogue...
Ever dreamt of having the POWER & INFLUENCE to put words into a politician's mouth? Read on:
"Five days later I [John Lyons] was in Cairo, covering a visit by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd. At a news conference, he spoke about his desire for Iran to agree the regular international inspections of its nuclear facilities. An Egyptian journalist asked: if Iran and other nations had to agree to inspections, why shouldn't Israel? Rudd remarked that he could not dispute the logic, and agreed that all countries with nuclear weapons should have to submit to regular inspections.
"My ears pricked up. I knew Israel preferred that nobody even referred to their nuclear weapons, let alone talked about inspections...
"So after the news conference I asked Rudd if he could elaborate on his comments. He told me: 'Our view has been consistent for a long period of time, and that is that all States in the region should adhere to the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty], and that includes Israel. And therefore their nuclear facility should be subject to IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspection.'
"Soon afterwards, Rudd was a guest at one of Albert Dadon's banquets at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem... The evening had been going calmly... when the mood in the room suddenly changed. An unwelcome guest had just arrived at the banquet courtesy of the Internet. My interview with Kevin Rudd in which he declared that Israel should not be exempt from international inspections had just been published online. People were standing looking at their phones and reading the story. The anger started bouncing off the walls.
"Sylvie came over to me: 'That man over there is telling people that you've verballed Kevin Rudd in your interview!'
"'That man' was Yuval Rotem, Israel's Ambassador to Australia - who had travelled to Jerusalem for that trip...
"By now it was fair to say I was pretty fired up. So often people instinctively blame the messenger if they don't like what someone has said. And so I went looking for Rotem. 'Ambassador, I hear you are telling people that Kevin Rudd did not make those comments about nuclear inspectors.'
"Rotem seemed uncomfortable that I had challenged him. 'Well, no Australian foreign minister has ever said that before,' he answered. 'Why would Kevin Rudd say it?'
"'Don't you think that's a question for you to ask Kevin Rudd?' I resonded. 'There are two tapes of that interview - I have one and Mr Rudd's staff have one. Would you like a copy? And Mr Rudd is just over there... '
"Just then Rudd's chief of staff, Philip Green, walked past. I beckoned him over. 'Philip, Mr Rotem is saying Foreign Minister Rudd never called for international inspectors for Israel's nuclear facilities.'
"'He did,' replied green. 'We have no problem with your story.'
"I then went looking for [Michael] Danby, who was also telling people in the room he doubted the story, and explained the same thing to him. Danby then switched his anger from me to Rudd. 'I'm going to take this up with Andrea Faulkner,' he said, referring to the Australian Ambassador to Israel...
"Now that it was clear that the quotes were not made up, the gates of fury opened against Kevin Rudd. The next morning I saw huddles in the foyer of the King David Hotel as different groups from Dadon's delegation discussed the issue.
"Dadon told me that while theoretically Israel should be under the same regime of inspections as anyone else, in reality they should be exempt. He was going to talk to Rudd and insist that he say at his upcoming press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that Israel had 'unique' security circumstances'.
"At the press conference, Lieberman addressed the nuclear issue. 'What is important is not whether any country is a member of the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] but whether it is responsible,' he said. 'Israel does not regard any inspector as necessary, as it is a responsible country, and we have proved this for many years.'
"Then came Rudd's turn to speak. He concentrated more on Iran's situation, saying Australia was deeply concerned about Iran's nuclear program. Then he mentioned Israel. 'We recognise... Israel's unique security circumstances... but in terms of our fundamental position on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as it applies to this region... all states should be in, including Israel.'
"And so, while he had restated his position, he had added the words that Dadon told me he had wanted him to add.
"Dadon could not come to the press conference but, knowing that I was going along, telephoned me at home that night. He asked: 'Did Kevin use the phrase 'unique security circumstances?'
"'Yes,' I said.
"'Good.'" (Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir, 2017, pp 268-71)
For the details as reported at the time, see my 20/12/10 post The Kevin Rudd Road Show 2.
Yet again: BUY THIS BOOK!
"Five days later I [John Lyons] was in Cairo, covering a visit by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd. At a news conference, he spoke about his desire for Iran to agree the regular international inspections of its nuclear facilities. An Egyptian journalist asked: if Iran and other nations had to agree to inspections, why shouldn't Israel? Rudd remarked that he could not dispute the logic, and agreed that all countries with nuclear weapons should have to submit to regular inspections.
"My ears pricked up. I knew Israel preferred that nobody even referred to their nuclear weapons, let alone talked about inspections...
"So after the news conference I asked Rudd if he could elaborate on his comments. He told me: 'Our view has been consistent for a long period of time, and that is that all States in the region should adhere to the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty], and that includes Israel. And therefore their nuclear facility should be subject to IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspection.'
"Soon afterwards, Rudd was a guest at one of Albert Dadon's banquets at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem... The evening had been going calmly... when the mood in the room suddenly changed. An unwelcome guest had just arrived at the banquet courtesy of the Internet. My interview with Kevin Rudd in which he declared that Israel should not be exempt from international inspections had just been published online. People were standing looking at their phones and reading the story. The anger started bouncing off the walls.
"Sylvie came over to me: 'That man over there is telling people that you've verballed Kevin Rudd in your interview!'
"'That man' was Yuval Rotem, Israel's Ambassador to Australia - who had travelled to Jerusalem for that trip...
"By now it was fair to say I was pretty fired up. So often people instinctively blame the messenger if they don't like what someone has said. And so I went looking for Rotem. 'Ambassador, I hear you are telling people that Kevin Rudd did not make those comments about nuclear inspectors.'
"Rotem seemed uncomfortable that I had challenged him. 'Well, no Australian foreign minister has ever said that before,' he answered. 'Why would Kevin Rudd say it?'
"'Don't you think that's a question for you to ask Kevin Rudd?' I resonded. 'There are two tapes of that interview - I have one and Mr Rudd's staff have one. Would you like a copy? And Mr Rudd is just over there... '
"Just then Rudd's chief of staff, Philip Green, walked past. I beckoned him over. 'Philip, Mr Rotem is saying Foreign Minister Rudd never called for international inspectors for Israel's nuclear facilities.'
"'He did,' replied green. 'We have no problem with your story.'
"I then went looking for [Michael] Danby, who was also telling people in the room he doubted the story, and explained the same thing to him. Danby then switched his anger from me to Rudd. 'I'm going to take this up with Andrea Faulkner,' he said, referring to the Australian Ambassador to Israel...
"Now that it was clear that the quotes were not made up, the gates of fury opened against Kevin Rudd. The next morning I saw huddles in the foyer of the King David Hotel as different groups from Dadon's delegation discussed the issue.
"Dadon told me that while theoretically Israel should be under the same regime of inspections as anyone else, in reality they should be exempt. He was going to talk to Rudd and insist that he say at his upcoming press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that Israel had 'unique' security circumstances'.
"At the press conference, Lieberman addressed the nuclear issue. 'What is important is not whether any country is a member of the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] but whether it is responsible,' he said. 'Israel does not regard any inspector as necessary, as it is a responsible country, and we have proved this for many years.'
"Then came Rudd's turn to speak. He concentrated more on Iran's situation, saying Australia was deeply concerned about Iran's nuclear program. Then he mentioned Israel. 'We recognise... Israel's unique security circumstances... but in terms of our fundamental position on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as it applies to this region... all states should be in, including Israel.'
"And so, while he had restated his position, he had added the words that Dadon told me he had wanted him to add.
"Dadon could not come to the press conference but, knowing that I was going along, telephoned me at home that night. He asked: 'Did Kevin use the phrase 'unique security circumstances?'
"'Yes,' I said.
"'Good.'" (Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir, 2017, pp 268-71)
For the details as reported at the time, see my 20/12/10 post The Kevin Rudd Road Show 2.
Yet again: BUY THIS BOOK!
Friday, September 8, 2017
Israeli Pot to North Korean Kettle
You'd think a UN-defiant, nuclear-armed, apartheid state would simply STFU, but nooo:
"Israel condemned on Monday the hydrogen bomb test carried out by North Korea on Sunday, saying the test 'is a continuation of the defiant conduct' of the country. Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said in a statement that 'North Korea must comply with all of the Security Council resolutions and refrain from testing and developing weapons of mass destruction and the means to launch them." (Israel condemns North Korea's nuclear test, calls for 'decisive international reaction', Barak Ravid, haaretz.com, 4/9/17)
"Israel condemned on Monday the hydrogen bomb test carried out by North Korea on Sunday, saying the test 'is a continuation of the defiant conduct' of the country. Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said in a statement that 'North Korea must comply with all of the Security Council resolutions and refrain from testing and developing weapons of mass destruction and the means to launch them." (Israel condemns North Korea's nuclear test, calls for 'decisive international reaction', Barak Ravid, haaretz.com, 4/9/17)
Saturday, August 6, 2016
Too Many Skeletons in the Closet
1) "More than 400 government documents have gone missing from the [UK] National Archives in the last 4 years. They include Foreign Office files from the 1970s* on 'military and nuclear collaboration with Israel' and a 1947 letter from Winston Churchill." (More than 400 government files missing from National Archives, Tom Bateman, bbc.com, 3/8/16)
2) "Israel is locking away millions of official documents to prevent the darkest episodes in its history from coming to light, civil rights activists and academics have warned as the country's state archives move online... Accusations of increased secrecy come as Israel marks this week the 49th anniversary of the 1967 war, when it seized and occupied Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank and Golan Heights. Many of the the records to which access is being denied refer to that war and the first years of Israel's military rule over Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza... Nonetheless, some of the declassified material was revealing. Uzi Narkiss, who headed the army's central command at the time, suggested that he and other commanders hoped to ethnically cleanse most of the territories under cover of fighting. He told fellow officers: 'Within 72 hours we'll drive out all the Arabs from the West Bank'... One Israeli academic... has estimated that up to a third of records relating to the 1948 war that were declassified have been put under lock again. Given the large number of documents, many had yet to be examined by researchers." (Why Israel is blocking access to its archives, Jonathan Cook, aljazeera.com, 9/6/16)
[*1970-74 - Conservatives/ Heath; 1974-79 - Labour/ Wilson & Callaghan; 1979-83 - Conservatives/ Thatcher]
2) "Israel is locking away millions of official documents to prevent the darkest episodes in its history from coming to light, civil rights activists and academics have warned as the country's state archives move online... Accusations of increased secrecy come as Israel marks this week the 49th anniversary of the 1967 war, when it seized and occupied Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank and Golan Heights. Many of the the records to which access is being denied refer to that war and the first years of Israel's military rule over Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza... Nonetheless, some of the declassified material was revealing. Uzi Narkiss, who headed the army's central command at the time, suggested that he and other commanders hoped to ethnically cleanse most of the territories under cover of fighting. He told fellow officers: 'Within 72 hours we'll drive out all the Arabs from the West Bank'... One Israeli academic... has estimated that up to a third of records relating to the 1948 war that were declassified have been put under lock again. Given the large number of documents, many had yet to be examined by researchers." (Why Israel is blocking access to its archives, Jonathan Cook, aljazeera.com, 9/6/16)
[*1970-74 - Conservatives/ Heath; 1974-79 - Labour/ Wilson & Callaghan; 1979-83 - Conservatives/ Thatcher]
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Operation Total Bullshit
In August, we got an 'Israeli Film Festival' (for which, you'll remember, the NSW Police sought and obtained a ban on protest from the Supreme Court).*
This November, we'll be getting a 'Jewish International Film Festival', most of whose films originated in... Israel.
