Harry’s Place Racism Watch - Part 1

Harrys’ Place, also known to it’s opponents as the Brown Sauce - on account of the frequent appearance of Far Right racist comments in its comment threads, the well known neoliberal and staunchly pro-Zionist blog has in place what by now practically amounts to a policy of deleting/banning ‘anti-Zionist' commenters (I use quote marks because anti-Zionism like most movements is rather a broad church). Bloggers like me, 'The Hasbara Buster' and Tony Greenstein (himself here on HP’s racism) have had comments deleted or have been banned in the past or present. This censorship is based on a standard Zionist trope: anti-Zionism equals antisemitism and thus anti-Zionist critiques of Israel can be dismissed as racism and the deletions and bans justified on the grounds of ‘keeping it clean’. Needless to say as an 'anti-Zionist' I disagree with the AZ = AS equation but that isn’t the object of this post: the alleged identity of anti-Zionism and antisemitism has been proved false extensively elsewhere, see e.g. Tony Greenstein’s blog for extensive debunking.

The question I’m asking is why if the Brown Sauce is so keen on scrubbing its comment sections from “anti-Zionist antisemitic garbage” doest it have not the slightest qualms about allowing deeply racist comments, usually but not exclusively of an Islamophobic nature? I’ve seen these appearing with increasing and alarming frequency over the several years I’ve been following this very popular blog.

This post is one in a series of posts aimed at exposing racism in HP’s comment threads and filling up the first instalment with excellent examples of deep seated racism was made particularly easy by a post by frequent HP flyer ‘Sarah AB’, clunkily and with hindsight also ironically titled Anti-Muslim Bigotry vs. Islamophobia. I won’t go into Sarah’s piece, which strikes me not to put a finer point to it as a bit of a w*nk piece. Apparently ‘Islamophobia’ is somehow tainted as a term and ‘anti-Muslim bigotry’ is to be preferred. Whatever Sarah, you say tomato and I say… tomato.

So lets get that party started and what follows now is your finest selection of… erm, Islamophobic commentary (two are just plain anti-religious nuttery), lifted from the comment section of said piece, presented here completely unadulterated, any emphasis by the authors reproduced and none added, for your delectation. A sick bag at the ready is recommended for sensitive souls.

Peter @ 26 January 2012, 10:39 pm

Exactly. The absurd, counterproductive (and imo, designed to stir up hatred) term ‘Islamophobia’ was invented for one purpose, and one purpose only (or at least, 2 closely related ones): to promote a victimhood culture, and heap contempt on those who stands in its way by attaching to them the stupid ‘racist’ label.

Armaros @ 26 January 2012, 10:43 pm

I fully reject the crypto fascist term “islamophobia”.

There is bigotry out there, some directed at Muslims because of their faith or because of their race (if they happen to be non white).

I reject the “racist” label also because Islam is not a race and its adherents come from all races and classes.

Trespassers Will @ 26 January 2012, 11:39 pm

What if, having read and understood the fundamental tenets of islam as defined in the quran, you have concluded that islam is repulsive? That it is vile and toxic in its scripture, aspirations, and throughout its entire history? That it has no branch which isn’t revolting?

Does it ever occur to you Sarah, that if anyone should declare his membership of the Ku Klux Klan, it might actually be delinquency on your part if you did not express your disgust? Would it be bigotry, to denounce a KKK follower because to the best of your knowledge, he hasn’t actually set any black people on fire (yet)? Would it make you a klanophobe?

If you state your allegiance to some ideology, or some society or religion, with an agenda of cruelty or torture or crime, you deserve to be called to account by your fellow men and women.

Think of England @ 27 January 2012, 3:11 am

I should be able to express my hatred of Islam all I want; using the Koran to pick up dog poop, for instance. Or my hatred of Christianity; perhaps putting a crucifix in a jar of urine and hoping some museum will buy it. As soon as I’m forced to respect someone’s beliefs, I lose my freedom. I don’t respect religious beliefs; I think they are laughable (at best); pathetic, pitiable, and frightening. Currently, the West, I’m not afraid of Christianity or Judaism (or, Christians or Jews, if you will), even at their worst and they are often horrible, especially the Hassids who are nauseating to me. But Muslims are a different problem. Nothing, no arguments, statistics or whatever, can, I believe, show me that I have nothing to fear from them. All you have to do is read the newspaper; you don’t even have to read JihadWatch. My dislike of Islam is certainly not irrational at all.