IOW, two Israeli film festivals in 4 months.
Flicking through the program, my attention was caught by the blurb for an entry titled Operation Sunflower:
"This is a thrilling, fictionalised account of how Israel built its nuclear capabilities and the moral implications. It is the 1960s and Israeli intelligence is nervous. Iran is bringing missiles out of its bunkers. Soon it will be just a 'push of the button' away from being able to launch them at Israel. Racing against time, the head of the Mossad and a reluctantly recruited scientist work to create a nuclear option for Israel."
Hm... Israel... Iran... 1960s...
Hang on a minute:
"One Israeli-Iranian project that indicates the intimacy of the [Israeli-Iranian] alliance was to develop a long-range missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The missile was the product of Israeli research and development, starting in the late 1950s. In the spring of 1977, Israeli Defence Minister Shimon Peres signed a secret agreement in Tehran for the development of a more advanced missile. Iran was to finance it through the delivery of $1 billion worth of oil to Israel, and would also provide a special airport, an assembly plant, and the site for a long-range test. The project was halted by the end of the shah's reign; its details were revealed when the new Iranian regime published documents found in the Israeli embassy building in Tehran. These secret documents also revealed that Israel had tried to interest the Iranians in the Lavi project, the ambitious plan to produce a state-of-the-art jet fighter by the 1990s." (The Israeli Connection: Who Israel Arms & Why, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, 1987, pp 11-12)
Wouldn't want history getting in the way of a rattling 'good' Zionist yarn now, would we?
[*See my 20/8/14 posts PAGS Press Release 1 & 2.]
This November, we'll be getting a 'Jewish International Film Festival', most of whose films originated in... Israel.
IOW, two Israeli film festivals in 4 months.
Flicking through the program, my attention was caught by the blurb for an entry titled Operation Sunflower:
"This is a thrilling, fictionalised account of how Israel built its nuclear capabilities and the moral implications. It is the 1960s and Israeli intelligence is nervous. Iran is bringing missiles out of its bunkers. Soon it will be just a 'push of the button' away from being able to launch them at Israel. Racing against time, the head of the Mossad and a reluctantly recruited scientist work to create a nuclear option for Israel."
Hm... Israel... Iran... 1960s...
Hang on a minute:
"One Israeli-Iranian project that indicates the intimacy of the [Israeli-Iranian] alliance was to develop a long-range missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The missile was the product of Israeli research and development, starting in the late 1950s. In the spring of 1977, Israeli Defence Minister Shimon Peres signed a secret agreement in Tehran for the development of a more advanced missile. Iran was to finance it through the delivery of $1 billion worth of oil to Israel, and would also provide a special airport, an assembly plant, and the site for a long-range test. The project was halted by the end of the shah's reign; its details were revealed when the new Iranian regime published documents found in the Israeli embassy building in Tehran. These secret documents also revealed that Israel had tried to interest the Iranians in the Lavi project, the ambitious plan to produce a state-of-the-art jet fighter by the 1990s." (The Israeli Connection: Who Israel Arms & Why, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, 1987, pp 11-12)
Wouldn't want history getting in the way of a rattling 'good' Zionist yarn now, would we?
[*See my 20/8/14 posts PAGS Press Release 1 & 2.]
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Israel's Pacific Island Sock-Puppet Sues... Israel
In his Diary of a Foreign Minister, Bob Carr wrote of his victory over the Israel first government of former prime minister Julia Gillard to register an Australia first vote in support of enhanced Palestinian status in the UN:
"The column of ten nations, die-hards, glued on Israel supporters - Micronesia and the Marshall Islands - had just been reduced by one. A message to the settlers and fanatics in Israel..." (See my 20/4/14 post The Carr Diary 12)
The other 9 die-hards for Netanyahu's Israel at the time (29/11/12) were, of course, Israel itself, the United States, Canada, Palau, Nauru, the Czech Republic and Panama.
While there's an implied swipe here by the Americanophile Carr at the US, it was obviously the absurdity (not to mention the ignominy) of Australia lining up yet again with Israel's Pacific Island sock-puppets that got to our former foreign minister.
That absurdity is underlined by the following news:
"The Marshall Islands is suing the nine countries with nuclear weapons at the International Court of Justice at the Hague, arguing they have violated their legal obligation to disarm... It argues it is justified in taking the action because of the harm it suffered as a result of the nuclear arms race. The Pacific chain of islands, including Bikini Atoll and Enewetak, was the site of 67 nuclear tests from 1946 to 1958... The Marshallese Islanders say they have been suffering serious health and environmental effects ever since. The Island republic is suing the five 'established' nuclear weapons states recognised in the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) - the US, Russia (which inherited the Soviet arsenal), China, France and the UK - as well as the three countries outside the NPT who have declared nuclear arsenals - India, Pakistan and North Korea, and the one undeclared nuclear weapons state, Israel." (Marshall Islands sues nine nuclear powers over failure to disarm, Julian Borger, theguardian.com, 24/4/14)
It'll be interesting to see how the Marshall Islands votes in the UN on Palestine/Israel-related issues from now on.
"The column of ten nations, die-hards, glued on Israel supporters - Micronesia and the Marshall Islands - had just been reduced by one. A message to the settlers and fanatics in Israel..." (See my 20/4/14 post The Carr Diary 12)
The other 9 die-hards for Netanyahu's Israel at the time (29/11/12) were, of course, Israel itself, the United States, Canada, Palau, Nauru, the Czech Republic and Panama.
While there's an implied swipe here by the Americanophile Carr at the US, it was obviously the absurdity (not to mention the ignominy) of Australia lining up yet again with Israel's Pacific Island sock-puppets that got to our former foreign minister.
That absurdity is underlined by the following news:
"The Marshall Islands is suing the nine countries with nuclear weapons at the International Court of Justice at the Hague, arguing they have violated their legal obligation to disarm... It argues it is justified in taking the action because of the harm it suffered as a result of the nuclear arms race. The Pacific chain of islands, including Bikini Atoll and Enewetak, was the site of 67 nuclear tests from 1946 to 1958... The Marshallese Islanders say they have been suffering serious health and environmental effects ever since. The Island republic is suing the five 'established' nuclear weapons states recognised in the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) - the US, Russia (which inherited the Soviet arsenal), China, France and the UK - as well as the three countries outside the NPT who have declared nuclear arsenals - India, Pakistan and North Korea, and the one undeclared nuclear weapons state, Israel." (Marshall Islands sues nine nuclear powers over failure to disarm, Julian Borger, theguardian.com, 24/4/14)
It'll be interesting to see how the Marshall Islands votes in the UN on Palestine/Israel-related issues from now on.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
To Israel, with Love
If you're Syria, even though you've declared that even if you had chemical weapons and could see the whites of your enemies' eyes, you wouldn't use those weapons against your own people, the Americans will still stand up and warn you of 'consequences' if you do.
If, on the other hand, you're Israel and you decide to operationalise your nuclear arsenal because you can see the whites of your enemies' eyes, far from expecting a warning from the Americans, you simply get on the blower to them, demand an emergency airlift of replacement arms and ammunition or else and they'll dutifully comply.
No, I'm not making this up. The latter scenario obtained in Israel during the October War of 1973, and you can read all about it in Chapter 17 - Nuclear Blackmail - of Seymour Hersh's 1991 book The Samson Option: Israel, America & the Bomb.
If, on the other hand, you're Israel and you decide to operationalise your nuclear arsenal because you can see the whites of your enemies' eyes, far from expecting a warning from the Americans, you simply get on the blower to them, demand an emergency airlift of replacement arms and ammunition or else and they'll dutifully comply.
No, I'm not making this up. The latter scenario obtained in Israel during the October War of 1973, and you can read all about it in Chapter 17 - Nuclear Blackmail - of Seymour Hersh's 1991 book The Samson Option: Israel, America & the Bomb.
Friday, November 4, 2011
The Real McCoy
The profound pro-Israel bias of the The Australian is a virtual given. It simply cannot help itself.
Take today's report on Israeli preparations to nuke Iran, for example. Its largely factual opening paragraphs may be unremarkable:
"Israel has test-launched a ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to Iran, amid claims Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking cabinet support for a military strike. The test, believed to have involved a long-rage Jericho missile yesterday, came a week after Israeli warplanes practised a long-range bombing mission in Italy - prompting speculation that the cabinet is considering a pre-emptive strike before Iran can complete its first nuclear weapon." (Israel tests missile for Iran strike, AFP, The Times, AP, 4/11/11)
Yet, should Israel's intended victim so much as blink in response to these distinctly menacing moves by a known serial offender, it becomes Menace Inc: "Yesterday's test drew a menacing response ftom the regime in Tehran."
It's funny because when ordinary Europeans, who are not nearly as amenable to being pushed around as their governments (Hello, Italy?), are asked to play Spot the Menace, they have no problem in recognising the real McCoy:
"Results of a new poll commissioned by the European Conmmission show that Israel is believed by Europeans in 15 countries to be the greatest threat to world peace, greater than North Korea, Iran or Afghanistan." (European poll: Israel biggest threat to world peace, Jewish Federations of North America, informationclearinghouse.info, 1/11/11)
But have no fear, the Israel lobby can explain. You see, according to The Simon Wiesenthal Center, this has nothing whatever to do with Israel's decades of kicking arse in Palestine, its periodic wildings without, or its constant swaggering and preening on the world stage - no, it "only shows that anti-Semitism is deeply embedded within European society, more now than in any other period since the end of World War II." (ibid)
In the same press release, by the way, we are told that The Simon Wiesenthal Center "is voicing its outrage directly to European Commission President Romano Prodi..."
And they know they're on a winner with Prodi because back in 2006 "Candid TV footage of the Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and his Italian counterpart, Romano Prodi, showed Olmert coaching Prodi on what to say at their joint press conference in Rome." (Candid TV footage shows Olmert coaching Prodi, The Independent, 14/12/06)
Who knows? Maybe Prodi will be prodded by Bibi into declaring the EC poll a ghastly mistake for which heads must fall. And wouldn't The Australian have a field day with that?
Take today's report on Israeli preparations to nuke Iran, for example. Its largely factual opening paragraphs may be unremarkable:
"Israel has test-launched a ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to Iran, amid claims Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking cabinet support for a military strike. The test, believed to have involved a long-rage Jericho missile yesterday, came a week after Israeli warplanes practised a long-range bombing mission in Italy - prompting speculation that the cabinet is considering a pre-emptive strike before Iran can complete its first nuclear weapon." (Israel tests missile for Iran strike, AFP, The Times, AP, 4/11/11)
Yet, should Israel's intended victim so much as blink in response to these distinctly menacing moves by a known serial offender, it becomes Menace Inc: "Yesterday's test drew a menacing response ftom the regime in Tehran."
It's funny because when ordinary Europeans, who are not nearly as amenable to being pushed around as their governments (Hello, Italy?), are asked to play Spot the Menace, they have no problem in recognising the real McCoy:
"Results of a new poll commissioned by the European Conmmission show that Israel is believed by Europeans in 15 countries to be the greatest threat to world peace, greater than North Korea, Iran or Afghanistan." (European poll: Israel biggest threat to world peace, Jewish Federations of North America, informationclearinghouse.info, 1/11/11)
But have no fear, the Israel lobby can explain. You see, according to The Simon Wiesenthal Center, this has nothing whatever to do with Israel's decades of kicking arse in Palestine, its periodic wildings without, or its constant swaggering and preening on the world stage - no, it "only shows that anti-Semitism is deeply embedded within European society, more now than in any other period since the end of World War II." (ibid)
In the same press release, by the way, we are told that The Simon Wiesenthal Center "is voicing its outrage directly to European Commission President Romano Prodi..."
And they know they're on a winner with Prodi because back in 2006 "Candid TV footage of the Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and his Italian counterpart, Romano Prodi, showed Olmert coaching Prodi on what to say at their joint press conference in Rome." (Candid TV footage shows Olmert coaching Prodi, The Independent, 14/12/06)
Who knows? Maybe Prodi will be prodded by Bibi into declaring the EC poll a ghastly mistake for which heads must fall. And wouldn't The Australian have a field day with that?
Monday, December 20, 2010
The Kevin Rudd Road Show 2
Murdoch's Australian reports on the KRRS:
"Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday visited the parents of a young man who is probably the most valuable prisoner in the world - captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. After visiting Israel's President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, Mr Rudd dropped in on the tent where Noam and Aviva Shalit keep a daily vigil to maintain public awareness of the plight of their son... He has been denied all visits, including from the Red Cross - a breach of international humanitarian conventions which insist that a prisoner should be given access to medical care. Sitting in the tent yesterday and looking up at one of the posters of Shalit on the wall. Mr Rudd remarked: 'Good looking boy'. 'He used to be', Shalit's father said. 'We are not sure now'. Mr Rudd said he had visited the tent to express Australia's solidarity for the plight of Shalit and for his release." (Rudd offers support for captured Israeli, John Lyons, 15/12/10)
Visits by Rudd & Co to the parents of almost 7,000 completely valueless Palestinian prisoners (including 300 minors, 35 women, 210 prisoners held without charge or trial, Palestinian parliamentarians and others held in solitary confinement since the 2006 Palestinian elections, 1,000 ill prisoners, 750 prisoners of war from Gaza and hundreds of others from the West Bank who haven't clapped eyes on their families for the last 4 years)*: 0
[*Report: 70,000 Palestinians jailed since intifada, The Palestinian Information Center, palestine-info.co.uk, 30/9/2010]
"Israeli officials have described as very curious a call by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd that Israel allow international inspection of its nuclear facilities... Australian officials supported Mr Rudd's position. One said there was 'a clear logic' about his comments - international inspectors should have access to all nuclear facilities, wherever they are. One Israeli official said yesterday: 'This comes, as the Americans would say, completely out of left field... What is the point? It is a very curious statement'." (Nuclear inspections call 'curious', John Lyons, 15/12/10)
What the...?! How dare he! Who does he think he is? What prompted Rudd to such heights of insolence, foreign editor Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan wants to know:
"[T]here was one episode of policy freelancing, or innovation, or just downright oddity, that has no honourable explanation and has perplexed, to put it mildly, his many Israeli admirers. In an interview with this paper's John Lyons in Cairo on Saturday, Rudd said: 'Our view has been consistent for a long time and that is that all states in the region should adhere to the [nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that includes Israel. And therefore their nuclear facility should be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection'... [T]he de facto equating of Israel and Iran is bizarre." (That's no way to treat a precious friend, Mr Rudd, 16/12/10)
Ooo... he can't possibly mean our precious friend is, like, totally pissed off with Kevvie, can he?
"No Australian foreign minister in history has previously called for Israel's nuclear facility to be open to IAEA inspection. Israel, not being a signatory to the NPT, has no legal obligation to submit to IAEA inspections... There are areas of deliberate greyness in international diplomacy. No serious Western foreign minister ever demands that Israel submits to IAEA inspection."
I could swear Sheridan's channeling the late Dennis Hopper's manic freelance photographer in Apocalypse Now: Listen up, nerd. You don't inspect Israel. He inspects you. He's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean, sometimes he'll... when you say hello to him, right, he'll just walk right by you and he won't even notice you, then suddenly he'll grab you and he'll throw you in a corner and say, 'Did you know 'if' is the middle word in life, if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all are in doubt'. I mean, I know, I'm a little man. Israel's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas. I mean... "
We know, Greg, we know. In the presence of Israel's poet-warriors, we're all such little men.
"So, presumably Rudd would not take such a radical and fateful step unless this prefigured some new and profound Australian policy objective, right? But, dear reader, the truth is that when Rudd got to Israel he did not raise the NPT and IAEA inspections even once in his lengthy meeing with Benjamin Netanyahu, or in his speech to a gala [sic: galah] dinner at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem... At a press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Rudd did repeat his statement that Australian policy wanted Israel to join the NPT but by then he had abandoned any reference to inspections."
Of course, Greg, of course. As you, above all, know, the closer one gets to those poet-warriors who walk right by you and don't even notice, the littler, the more insignificant, the more spineless we become. Forget crustaceans, Greg, they at least have exoskeletons. Worms, more like it. We should have been pairs of parapodia appendages crawling - yes crawling's the word, Geg - crawling across the floors of ancient seas.
But I digress. Poet-warrior Lieberman just fixed Kevvie with a baleful glare, grabbed him by the short and curlies, gave them a vigorous twist, grunted, 'Listen up, suckhole, you can stuff the NPT up your wormhole', "we are a very responsible country and a very responsible government and we have proved this for many years,"* and that was that, no more NPT, no more IAEA. In fact, and this must have been hard for Kevvie, no more acronyms for the duration.
[*Israel rejects Rudd's call for nuclear inspections, John Lyons, The Australian, 16/12/10]
And, notes Sheridan, not a whisper on settlements either: "[A]ll through the Arab world Rudd had denounced Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, but in his talks with Netanyahu and in his public speech they didn't get a mention."
Not that the trivial matter of Palestinian land-grabbing colonies wasn't raised with poet-warrior Bibi. But, by his own account, it was Sheridan, not Rudd, who raised the issue of the latter's criticism of settlements with the great man, only to be told, to the muffled accompaniment of bulldozers and excavators carving out a bit more lebensraum off in the distance: "I think it (settlements) is one of the issues that will need to be negotiated, but is it the source or the root of the conflict? No. The conflict went on for decades before there were any settlements. I don't think in its heart this is a territorial conflict - it's an existential conflict about the acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state." (Australia a close friend, says PM, 15/12/10)
Singing from the same songbook as poet-warrior Peres, poet-warrior Bibi wasted no time in refocusing Kevvie and his gormless entourage of antipodean suckholes, although unlike Lieberman, he chose flattery rather than a twist: "I think Kevin Rudd has been one of the world leaders who saw the danger posed by Iran. The issue of terrorism is a huge problem but it is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is the marriage of weapons of mass death with with a militant Islamic regime. That's"... pause for effect... "Iran." (ibid)
But again I digress. Now, where were we? Oh, that's right, Sheridan's perplexity over Kevvie's impudent behaviour: "One interpretation is that Rudd could not resist telling the Arab audience in Cairo what it wanted to hear, then telling the Israeli audience in Jerusalem what it wanted to hear. This is a common interpretation of Rudd, but one this column has resisted, regarding Rudd as a figure of singular substance in foreign policy. But you cannot have it both ways."
A figure of singular substance in foreign policy - just like you, Greg?
Gosh, the worm's... sorry, the man's, a worry: "The ongoing tragedy with Rudd is that his ability could never remotely be in doubt. He knows more about foreign policy than anyone on either side of the Australian parlianent."
I'm glad you said than anyone on either side of the parliament, Greg. I thought for one silly moment you were going to say than me.
"But these strange quirks seem to get in the way. Rudd's performance in Israel overall was impressive, but there were times when he seemed to strain just that bit too much to connect with the audience."
I know what's coming, Greg. I know what you're getting at. It's Rudd's little witticism about Menachem Begin undertaking some interior redesign of the King David Hotel back in '46, right? (See my previous post The KRRS 1). Right.
"Rudd was referring to the incident in which Israeli independence activists blew up the hotel."
Israeli... whaaat?! Israeli independence activists?! You mean Begin's Irgun terrorists whom Churchill described as "the vilest gangsters"? (See my 26/12/09 post A Murky Legacy)
"I accept that they were not the equivalent of modern terrorists."
Of course you do, they weren't Arabs now, were they?
"But people died in that incident. I don't think such a joke was in good taste, although many in the audience appreciated it."
Your poet-warriors or your worms?
"Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday visited the parents of a young man who is probably the most valuable prisoner in the world - captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. After visiting Israel's President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, Mr Rudd dropped in on the tent where Noam and Aviva Shalit keep a daily vigil to maintain public awareness of the plight of their son... He has been denied all visits, including from the Red Cross - a breach of international humanitarian conventions which insist that a prisoner should be given access to medical care. Sitting in the tent yesterday and looking up at one of the posters of Shalit on the wall. Mr Rudd remarked: 'Good looking boy'. 'He used to be', Shalit's father said. 'We are not sure now'. Mr Rudd said he had visited the tent to express Australia's solidarity for the plight of Shalit and for his release." (Rudd offers support for captured Israeli, John Lyons, 15/12/10)
Visits by Rudd & Co to the parents of almost 7,000 completely valueless Palestinian prisoners (including 300 minors, 35 women, 210 prisoners held without charge or trial, Palestinian parliamentarians and others held in solitary confinement since the 2006 Palestinian elections, 1,000 ill prisoners, 750 prisoners of war from Gaza and hundreds of others from the West Bank who haven't clapped eyes on their families for the last 4 years)*: 0
[*Report: 70,000 Palestinians jailed since intifada, The Palestinian Information Center, palestine-info.co.uk, 30/9/2010]
"Israeli officials have described as very curious a call by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd that Israel allow international inspection of its nuclear facilities... Australian officials supported Mr Rudd's position. One said there was 'a clear logic' about his comments - international inspectors should have access to all nuclear facilities, wherever they are. One Israeli official said yesterday: 'This comes, as the Americans would say, completely out of left field... What is the point? It is a very curious statement'." (Nuclear inspections call 'curious', John Lyons, 15/12/10)
What the...?! How dare he! Who does he think he is? What prompted Rudd to such heights of insolence, foreign editor Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan wants to know:
"[T]here was one episode of policy freelancing, or innovation, or just downright oddity, that has no honourable explanation and has perplexed, to put it mildly, his many Israeli admirers. In an interview with this paper's John Lyons in Cairo on Saturday, Rudd said: 'Our view has been consistent for a long time and that is that all states in the region should adhere to the [nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that includes Israel. And therefore their nuclear facility should be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection'... [T]he de facto equating of Israel and Iran is bizarre." (That's no way to treat a precious friend, Mr Rudd, 16/12/10)
Ooo... he can't possibly mean our precious friend is, like, totally pissed off with Kevvie, can he?
"No Australian foreign minister in history has previously called for Israel's nuclear facility to be open to IAEA inspection. Israel, not being a signatory to the NPT, has no legal obligation to submit to IAEA inspections... There are areas of deliberate greyness in international diplomacy. No serious Western foreign minister ever demands that Israel submits to IAEA inspection."
I could swear Sheridan's channeling the late Dennis Hopper's manic freelance photographer in Apocalypse Now: Listen up, nerd. You don't inspect Israel. He inspects you. He's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean, sometimes he'll... when you say hello to him, right, he'll just walk right by you and he won't even notice you, then suddenly he'll grab you and he'll throw you in a corner and say, 'Did you know 'if' is the middle word in life, if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all are in doubt'. I mean, I know, I'm a little man. Israel's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas. I mean... "
We know, Greg, we know. In the presence of Israel's poet-warriors, we're all such little men.
"So, presumably Rudd would not take such a radical and fateful step unless this prefigured some new and profound Australian policy objective, right? But, dear reader, the truth is that when Rudd got to Israel he did not raise the NPT and IAEA inspections even once in his lengthy meeing with Benjamin Netanyahu, or in his speech to a gala [sic: galah] dinner at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem... At a press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Rudd did repeat his statement that Australian policy wanted Israel to join the NPT but by then he had abandoned any reference to inspections."
Of course, Greg, of course. As you, above all, know, the closer one gets to those poet-warriors who walk right by you and don't even notice, the littler, the more insignificant, the more spineless we become. Forget crustaceans, Greg, they at least have exoskeletons. Worms, more like it. We should have been pairs of parapodia appendages crawling - yes crawling's the word, Geg - crawling across the floors of ancient seas.
But I digress. Poet-warrior Lieberman just fixed Kevvie with a baleful glare, grabbed him by the short and curlies, gave them a vigorous twist, grunted, 'Listen up, suckhole, you can stuff the NPT up your wormhole', "we are a very responsible country and a very responsible government and we have proved this for many years,"* and that was that, no more NPT, no more IAEA. In fact, and this must have been hard for Kevvie, no more acronyms for the duration.
[*Israel rejects Rudd's call for nuclear inspections, John Lyons, The Australian, 16/12/10]
And, notes Sheridan, not a whisper on settlements either: "[A]ll through the Arab world Rudd had denounced Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, but in his talks with Netanyahu and in his public speech they didn't get a mention."
Not that the trivial matter of Palestinian land-grabbing colonies wasn't raised with poet-warrior Bibi. But, by his own account, it was Sheridan, not Rudd, who raised the issue of the latter's criticism of settlements with the great man, only to be told, to the muffled accompaniment of bulldozers and excavators carving out a bit more lebensraum off in the distance: "I think it (settlements) is one of the issues that will need to be negotiated, but is it the source or the root of the conflict? No. The conflict went on for decades before there were any settlements. I don't think in its heart this is a territorial conflict - it's an existential conflict about the acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state." (Australia a close friend, says PM, 15/12/10)
Singing from the same songbook as poet-warrior Peres, poet-warrior Bibi wasted no time in refocusing Kevvie and his gormless entourage of antipodean suckholes, although unlike Lieberman, he chose flattery rather than a twist: "I think Kevin Rudd has been one of the world leaders who saw the danger posed by Iran. The issue of terrorism is a huge problem but it is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is the marriage of weapons of mass death with with a militant Islamic regime. That's"... pause for effect... "Iran." (ibid)
But again I digress. Now, where were we? Oh, that's right, Sheridan's perplexity over Kevvie's impudent behaviour: "One interpretation is that Rudd could not resist telling the Arab audience in Cairo what it wanted to hear, then telling the Israeli audience in Jerusalem what it wanted to hear. This is a common interpretation of Rudd, but one this column has resisted, regarding Rudd as a figure of singular substance in foreign policy. But you cannot have it both ways."
A figure of singular substance in foreign policy - just like you, Greg?
Gosh, the worm's... sorry, the man's, a worry: "The ongoing tragedy with Rudd is that his ability could never remotely be in doubt. He knows more about foreign policy than anyone on either side of the Australian parlianent."
I'm glad you said than anyone on either side of the parliament, Greg. I thought for one silly moment you were going to say than me.
"But these strange quirks seem to get in the way. Rudd's performance in Israel overall was impressive, but there were times when he seemed to strain just that bit too much to connect with the audience."
I know what's coming, Greg. I know what you're getting at. It's Rudd's little witticism about Menachem Begin undertaking some interior redesign of the King David Hotel back in '46, right? (See my previous post The KRRS 1). Right.
"Rudd was referring to the incident in which Israeli independence activists blew up the hotel."
Israeli... whaaat?! Israeli independence activists?! You mean Begin's Irgun terrorists whom Churchill described as "the vilest gangsters"? (See my 26/12/09 post A Murky Legacy)
"I accept that they were not the equivalent of modern terrorists."
Of course you do, they weren't Arabs now, were they?
"But people died in that incident. I don't think such a joke was in good taste, although many in the audience appreciated it."
Your poet-warriors or your worms?
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Prisoner of Zion
Half a thousand, half a hundred
Six times two, pick up your pen
Child, my child, count it up now
That's the number that I mean
It's a number, just a number
Write it down, child, while you can
Understand it and remember
That's the number they gave a man
It's a number, just a number
One of hundreds, a sign of shame
Each man's jacket had a number
Men had numbers, none had names
Hitler's system took their freedom
Took them prisoner one by one
For the courage of their convictions
They were tortured, gassed and burned
They took Communist, they took pacifist
They took social democrat
Jew and Christian all were prisoner
In the concentration camp
To the camp at Esterwegen
Listen, child, and understand
They took Carl von Ossietzky
They broke his body, not his mind
In Berlin upon the fourth of May
Nineteen-hundred and thirty-eight
The Gestapo with its treatment
Signed his death certificate
Five-six-two, his prison number
Listen, child, I beg you please
Keep in mind, always remember
He got the Nobel Prize for Peace
In the struggle against injustice
He fought hard and he fought long
Child, remember Ossietzky
Peace won't come by words alone
Prisoner 562 by Andrae/MacKintosh
Mordechai Vanunu's Press Release on receiving the Carl von Ossietzky Medal:
"Today, October 5, is a historic day in my life and for whistleblowers worldwide. On this day in 1986, I completed the mission I had taken on to inform the world - not governments or intelligence organisations, but every human being who can read - about Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal as published by The Sunday Times, which put Mordechai Vanunu's story on its front page under the headline Revealed - the secrets of Israel's nuclear arsenal. For this I was sentenced to 18 years prison in Israel, 12 of them in isolation, and, after release, 6 more years without freedom of speech or movement in Israel. I was following the spirit of Ossietzky without even knowing or having read about him. This proves that we, the people, have the same mind, the same spirit, the same beliefs in human rights and freedoms, and fight for the rights of people everywhere. The first step is to give the people the information and let them choose the right direction. Ossietzky did not survive the brutality of prison. I survived, and I am ready to continue to speak on behalf of all whistleblowers. Knowledge is the power of every human being. I hope Israel will now end all my suffering - 18 years in prison and 6 more years of travel restrictions - so I can travel all over the world. I want to thank the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) for the courage to give me the the Von Ossietzky medal even though I received it after 24 years. I hope this time I will be free to come to Berlin and speak on behalf of Ossietzky in the city."