Nick (in South Africa) @ 27 January 2012, 6:54 am


All well and good, however the term Hinduphobia doesn’t get banded about. This is practically a science experiment.

There is not a problem with Hindus in the UK, there is with Muslims, it’s that simple.
This is because Islam is a political system that happens to come wrapped in the guise of religion. One with global imperialist aspirations, one that is deeply authoritarian, highly misogynistic, profoundly intolerant, violent and much more besides.

We DO have unfettered serial immigration to the UK of huge numbers of ill educated Muslims with a mediaeval World view. There are now 4 million Muslims in the country and not a hint of any stop to it. This IS causing problems. A very large percentage of these first, second and third generation immigrants hold views inimical to life in a pluralistic tolerant liberal democracy, and these views are directly informed by mainstream Islamic dogma. There IS an ignoble record of this manifested in Muslim violence, hundreds of terror plots, terror attacks, ‘honour’ killings, blatant intimidation, nothing other than utterly cynical sexual predation by gangs of Muslim men on vulnerable white girls, grievance monging by Muslims with hair-trigger sensibilities and special pleading for dress concessions, diet concessions, prayer rooms, protective censorship, faith schools and so on.

People notice.

Islamic Kuffarphobia and the endemic Jew hatred amongst Muslims – both directly informed by Islam – is orders of magnitude a more pressing issue than any Islamophobia amongst the Kuffar.

Charges of Islamophobia are overwhelmingly used by grievance monging Muslims, overweening bleeding-heart guilt soaked liberals and deeply illiberal Lefties in attempts to shut down critique of Islam, mass Muslim immigration and attempts at obtaining privileged status for Muslims.

Many of us despise Islam because it really is profoundly nasty.

CBinTH @ 27 January 2012, 9:03 am

Just popping in to say, that however much I agree that Islamophobia is a politically-manipulative term, and that varying degrees of anti-Islam feeling could simply be described as such, the fact is that we DO have ‘irrational’ responses to everything.
The comment thread has turned into an Islamo-sceptics mutual appreciation society, and people are congratulating themselves on their spiritual, mental and emotional purity.

But I think irrational dislike of Islam (“Islamophobia”) DOES exist, and is even pervasive in our society.

And that I personally am quite Islamophobic.

For example, I personally like to see nuns, not that you get many of them in the UK ; – for me, they carry positive connotations. Perhaps this is irrational. On the other hand, I don’t like to see the Niqab, the full veil, especially on British streets. I don’t even really like the hijab, though to a lesser degree. And yet the headscarf and the wimple follow exactly the same principle, and the nun has a more restricted life and sexuality than the niqab wearer, so why my inconsistency?

I can try to rationalize it all I wish – the coercion or pressure forcing a woman to conform, the wearing of clothing as a badge of belonging (or seperatism, or allegiance,) the implied insult to all women who don’t wear the same, the impracticality that results from the niqab, and (most accurately) a negative reaction simply to mere ‘foreignness’……. But the truth is that none of these truly explains my reaction.

I react that way on a very basic level, and the reaction has vastly increased in intensity since 9/11. Before that, it was more the reaction of a contemptuous shrug – or even acknowledgement of quaint old fashioned customs – but after 9/11 it was something that would please my enemy, and therefore, I find these badges of identity annoying and react as if they’re almost inherently hostile.

So, while Islamophobia is a problematic term, let’s be alive to the fact that, A. We CAN be prejudiced towards a religion, B. These prejudices can affect our attitudes towards innocent people, and C. Since we react emotionally towards ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, we should neither be ashamed nor defensive about this, but simply work to recognise these traits in ourselves, and try to behave and think in an ethical manner. This means being polite and loving towards those who dress differently, and, also, having the intellectual integrity to realise when we are simply looking for ammunition to justify our emotional prejudices.

Peter @ 27 January 2012, 9:06 am

Nick (SA) is spot on. This is not a ’sensational fantasy’, as Sarah characterises it, but a very real situation, which is disastrous to this and other countries. Since it was brought about by the acts of commission (variously stupid and nefarious) and omission of bleeding heart so-called ‘liberals’, it’s unsurprising that bleeding heart so-called ‘liberals’ try to brush it under the carpet.