Six times two, pick up your pen
Child, my child, count it up now
That's the number that I mean
It's a number, just a number
Write it down, child, while you can
Understand it and remember
That's the number they gave a man
It's a number, just a number
One of hundreds, a sign of shame
Each man's jacket had a number
Men had numbers, none had names
Hitler's system took their freedom
Took them prisoner one by one
For the courage of their convictions
They were tortured, gassed and burned
They took Communist, they took pacifist
They took social democrat
Jew and Christian all were prisoner
In the concentration camp
To the camp at Esterwegen
Listen, child, and understand
They took Carl von Ossietzky
They broke his body, not his mind
In Berlin upon the fourth of May
Nineteen-hundred and thirty-eight
The Gestapo with its treatment
Signed his death certificate
Five-six-two, his prison number
Listen, child, I beg you please
Keep in mind, always remember
He got the Nobel Prize for Peace
In the struggle against injustice
He fought hard and he fought long
Child, remember Ossietzky
Peace won't come by words alone
Prisoner 562 by Andrae/MacKintosh
Mordechai Vanunu's Press Release on receiving the Carl von Ossietzky Medal:
"Today, October 5, is a historic day in my life and for whistleblowers worldwide. On this day in 1986, I completed the mission I had taken on to inform the world - not governments or intelligence organisations, but every human being who can read - about Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal as published by The Sunday Times, which put Mordechai Vanunu's story on its front page under the headline Revealed - the secrets of Israel's nuclear arsenal. For this I was sentenced to 18 years prison in Israel, 12 of them in isolation, and, after release, 6 more years without freedom of speech or movement in Israel. I was following the spirit of Ossietzky without even knowing or having read about him. This proves that we, the people, have the same mind, the same spirit, the same beliefs in human rights and freedoms, and fight for the rights of people everywhere. The first step is to give the people the information and let them choose the right direction. Ossietzky did not survive the brutality of prison. I survived, and I am ready to continue to speak on behalf of all whistleblowers. Knowledge is the power of every human being. I hope Israel will now end all my suffering - 18 years in prison and 6 more years of travel restrictions - so I can travel all over the world. I want to thank the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) for the courage to give me the the Von Ossietzky medal even though I received it after 24 years. I hope this time I will be free to come to Berlin and speak on behalf of Ossietzky in the city."
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Telling, Not Talking, Points
Just occasionally, so occasionally as to prompt a post such as this, the voices of those who know what they're talking about stand out among the propagandists, spinmeisters and ignoramuses who dominate mass media discourse on the Middle East.
I refer in this case to free lance journalist Michael Otterman and University of California academic Reza Aslan, here for the Sydney Writers' Festival (SWF). They were interviewed on consecutive days (17 & 18/5/10) by Fran Kelly on ABC Radio National's Breakfast program.
Otterman is the co-author of a new book about the "sociocide" of Iraq, Erasing Iraq, based on interviews with some of the 2 million* externally displaced Iraqis living today in dire circumstances in Syria and Jordan. He made these telling points:
On support for Western intervention among Iraqis:
"Some Iraqis I spoke to supported the toppling of Saddam Hussein, but I didn't meet any who supported this prolonged occupation."
On the extent of the Iraqi refugee crisis:
"The Iraqi refugee crisis is the largest in the region since 1948 and the establishment of Israel."
On the roots & results of Iraqi sectarianism:
"Before 1991 Iraq had the strongest public health system in the region, one of the strongest education systems and all this Sunni/Shia violence did not exist. This [sectarian conflict] has all occurred after the [2003] invasion, as the US literally empowered certain tribal and religious leaders in their quest to stabilise [Iraq], which they really didn't do successfully, but the end result of all this has been the rise in fundamentalism which has obliterated ethnic and religious groups like the Mandaeans, and still today many people cannot return to their homes because, for many, they don't have a home to return to...Baghdad had over 200 mixed neighborhoods before the war, now there's only roughly 25..."
On media neglect of the issue:
"We didn't feel that the media was sufficiently asking or answering this question: what do Iraqis think about the invasion, before during and after?"
Aslan, author of How to Win a Cosmic War, neatly cut through the usual USraeli claptrap about Iran's nuclear program:
"[This] emphasis [on Iranian nukes] has to be understood by outsiders. When we think of Iran, all we care about is the nuclear issue. It's the number one issue in our minds. Iranians couldn't care less about this issue. In their top 10 list of to-do items, the nuclear issue is number 11. They are in the midst of the greatest social challenge to the regime, great political fracturing, an economy on the verge of collapse. Frankly, they don't really talk about the nuclear issue all that much... It's so far down on their list of concerns right now that there's a real disconnect between the way the US and the international community wants to deal with Iran and the way Iran wants to deal with the international community. In fact, if we focus too much just on this nuclear issue, there is a very real chance that we could derail what could be a very significant social challenge to this regime... Here's a question nobody bothers asking: why does Iran want nuclear weapons? It's not a difficult question to answer. 1) Iran is literally surrounded, I mean encircled, by American troops, troops from a country whose stated foreign policy for 3 decades towards Iran has been, unambiguously, regime change. 2) As much of a threat as Iran with nuclear weapons could conceivably pose to Israel sometime in the near future, as you and I sit here having this conversation, Israel has 200 nuclear weapons, most of them pointed at Tehran. Why wouldn't Iran want nuclear weapons? My argument is that if you want to deal with Iran's nuclear ambition, you cannot deal with it as just a national issue. It's a regional problem, and unless you're willing to deal with the other nuclear powers in that region - Israel, Pakistan and India - all of whom have nuclear weapons outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and all of whom receive tens of billions of dollars in foreign and military aid from the US, despite their illegal programs, unless you're willing to deal with that, you're never going to deal with Iran."
Unfortunately, the ms media being what it is, another SWF invitee, Christopher Hitchens, is far more likely to hog the media limelight than either of the above. In a Good Weekend feature, Devil's advocate (15/5/10), we get an insight into Hitchens' terrifying tunnel vision : "His last book, God Is Not Great, promoting the characteristically gloves-off view that 'religion poisons everything', brought him a wider audience and placed him in good company with Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) and Philip Pullman (The Good Man Jesus & The Scoundrel Christ), bang up with the zeitgeist. 'I knew when I saw Dawkins' book that there was something in the air'. Why now, does he think? He waves a hand: 'Depraved papacy, jihads, Palestine, creationism in American schools - all in the name of theocracy'."
That's right, Palestine is all about theocracy. Not Israel, the Jewish state, but Palestine for Christ's sake!
[*Another 3 million are internally displaced.]
I refer in this case to free lance journalist Michael Otterman and University of California academic Reza Aslan, here for the Sydney Writers' Festival (SWF). They were interviewed on consecutive days (17 & 18/5/10) by Fran Kelly on ABC Radio National's Breakfast program.
Otterman is the co-author of a new book about the "sociocide" of Iraq, Erasing Iraq, based on interviews with some of the 2 million* externally displaced Iraqis living today in dire circumstances in Syria and Jordan. He made these telling points:
On support for Western intervention among Iraqis:
"Some Iraqis I spoke to supported the toppling of Saddam Hussein, but I didn't meet any who supported this prolonged occupation."
On the extent of the Iraqi refugee crisis:
"The Iraqi refugee crisis is the largest in the region since 1948 and the establishment of Israel."
On the roots & results of Iraqi sectarianism:
"Before 1991 Iraq had the strongest public health system in the region, one of the strongest education systems and all this Sunni/Shia violence did not exist. This [sectarian conflict] has all occurred after the [2003] invasion, as the US literally empowered certain tribal and religious leaders in their quest to stabilise [Iraq], which they really didn't do successfully, but the end result of all this has been the rise in fundamentalism which has obliterated ethnic and religious groups like the Mandaeans, and still today many people cannot return to their homes because, for many, they don't have a home to return to...Baghdad had over 200 mixed neighborhoods before the war, now there's only roughly 25..."
On media neglect of the issue:
"We didn't feel that the media was sufficiently asking or answering this question: what do Iraqis think about the invasion, before during and after?"
Aslan, author of How to Win a Cosmic War, neatly cut through the usual USraeli claptrap about Iran's nuclear program:
"[This] emphasis [on Iranian nukes] has to be understood by outsiders. When we think of Iran, all we care about is the nuclear issue. It's the number one issue in our minds. Iranians couldn't care less about this issue. In their top 10 list of to-do items, the nuclear issue is number 11. They are in the midst of the greatest social challenge to the regime, great political fracturing, an economy on the verge of collapse. Frankly, they don't really talk about the nuclear issue all that much... It's so far down on their list of concerns right now that there's a real disconnect between the way the US and the international community wants to deal with Iran and the way Iran wants to deal with the international community. In fact, if we focus too much just on this nuclear issue, there is a very real chance that we could derail what could be a very significant social challenge to this regime... Here's a question nobody bothers asking: why does Iran want nuclear weapons? It's not a difficult question to answer. 1) Iran is literally surrounded, I mean encircled, by American troops, troops from a country whose stated foreign policy for 3 decades towards Iran has been, unambiguously, regime change. 2) As much of a threat as Iran with nuclear weapons could conceivably pose to Israel sometime in the near future, as you and I sit here having this conversation, Israel has 200 nuclear weapons, most of them pointed at Tehran. Why wouldn't Iran want nuclear weapons? My argument is that if you want to deal with Iran's nuclear ambition, you cannot deal with it as just a national issue. It's a regional problem, and unless you're willing to deal with the other nuclear powers in that region - Israel, Pakistan and India - all of whom have nuclear weapons outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and all of whom receive tens of billions of dollars in foreign and military aid from the US, despite their illegal programs, unless you're willing to deal with that, you're never going to deal with Iran."
Unfortunately, the ms media being what it is, another SWF invitee, Christopher Hitchens, is far more likely to hog the media limelight than either of the above. In a Good Weekend feature, Devil's advocate (15/5/10), we get an insight into Hitchens' terrifying tunnel vision : "His last book, God Is Not Great, promoting the characteristically gloves-off view that 'religion poisons everything', brought him a wider audience and placed him in good company with Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) and Philip Pullman (The Good Man Jesus & The Scoundrel Christ), bang up with the zeitgeist. 'I knew when I saw Dawkins' book that there was something in the air'. Why now, does he think? He waves a hand: 'Depraved papacy, jihads, Palestine, creationism in American schools - all in the name of theocracy'."
That's right, Palestine is all about theocracy. Not Israel, the Jewish state, but Palestine for Christ's sake!
[*Another 3 million are internally displaced.]
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Weaponising the Holocaust
Existential threats getting you down? Islamofascists wherever you look? Hitlers around every corner? Anti-semites and de-legitimisers under your bed? Self-haters under your skin? Can you afford not to be insured?
"There is a sense that Israel with its own historical legacy, the memory of the holocaust, deserves to have insurance, [a] national insurance policy in the form of nuclear capability, just to ensure that another holocaust would not happen. (Avner Cohen, Pressure grows on Israel over suspected nukes, AM, ABC Radio National, 13/5/10)
"There is a sense that Israel with its own historical legacy, the memory of the holocaust, deserves to have insurance, [a] national insurance policy in the form of nuclear capability, just to ensure that another holocaust would not happen. (Avner Cohen, Pressure grows on Israel over suspected nukes, AM, ABC Radio National, 13/5/10)
Friday, May 8, 2009
Whopper Alert!
When you read the news reports of The Australian's Jerusalem correspondent Abraham Rabinovich, watch out for whoppers. Today's report begins thus:
"A call by a US official for Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has raised fears in Jerusalem that the Obama administration may be seeking to block the Iranian nuclear threat by sacrificing Israel's reported nuclear arsenal. US Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller said this week: 'Universal adherence to the NPT, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea, remains a fundamental objective of the United States'." (Israeli nuclear ambiguity under threat, Abraham Rabinovich, 8/5/09)
He goes on to tell 2 whoppers:
Whopper 1: "The only non-signatories in the world are the 4 countries cited by Ms Gottemoeller. India, Pakistan and North Korea have tested nuclear devices. Israel has not but is reported to have up to 200 nuclear warheads." (ibid)
Israel has tested nuclear devices: "Just before dawn on the stormy morning of September 22, 1979, the clouds over the Southern Indian Ocean suddenly broke and an American satellite was able to record two distinctive bright flashes of light within a fraction of a second - probable evidence of a nuclear explosion. The nuclear detection satellite, known as VELA, had seen similar flashes of light on forty-one previous occasions, and in each case it was subsequently determined that a nuclear explosion had taken place. Most of the sightings were over Lop Nor, where the Chinese atmospheric nuclear tests took place, or in the South Pacific, site of the French tests. There were a few intelligence officials and non-proliferation experts in the Carter administration who immediately concluded that Israel had conducted a nuclear test, a test that they had tried, and failed, to accomplish two years earlier. They were right." (The Samson Option: Israel, America & the Bomb, Seymour M Hersh, p 271)
Whopper 2: "This formula ['Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East' - Shimon Peres] was put to the test in the 1973 Yom Kippur War when the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a successful surprise attack and for a few days Israel's survival appeared at stake. Whatever thoughts may have gone through the minds of the leadership, Israel did not threaten to use nuclear weapons. Eventually, its ground forces succeeded in turning the tide." (ibid)
Israel has threatened to use nuclear weapons: "Over the next hours, the Israeli leadership - faced with its greatest crisis - resolved to implement 3 critical decisions: it would rally its collapsing forces for a major counterattack; it would arm and target its nuclear arsenal in the event of total collapse and subsequent need for the Samson Option; and, finally, it would inform Washington of its unprecedented nuclear action - and unprecedented peril - and demand that the United States begin an emergency airlift of replacement arms and ammunition needed to sustain an extended all-out war effort." (Hersh, p 225)
"A call by a US official for Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has raised fears in Jerusalem that the Obama administration may be seeking to block the Iranian nuclear threat by sacrificing Israel's reported nuclear arsenal. US Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller said this week: 'Universal adherence to the NPT, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea, remains a fundamental objective of the United States'." (Israeli nuclear ambiguity under threat, Abraham Rabinovich, 8/5/09)
He goes on to tell 2 whoppers:
Whopper 1: "The only non-signatories in the world are the 4 countries cited by Ms Gottemoeller. India, Pakistan and North Korea have tested nuclear devices. Israel has not but is reported to have up to 200 nuclear warheads." (ibid)
Israel has tested nuclear devices: "Just before dawn on the stormy morning of September 22, 1979, the clouds over the Southern Indian Ocean suddenly broke and an American satellite was able to record two distinctive bright flashes of light within a fraction of a second - probable evidence of a nuclear explosion. The nuclear detection satellite, known as VELA, had seen similar flashes of light on forty-one previous occasions, and in each case it was subsequently determined that a nuclear explosion had taken place. Most of the sightings were over Lop Nor, where the Chinese atmospheric nuclear tests took place, or in the South Pacific, site of the French tests. There were a few intelligence officials and non-proliferation experts in the Carter administration who immediately concluded that Israel had conducted a nuclear test, a test that they had tried, and failed, to accomplish two years earlier. They were right." (The Samson Option: Israel, America & the Bomb, Seymour M Hersh, p 271)
Whopper 2: "This formula ['Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East' - Shimon Peres] was put to the test in the 1973 Yom Kippur War when the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a successful surprise attack and for a few days Israel's survival appeared at stake. Whatever thoughts may have gone through the minds of the leadership, Israel did not threaten to use nuclear weapons. Eventually, its ground forces succeeded in turning the tide." (ibid)
Israel has threatened to use nuclear weapons: "Over the next hours, the Israeli leadership - faced with its greatest crisis - resolved to implement 3 critical decisions: it would rally its collapsing forces for a major counterattack; it would arm and target its nuclear arsenal in the event of total collapse and subsequent need for the Samson Option; and, finally, it would inform Washington of its unprecedented nuclear action - and unprecedented peril - and demand that the United States begin an emergency airlift of replacement arms and ammunition needed to sustain an extended all-out war effort." (Hersh, p 225)
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
By Way of Deception
"The US President, Barack Obama, has begun a push to rid the world of nuclear arms in a landmark speech that called for a ban on testing and a global summit to prevent criminals or terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons... Mr Obama's initiative tallies with an international commission on nuclear arms prompted by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who called for a nuclear weapons-free world at Hiroshima last year. Mr Rudd and Mr Obama discussed nuclear arms in Washington last month... and pledged to work jointly on global disarmament. The President said he would seek a treaty to end production of nuclear material and would push Congress to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty - which bans explosive testing - and pressure the remaining 8 non-signatories such as China, India, Pakistan and Israel." (No nukes, vows Obama, Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney Morning Herald, 6/4/09)
"Pressure... Israel"? You've got to be joking! The last time an American prez tried 'pressuring' Israel over its nukes was in the 1960s. The prez was John F Kennedy and the Israelis, under prime minister David Ben-Gurion, comprehensively creamed him:
"There was one major concession by Washington. Dimona did not have to be inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Ben-Gurion had insisted in his private exchanges with Kennedy that such inspections would violate Israel's sovereignty. The White House eventually agreed to send a specially assembled American inspection team into Dimona. That agreement was further softened by a second concession that, in essence, guaranteed that the whole procedure would be little more than a whitewash, as the President and his senior advisers had to understand: the American inspection team would have to schedule its visits well in advance, and with the full acquiescence of Israel. There would be no spot checks permitted.
"Ben-Gurion took no chances: the American inspectors - most of them experts in nuclear reprocessing - would be provided with a Potemkin Village and never know it.
"The Israeli scheme, based on plans supplied by the French, was simple: a false control room was constructed at Dimona, complete with false control panels and computer-driven measuring devices that seemed to be gauging the thermal output of a twenty-four-megawatt reactor ( as Israel claimed Dimona to be) in full operation. There were extensive practice sessions in the fake control room, as Israeli technicians sought to avoid any slips when the Americans arrived. The goal was to convince the inspectors that no chemical reprocessing plant existed or was possible. One big fear was that the Americans would seek to inspect the core physically, and presumably discover that Dimona was utilizing large amounts of heavy water - much of it illicitly obtained from France and Norway - and obviously operating the reactor at far greater output than the acknowledged twenty-four megawatts. It was agreed that the inspection team would not be permitted to enter the core 'for safety reasons'...
"The American team, following a pattern that would be repeated until the inspections came to an end in 1969, spent days at Dimona, climbing through the various excavations - many facilities had yet to be constructed - but finding nothing. They did not question the fact that the reactor core was off-limits and gave no sign that they were in any way suspicious of the control room. The Israelis even stationed a few engineers in a concealed area in the control room to monitor the machinery and make sure that nothing untoward took place." (The Samson Option, Seymour Hersh, 1991, pp 110-111)
"Pressure... Israel"? You've got to be joking! The last time an American prez tried 'pressuring' Israel over its nukes was in the 1960s. The prez was John F Kennedy and the Israelis, under prime minister David Ben-Gurion, comprehensively creamed him:
"There was one major concession by Washington. Dimona did not have to be inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Ben-Gurion had insisted in his private exchanges with Kennedy that such inspections would violate Israel's sovereignty. The White House eventually agreed to send a specially assembled American inspection team into Dimona. That agreement was further softened by a second concession that, in essence, guaranteed that the whole procedure would be little more than a whitewash, as the President and his senior advisers had to understand: the American inspection team would have to schedule its visits well in advance, and with the full acquiescence of Israel. There would be no spot checks permitted.
"Ben-Gurion took no chances: the American inspectors - most of them experts in nuclear reprocessing - would be provided with a Potemkin Village and never know it.
"The Israeli scheme, based on plans supplied by the French, was simple: a false control room was constructed at Dimona, complete with false control panels and computer-driven measuring devices that seemed to be gauging the thermal output of a twenty-four-megawatt reactor ( as Israel claimed Dimona to be) in full operation. There were extensive practice sessions in the fake control room, as Israeli technicians sought to avoid any slips when the Americans arrived. The goal was to convince the inspectors that no chemical reprocessing plant existed or was possible. One big fear was that the Americans would seek to inspect the core physically, and presumably discover that Dimona was utilizing large amounts of heavy water - much of it illicitly obtained from France and Norway - and obviously operating the reactor at far greater output than the acknowledged twenty-four megawatts. It was agreed that the inspection team would not be permitted to enter the core 'for safety reasons'...
"The American team, following a pattern that would be repeated until the inspections came to an end in 1969, spent days at Dimona, climbing through the various excavations - many facilities had yet to be constructed - but finding nothing. They did not question the fact that the reactor core was off-limits and gave no sign that they were in any way suspicious of the control room. The Israelis even stationed a few engineers in a concealed area in the control room to monitor the machinery and make sure that nothing untoward took place." (The Samson Option, Seymour Hersh, 1991, pp 110-111)
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Will Someone Please Tell Gareth?
In today's Murdoch fishwrapper: "The world was headed for another Hiroshima or worse because of the risk of miscalculation or accident, the head of Kevin Rudd's new Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament said yesterday. Gareth Evans, the commission's co-chair, said inadequate controls applied to at least 16,000 atomic warheads actively deployed around the world... he said the main obstacle to disarmament remained complacency by the US and Russia, which had lost interest since the end of the Cold War. Difficulties ahead included how to prevent nations developing nuclear weapons after India and Pakistan, claiming their own different needs, had joined Israel outside the international treaty arrangements*. Mr Evans said he supported the recent downgrading of North Korea's status as a danger to nuclear proliferation. But Mr Evans rated Iran's program for the development of nuclear weapons under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a high-risk category. 'Iran is a hell of a lot different', he said." (Risk of new Hiroshima: Evans, Brad Norington, The Australian, 21/10/08)
[*Hm, surely logic dictates that if Israel's choosing to remain "outside the international treaty arrangements" is leading the likes of India and Pakistan astray - which seems to be what Evans is on about here - then shouldn't the first priority of Rudd's shiny new Commission be to tackle the Israelis over this? Just a pigs-will-fly thought.]