Albert Fischer @ 27 January 2012, 10:05 am

1) Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.

Umm yes..? Look at egypt: as soon as a relaxed author such as nagib machfus shows up, they kill them. static and unresponsive to change and homogenous in its twatishness

2) Islam is seen as separate and ‘other’. It does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them.

Ummm….yes….? The differences are vast and decisive.
3) Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist.

Quite.

4) Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism and engaged in a ‘clash of civilisations’.

Yes, indeed. have some egyptian state television:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X0Py-1iggFQ

5) Islam is seen as a political ideology and is used for political or military advantage.
See above.

6) Criticisms made of the West by Islam are rejected out of hand.

I am not aware of any positive responses. or anything positive flowing from islam altogether, as such

7) Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society.

Well they’re not exlcuded from mainstream society are they? they just bought london’s entire zone 1, among other things

8) Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural or normal.

Yup

Flaming Fairy @ 27 January 2012, 11:12 am

And that’s a recipe for shutting whole swathes of people up, Normative. What if someone decided that Gay Pride was “Islamophobic”, for instance?

I am in favour of ditching any and all terms which single Muslims out as a unique victim group. They aren’t.

Lamia @ 27 January 2012, 12:04 pm

Think of England and Nick are correct.

It is a self-evident fact that the greater the presence of Islam in a society, the worse that is for freedom of speech, democracy, and human rights. I am not interested in discussing its theological merits or whether it is any more absurd than Christianity, Judaism etel. The point is that currently it is far more dangerous and oppressive than all the other world’s religions put together. It is a blight. I don’t welcome its increased presence in Britain because I see the societies it has created and they are at best miles worse than any Northern European country and at worst absolutely appalling.

I am not going to enthuse about the spread of the religion that is king of the most barbaric, lunatic region on earth, no matter how much some ‘liberals’ wring their hands and some ’socialists’ chant ‘racist!’. Islam deserves no respect from me, only justified caution and dislike. Its numerous murder-preaching, rape-justifying clerics and preachers deserve to be stamped on very hard, preferably fatally.

Evan @ 27 January 2012, 1:43 pm

What Alcuin said at 12:45, and what Nick in S. Africa said at 6:54.
Islam is not a religion. It is a belligerant, imperialistic, intolerant, political movement that seek global domination

There are 56 or 57 majority Muslim countries, almost all of which are completely dysfunctional. Those that aren’t suffering that state of affairs have been able to mask their more primitve and backward aspects by purchasing a veneer of westernisation andf sophistication with ( temporary) oil money.

When that money runs out many of these countries will resemble Somalia.
When it comes to islam, there’s no there, there. People fall over each other in order to embellish, to nuance and to display ‘balance’. WE foolishly commit to islam all sorts of qualities and properties it simply doesn’t have. We canot call something vulgar, even when it is truly vulgar because WE don’t want to be considered vulgar.
Well, consider Attaturk’s vulgarity, raised a pious Muslims and later the founder of secular Turkey when he referred to Islam ( all of it) as a “rotting carcasse”.

And as for the essentialisation aspect, when the various intelligence agencies get to the point where most of their resources and manpower are devoted to keeing tabs on violent and belligerent Muslims, should those managing the budgets of those agencies be accused of essentialisng Islam and Muslims? Are they engaging in bigotry and islamophobia?

Or are they just doing their jobs seeings the nature and number of threats they face coming from Muslims?

Accusdations of islamophobia are nothing more than lame attempts at supressing the awful truth about the ideology.

Nick (in South Africa) @ 27 January 2012, 1:43 pm

Muslims who in public, identify with Islam should be fair game to be held to account for the ideology to which they subscribe, this doesn’t happen nearly enough.

Muslims should be made to feel pressure that their ideology is beyond the pale; because it really and truly is. Self identifying Muslims in dress, deed or word should be treated as pariahs in exactly the same way as members of the EDL and the BNP are. If you rock-up for work in an office in the UK dressed in a dish-dash or a burqua, it is a political statement, one quite clearly endorsing mainstream Islamic ideology, which quite undoubtedly is a form of Fascism. This is functionally no different at all from rocking up to work in BNP regalia.