Not in today's Murdoch fishwrapper: "In an interview today, UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohammed ElBaradei said that Iran would be lacking key components for the production of a nuclear weapon even if they chose to do so. According to ElBaradei 'they do not have even the nuclear material, the raw unenriched uranium to develop one nuclear weapon if they decide to do so'." (ElBaradei: Iran nowhere near acquiring nuclear weapons, antiwar.com, 20/10/08)
[*Hm, surely logic dictates that if Israel's choosing to remain "outside the international treaty arrangements" is leading the likes of India and Pakistan astray - which seems to be what Evans is on about here - then shouldn't the first priority of Rudd's shiny new Commission be to tackle the Israelis over this? Just a pigs-will-fly thought.]
Not in today's Murdoch fishwrapper: "In an interview today, UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohammed ElBaradei said that Iran would be lacking key components for the production of a nuclear weapon even if they chose to do so. According to ElBaradei 'they do not have even the nuclear material, the raw unenriched uranium to develop one nuclear weapon if they decide to do so'." (ElBaradei: Iran nowhere near acquiring nuclear weapons, antiwar.com, 20/10/08)
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Hamish Does Hasbara
"Israel developed its bomb not because it thought it an essential part of being an independent state, but as a precaution against any of its regional enemies getting one. As the Israeli politician Yossi Beilin once explained it to a group of reporters in New Delhi, this set it apart from the Indians or Chinese. Unlike India, Israel would be ready to trade its bombs away in a genuine and all-inclusive regional non-nuclear pact."
This example of Israeli apologetics cropped up in a Sydney Morning Herald piece, Iran strike a costly attempt to buy time (6/9/08) by Asia-Pacific editor Hamish McDonald.
McDonald's claim that Israel, the Middle East's only nuclear-armed state, is, of course, completely groundless:
"Less than 72 hours before it completes its 2-year term in the 15-member UN Security Council, Syria formally introduced a resolution Monday calling for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the politically volatile Middle East... Syrian Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad... said Syria introduced the proposal on behalf of the 22 Arab countries at the UN. The resolution was also endorsed by the 117 members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the 54-nation Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), he added. If the Council fails to vote on it by Wednesday, Mekdad said, the new Arab member in the Council, Algeria, 'will continue to pursue the objectives of the resolution'." (Syria calls for nuclear free Middle East, Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service, 30/12/03)
"Egypt Wednesday proposed the creation of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East and blasted Israel for standing in the way, at a meeting in Vienna of the UN atomic watchdog... Egyptian ambassador Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy told th 139-nation general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency that 'Egypt will be tabling a draft resolution on... a nuclear-free zone' and hopes for 'a serious international commitment in this area'." (Egypt proposes nuclear-free zone in Middle East, AFP, 28/9/05)
No prizes for guessing Israel's responses.
This example of Israeli apologetics cropped up in a Sydney Morning Herald piece, Iran strike a costly attempt to buy time (6/9/08) by Asia-Pacific editor Hamish McDonald.
McDonald's claim that Israel, the Middle East's only nuclear-armed state, is, of course, completely groundless:
"Less than 72 hours before it completes its 2-year term in the 15-member UN Security Council, Syria formally introduced a resolution Monday calling for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the politically volatile Middle East... Syrian Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad... said Syria introduced the proposal on behalf of the 22 Arab countries at the UN. The resolution was also endorsed by the 117 members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the 54-nation Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), he added. If the Council fails to vote on it by Wednesday, Mekdad said, the new Arab member in the Council, Algeria, 'will continue to pursue the objectives of the resolution'." (Syria calls for nuclear free Middle East, Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service, 30/12/03)
"Egypt Wednesday proposed the creation of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East and blasted Israel for standing in the way, at a meeting in Vienna of the UN atomic watchdog... Egyptian ambassador Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy told th 139-nation general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency that 'Egypt will be tabling a draft resolution on... a nuclear-free zone' and hopes for 'a serious international commitment in this area'." (Egypt proposes nuclear-free zone in Middle East, AFP, 28/9/05)
No prizes for guessing Israel's responses.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
The Elephant in the Room
"Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother." Moshe Dayan
"Israel is preparing for a war, nuclear if need be, for the sake of averting domestic change not to its liking, if it occurs in some or any Middle Eastern states." Israel Shahak, Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear & Foreign Policies, pp 43-44
Here's a conversation between two people. Mark knows there's an elephant in the room. Patti's* in denial:-
[*"... all of her colleagues call her Patti..." http://law.wlu.edu/magazine/negotiator.asp]
Mark: The other really big non-proliferation hotspot, of course, is the Middle East. Seymour Hersh, the investigative journalist has a piece in the latest New Yorker, which suggests that the Bush administration has just diverted quite a large sum of money to intelligence on Iran's nuclear program and to operations inside Iran. Do you have any comment on that?
Patti: Yeah, you know, I've never seen a writer get it wrong so many times and still get credence every time he writes something. Our ambassador in Iraq was very clear in his statements and he called them completely incorrect and not accurate. So let our ambassador speak for the United States on that.
Mark: So what is the US position at the moment on Iran's nuclear program?
Patti: The US is working through the so-called P5+1 process, working together to push the Iranians to reassess their decision to pursue a nuclear program through the UN Security Council. We have outlined a number of sanctions, measures, that are binding in all states. And we've also said that we're going to stop those sanctions if Iran ceases its enrichment reprocessing activities. And additionally we've created a package of incentives that, were Iran to cease its enrichment and reprocessing activities, we are prepared to negotiate a number of benefits that flow from that package, including even development of civil and nuclear energy cooperation in a way that is obviously not proliferation sensitive.
Mark: Meantime, though, there's a constant drumbeat, particularly from Israel, saying you've got very little time to do anything about this and that Iran may be a year, 2 years, 3 years away from a nuclear weapon, and the suggestion is that the Israelis may do something about it.
Patti: Obviously, Israel sees Iran as the existential threat, [and] will obviously look at its own strategic interest. Our national intelligence estimate says the worst case scenario is 2009, but more likely the development of the fissile material needed for a nuclear weapon would occur into the next decade. So there is some time to make diplomacy work, not a lot of time, and we are committed to work through the diplomatic path. A mix of sanctions, of pressure, a collaboration with our partners. Not only in the P5+1, but also in the Gulf region, as well as working closely here in Asia. Many of the supplies and the (inaudible) items that are getting to Iran for these programs have a source here.
Mark: Whenever we look at this subject on this program, I get emails and letters from people saying, 'Well, Israel's got the nuclear bomb. Why is there not similar outrage about that? Because they're outside the non-proliferation treaty too'.
Patti: Well, Iran is a member of the non-proliferation treaty. They ratified it, they committed to implement it, and we believe they are acting in contravention to that binding legal committment that they took. And so, this process...
Mark: That really doesn't answer the question about Israel though, does it?
Patti: You know, I think in terms of the Israel question we certainly have not seen any indication that Israel is ready to introduce nuclear weapons as a weapon into the region.
Mark: What do you mean?
Patti: And they have always indicated as a better policy that is not... that they will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the region.
Mark: You mean no first strike? I mean that doesn't say they haven't got them.
Patti: You know, I sort of don't want to articulate their policy, that's something that they've done.
Mark: So the US doesn't believe Israel has a nuclear weapon?
Patti: I really wouldn't want to characterise what the US calculations, our assessments are on that point. My major point would be that Iran is pursuing its nuclear weapons in contravention to its legal commitments. Iran is also a deep, destabiliseding force in the region.
Mark: What I'm asking you [is] that people write in and they say, 'Why get so worried about Iran's nuclear weapons, when everybody knows that Israel has nuclear weapons?'
Patti: I think we all need to be worried about Iran. It's a destabilising influence in the region. It's supplying arms, not only to Iraqi insurgents, but even to its sworn enemy, the Taliban. It's supplying support to Hezbollah, it's supporting actions on the part of Syria. So it is having a large destabilising influence in the region. It also has the potential for the nuclear cascade. If you look at countries in the Gulf states, they look to Iran, and were Iran to acquire nuclear weapons capability, the potential for further acquisition of nuclear weapons capabilities in that region would certainly augment in the view of many who have assessed that region.
Mark: Patricia McNerney, Acting Assistant Secretary for International Security and Non-Proliferation with the US State Department.
That was part of an interview (US State Department representative speaks on nuclear weapons, 1/7/08) with Patricia McNerney, Acting Assistant Secretary for International Security and Non-Proliferation with the US State Department by Mark Colvin on ABC Radio National's PM program. The interview began with a discussion of North Korea's recent demolition of the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear power plant. To his credit (and this is unusual for the mainstream media) Mark had his eyes open.
Here's a paragraph from an article by a man who literally worships the ground the elephant in the room walks on (formerly known as Palestine in case you're interested). He knows that most of us are not as enamoured of the beast as he, and so would rather not draw too much attention to the object of his love. However, given the monstrous proportions of the creature, its swaggering, aggressive movements and loud trumpetings, he finds he has little choice but to acknowledge its presence in some way. And so, blinded by love, he tries his best to convince his readers that the elephant is really a gazelle:-
"Iran possessing nuclear weapons would be the final crack in the global non-proliferation regime. Despite parallels drawn to Israel's alleged nuclear capability, Israel is not violating international commitments (it didn't sign the NPT); it hasn't threatened to use nuclear weapons against its neighbours (it doesn't even confirm it has them); and its neighbours haven't sought a similar hedge against it."
That paragraph was part of an opinion piece (Diplomacy with Iran must be backed by a threat of force, 7/7/08) published in The Age. It was written by Dr Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).