We need more conversational intolerance towards Islam, not less. We shouldn’t tolerate its intolerance. The fact that it is a religion as well as a political ideology, the fact that most of it’s adherents are brown skinned really shouldn’t be seen as any kind of mitigation. Alas it is seen as mitigation, double standards are applied, the soft racism of low expectation is rife, bend over backwards self hating liberals and more malign Leftists do sow confusion. As does fear of being branded ‘racist’ or ‘Islamophobic’ and that’s hugely wrong.

What I won’t do is try to pretend that Islamic ideology is what it isn’t. It isn’t ‘a religion of peace’, it isn’t tolerant…. it’s horrible. I don’t and won’t try to make fluffy, cooing noises in its direction in the hope that it will be de-fanged; indeed I think this approach, which has been quite common, even amongst even HP posters – the David T of yore springs to mind, is very deeply misguided.

Is my view towards Islam an ‘irrational fear’?

Bollocks it is!

Is it Islamophobic – the word tells you more about the person using it than it does about the person or group its directed against.

Muslims are best advised to abandon this especially nasty ideology. Again if we – the British collectively – don’t catch a wake-up we are setting ourselves up for the most appalling sectarian strife.

Trespassers Will @ 27 January 2012, 4:16 pm

Its the equivalent of declaring yourself a SUPPORTER of one. By definition, by scripture, and by practice, islam demands a continuous campaign of violence and oppression against all non members, and absolute unquestioning solidarity between members. Any muslim denying any of these tenets sincerely, is, by definition, apostate.

M=o=r=g=y @ 27 January 2012, 4:24 pm

so in your view being a Muslim is the exact equivalent of being a member of a terrorist organisation.

Being a monotheist (of whatever stripe) is the same as being a Nazi, to be honest.

M=o=r=g=y @ 27 January 2012, 4:32 pm

Look at the history of monotheism. Look at the history of Nazism.

They’re pretty much identical. The same aims. The same methods. The same results.

The same death and destruction.

They’re the same thing.

Iran should have obtained nukes 16 years ago…

Robert Fisk in The Independent:


Turning round a story is one of the most difficult tasks in journalism – and rarely more so than in the case of Iran. Iran, the dark revolutionary Islamist menace. Shia Iran, protector and manipulator of World Terror, of Syria and Lebanon and Hamas and Hezbollah. Ahmadinejad, the Mad Caliph. And, of course, Nuclear Iran, preparing to destroy Israel in a mushroom cloud of anti-Semitic hatred, ready to close the Strait of Hormuz – the moment the West's (or Israel's) forces attack.

Given the nature of the theocratic regime, the repulsive suppression of its post-election opponents in 2009, not to mention its massive pools of oil, every attempt to inject common sense into the story also has to carry a medical health warning: no, of course Iran is not a nice place. But ...

Let's take the Israeli version which, despite constant proof that Israel's intelligence services are about as efficient as Syria's, goes on being trumpeted by its friends in the West, none more subservient than Western journalists. The Israeli President warns us now that Iran is on the cusp of producing a nuclear weapon. Heaven preserve us. Yet we reporters do not mention that Shimon Peres, as Israeli Prime Minister, said exactly the same thing in 1996. That was 16 years ago. And we do not recall that the current Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in 1992 that Iran would have a nuclear bomb by 1999. That would be 13 years ago. Same old story.

In fact, we don't know that Iran really is building a nuclear weapon. And after Iraq, it's amazing that the old weapons of mass destruction details are popping with the same frequency as all the poppycock about Saddam's titanic arsenal. Not to mention the date problem. When did all this start? The Shah. The old boy wanted nuclear power. He even said he wanted a bomb because "the US and the Soviet Union had nuclear bombs" and no one objected. Europeans rushed to supply the dictator's wish. Siemens – not Russia – built the Bushehr nuclear facility.

And when Ayatollah Khomeini, Scourge of the West, Apostle of Shia Revolution, etc, took over Iran in 1979, he ordered the entire nuclear project to be closed down because it was "the work of the Devil". Only when Saddam invaded Iran – with our Western encouragement – and started using poison gas against the Iranians (chemical components arriving from the West, of course) was Khomeini persuaded to reopen it.

All this has been deleted from the historical record; it was the black-turbaned mullahs who started the nuclear project, along with the crackpot Ahmadinejad. And Israel might have to destroy this terror-weapon to secure its own survival, to ensure the West's survival, for democracy, etc, etc.