Here's a letter from a man who loves the beast as ardently as the former, but can see no reason not to shout it from the rooftops. In fact, he believes that the entire Middle East should be rezoned as an off-leash area for the impetuous pachyderm, and being a lawyer, he has the legal gobbledegook at hand to justify any murderous rampage it may choose to undertake:-
"As a matter of policy, any first use of nuclear weapons is an extremely momentous decision and can be justified only in the most dire of circumstances. Any first use of nuclear weapons by Israel would be an even more momentous decision, given the unfortunate 'double standard' which the international community applies to judging all of Israel's military actions. However, given Ahmadinejad's declaratory policy of seeking to obliterate Israel, an Israeli decision to launch a preemptive strike against an entire array of Iran's nuclear targets would be justifiable in certain circumstances. (I assume that given the number of Iranian nuclear targets, their dispersal and 'hardness', Israel would not have high confidence in conventional strike options.) These circumstances would basically have to entail an imminent deployment of nuclear weapons by Iran, coupled with the realisation that there are no other viable options left for blocking Iran from such a deployment. While an Israeli first nuclear use against Iran would be certainly justifiable in such circumstances, you should be under no illusion as to what kind of reaction it would elicit; Israel would encounter a howl of international condemnations, boycotts, and diplomatic isolation the likes of which it has never seen. Its nuclear strike against Iran is also likely to trigger a regional arms race and precipitate many other dangerous and unpredictable consequences.
"As far as the law is concerned, despite the existing ICJ advisory opinion concerning nuclear weapons, I don't believe that there is any binding norm of international law that governs their utilization or prohibits nuclear use. Thus, the normal principles of jus ad bellum - governing the circumstances where the resort to force is legitimate - and jus in bello - governing the ways in which force can be used - would apply to any nuclear use by Israel. It would have to take exceptional care to ensure that it attacks only military targets and keeps collateral damage to the minimum levels possible. I have no doubt that IDF planners will endeavor to comply fully with all of the relevant jus in bello norms."
That was David Rivkin of Baker Hostetler LLP, a Visiting Fellow at the Nixon Center etc, etc. His letter appeared in the Israeli English language daily Haaretz on 23/6/08.
Finally, here's guy who not only knows there's an elephant in the room but loudly warns that it's a rogue:-
"The conflict currently underway between the US and Iran is, first and foremost, a conflict born in Israel. It is based upon an Israeli contention that Iran poses a threat to Israel, and defined by Israeli assertions that Iran possesses a nuclear weapons program. None of this has been shown to be true, and indeed much of the allegations made by Israel against Iran have been clearly demonstrated as being false. And yet the US continues to trumpet the Israeli claims, and no individual more loudly so than the US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton*."
[*Surprise, surprise, Patti's former boss.]
That's Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, from his 2006 book Target Iran (p 208)
Be afraid, be very afraid.
"Israel is preparing for a war, nuclear if need be, for the sake of averting domestic change not to its liking, if it occurs in some or any Middle Eastern states." Israel Shahak, Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear & Foreign Policies, pp 43-44
Here's a conversation between two people. Mark knows there's an elephant in the room. Patti's* in denial:-
[*"... all of her colleagues call her Patti..." http://law.wlu.edu/magazine/negotiator.asp]
Mark: The other really big non-proliferation hotspot, of course, is the Middle East. Seymour Hersh, the investigative journalist has a piece in the latest New Yorker, which suggests that the Bush administration has just diverted quite a large sum of money to intelligence on Iran's nuclear program and to operations inside Iran. Do you have any comment on that?
Patti: Yeah, you know, I've never seen a writer get it wrong so many times and still get credence every time he writes something. Our ambassador in Iraq was very clear in his statements and he called them completely incorrect and not accurate. So let our ambassador speak for the United States on that.
Mark: So what is the US position at the moment on Iran's nuclear program?
Patti: The US is working through the so-called P5+1 process, working together to push the Iranians to reassess their decision to pursue a nuclear program through the UN Security Council. We have outlined a number of sanctions, measures, that are binding in all states. And we've also said that we're going to stop those sanctions if Iran ceases its enrichment reprocessing activities. And additionally we've created a package of incentives that, were Iran to cease its enrichment and reprocessing activities, we are prepared to negotiate a number of benefits that flow from that package, including even development of civil and nuclear energy cooperation in a way that is obviously not proliferation sensitive.
Mark: Meantime, though, there's a constant drumbeat, particularly from Israel, saying you've got very little time to do anything about this and that Iran may be a year, 2 years, 3 years away from a nuclear weapon, and the suggestion is that the Israelis may do something about it.
Patti: Obviously, Israel sees Iran as the existential threat, [and] will obviously look at its own strategic interest. Our national intelligence estimate says the worst case scenario is 2009, but more likely the development of the fissile material needed for a nuclear weapon would occur into the next decade. So there is some time to make diplomacy work, not a lot of time, and we are committed to work through the diplomatic path. A mix of sanctions, of pressure, a collaboration with our partners. Not only in the P5+1, but also in the Gulf region, as well as working closely here in Asia. Many of the supplies and the (inaudible) items that are getting to Iran for these programs have a source here.
Mark: Whenever we look at this subject on this program, I get emails and letters from people saying, 'Well, Israel's got the nuclear bomb. Why is there not similar outrage about that? Because they're outside the non-proliferation treaty too'.
Patti: Well, Iran is a member of the non-proliferation treaty. They ratified it, they committed to implement it, and we believe they are acting in contravention to that binding legal committment that they took. And so, this process...
Mark: That really doesn't answer the question about Israel though, does it?
Patti: You know, I think in terms of the Israel question we certainly have not seen any indication that Israel is ready to introduce nuclear weapons as a weapon into the region.
Mark: What do you mean?
Patti: And they have always indicated as a better policy that is not... that they will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the region.
Mark: You mean no first strike? I mean that doesn't say they haven't got them.
Patti: You know, I sort of don't want to articulate their policy, that's something that they've done.
Mark: So the US doesn't believe Israel has a nuclear weapon?
Patti: I really wouldn't want to characterise what the US calculations, our assessments are on that point. My major point would be that Iran is pursuing its nuclear weapons in contravention to its legal commitments. Iran is also a deep, destabiliseding force in the region.
Mark: What I'm asking you [is] that people write in and they say, 'Why get so worried about Iran's nuclear weapons, when everybody knows that Israel has nuclear weapons?'
Patti: I think we all need to be worried about Iran. It's a destabilising influence in the region. It's supplying arms, not only to Iraqi insurgents, but even to its sworn enemy, the Taliban. It's supplying support to Hezbollah, it's supporting actions on the part of Syria. So it is having a large destabilising influence in the region. It also has the potential for the nuclear cascade. If you look at countries in the Gulf states, they look to Iran, and were Iran to acquire nuclear weapons capability, the potential for further acquisition of nuclear weapons capabilities in that region would certainly augment in the view of many who have assessed that region.
Mark: Patricia McNerney, Acting Assistant Secretary for International Security and Non-Proliferation with the US State Department.
That was part of an interview (US State Department representative speaks on nuclear weapons, 1/7/08) with Patricia McNerney, Acting Assistant Secretary for International Security and Non-Proliferation with the US State Department by Mark Colvin on ABC Radio National's PM program. The interview began with a discussion of North Korea's recent demolition of the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear power plant. To his credit (and this is unusual for the mainstream media) Mark had his eyes open.
Here's a paragraph from an article by a man who literally worships the ground the elephant in the room walks on (formerly known as Palestine in case you're interested). He knows that most of us are not as enamoured of the beast as he, and so would rather not draw too much attention to the object of his love. However, given the monstrous proportions of the creature, its swaggering, aggressive movements and loud trumpetings, he finds he has little choice but to acknowledge its presence in some way. And so, blinded by love, he tries his best to convince his readers that the elephant is really a gazelle:-
"Iran possessing nuclear weapons would be the final crack in the global non-proliferation regime. Despite parallels drawn to Israel's alleged nuclear capability, Israel is not violating international commitments (it didn't sign the NPT); it hasn't threatened to use nuclear weapons against its neighbours (it doesn't even confirm it has them); and its neighbours haven't sought a similar hedge against it."
That paragraph was part of an opinion piece (Diplomacy with Iran must be backed by a threat of force, 7/7/08) published in The Age. It was written by Dr Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).
Here's a letter from a man who loves the beast as ardently as the former, but can see no reason not to shout it from the rooftops. In fact, he believes that the entire Middle East should be rezoned as an off-leash area for the impetuous pachyderm, and being a lawyer, he has the legal gobbledegook at hand to justify any murderous rampage it may choose to undertake:-
"As a matter of policy, any first use of nuclear weapons is an extremely momentous decision and can be justified only in the most dire of circumstances. Any first use of nuclear weapons by Israel would be an even more momentous decision, given the unfortunate 'double standard' which the international community applies to judging all of Israel's military actions. However, given Ahmadinejad's declaratory policy of seeking to obliterate Israel, an Israeli decision to launch a preemptive strike against an entire array of Iran's nuclear targets would be justifiable in certain circumstances. (I assume that given the number of Iranian nuclear targets, their dispersal and 'hardness', Israel would not have high confidence in conventional strike options.) These circumstances would basically have to entail an imminent deployment of nuclear weapons by Iran, coupled with the realisation that there are no other viable options left for blocking Iran from such a deployment. While an Israeli first nuclear use against Iran would be certainly justifiable in such circumstances, you should be under no illusion as to what kind of reaction it would elicit; Israel would encounter a howl of international condemnations, boycotts, and diplomatic isolation the likes of which it has never seen. Its nuclear strike against Iran is also likely to trigger a regional arms race and precipitate many other dangerous and unpredictable consequences.
"As far as the law is concerned, despite the existing ICJ advisory opinion concerning nuclear weapons, I don't believe that there is any binding norm of international law that governs their utilization or prohibits nuclear use. Thus, the normal principles of jus ad bellum - governing the circumstances where the resort to force is legitimate - and jus in bello - governing the ways in which force can be used - would apply to any nuclear use by Israel. It would have to take exceptional care to ensure that it attacks only military targets and keeps collateral damage to the minimum levels possible. I have no doubt that IDF planners will endeavor to comply fully with all of the relevant jus in bello norms."
That was David Rivkin of Baker Hostetler LLP, a Visiting Fellow at the Nixon Center etc, etc. His letter appeared in the Israeli English language daily Haaretz on 23/6/08.
Finally, here's guy who not only knows there's an elephant in the room but loudly warns that it's a rogue:-
"The conflict currently underway between the US and Iran is, first and foremost, a conflict born in Israel. It is based upon an Israeli contention that Iran poses a threat to Israel, and defined by Israeli assertions that Iran possesses a nuclear weapons program. None of this has been shown to be true, and indeed much of the allegations made by Israel against Iran have been clearly demonstrated as being false. And yet the US continues to trumpet the Israeli claims, and no individual more loudly so than the US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton*."
[*Surprise, surprise, Patti's former boss.]
That's Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, from his 2006 book Target Iran (p 208)
Be afraid, be very afraid.
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