For Palestinians in the West Bank, Israel is the brutal, colonising, occupying power. But the moment Iran is mentioned, this colonial power turns into a tiny, vulnerable, peaceful state under imminent threat of extinction. Ahmadinejad – here again, I quote Netanyahu – is more dangerous than Hitler. Israel's own nuclear warheads – all too real and now numbering almost 300 – disappear from the story. Iran's Revolutionary Guards are helping the Syrian regime destroy its opponents; they might like to – but there is no proof of this.

The trouble is that Iran has won almost all its recent wars without firing a shot. George W and Tony destroyed Iran's nemesis in Iraq. They killed thousands of the Sunni army whom Iran itself always referred to as "the black Taliban". And the Gulf Arabs, our "moderate" friends, shiver in their golden mosques as we in the West outline their fate in the event of an Iranian Shia revolution.

No wonder Cameron goes on selling weapons to these preposterous people whose armies, in many cases, could scarcely operate soup kitchens, let alone the billions of dollars of sophisticated kit we flog them under the fearful shadow of Tehran.

Bring on the sanctions. Send in the clowns.

One for Harry’s Place (not): Atzmon to eat Humble Pie…

Here’s one that you probably will not hear the Brown Sauce harp on about too much: a crushing defeat for the Atzmonites at the Palestine Solidarity Committee’s (PSC) Annual General Meeting (report by Tony Greenstein).

Always keen to try and smear pro-Palestinian activists with the AS charge, pro-Zionist advocacy groups, blogs and news outlets have been quick to point to ‘support’ for the PSC by known antisemite (and Holocaust Denial supporter) Gilad Atzmon, an unsavoury character the PSC did have some trouble distancing itself from. But Atzmon, whose main claim seems to be that Zionism is caused by ‘perfidious Jewishness’, will have to eat humble pie now that one of his Holocaust denying chums, Francis Clark-Lowes, has been permanently expelled from the PSC (appeals now also exhausted).

There’s much more in terms of victory for those who want to keep the PSC a strictly anti-racist movement, so read that report.

Will the Brown Sauce now at least recognise that associating the PSC with Atzmon and assorted low lifes no longer flies? My money is on HP pretending their nose is bleeding, ditto for the JC, Engage (the latter really should have a duty to report a victory against racism but I doubt if they will) and a small flotilla of 101 keyboard pro-Zionist oppression blogs and blogettes…

An Atzmonite’s antisemitic portrayal of Tony Greenstein:



Francis Clark-Lowes: can someone shove that glass of wine where the sun doesn’t shine? Please?

The Map the President’s Men Didn’t Want You to See…

H/T Mondoweiss, from ‘West Wing’:

Jonafun Hoffman exceeds himself…

Apparently Jenny Tonge, not exactly the sharpest tool in the pro-Palestinian shed, spoke about I/P in the House of Commons last night. Jonafun Hoffman, indefatigable fighter of anti-Zionism, erm… antisemitism, one who gets about and member of the Jewish Inquisition, was there to monitor proceedings. His faithful stenographer Richard ‘I’m not a Zionist’ Millett trolled along to take notes.

From Millett’s report:

And she spoke about why she thinks she comes in for such heavy criticism and put this down to the fact that she stands up for the Palestinians and criticises Israel. The latter, she thinks, is viewed as being anti-Semitic.

When challenged by Jonathan Hoffman to give an example of when criticism of Israel has been called anti-Semitic she said she could give “many examples”, but failed to come through with even one.

Hoffman asking to “give an example of when criticism of Israel has been called anti-Semitic”... The mind seriously boggles… Still, Hoffman’s amazing curveball, deployed together with the Inquisition’s chief weapon - the element of surprise [Classic Python], would definitely have left me with a mouth full of dangling teeth too!

Hoffman and friends: to his left is Roberta Moore, head honcho and Jewish thug-in-Chief of the ‘Jewish wing of the EDL’ and occasional commenter at Richard Millett:

Nick Clegg bends over, spreads buttocks, then ‘criticises’ Zionist Entity…

Torygraph:

The Deputy Prime Minister drew a hostile reaction from Israel by saying the government’s continued construction on internationally recognised Palestinian land was “an act of deliberate vandalism” that undermined the basis of the Middle East peace process.

In some of the most critical language ever used by a senior European politician in government, Mr Clegg accused Israel of making the likelihood of a negotiated settlement to the conflict impossible to deliver.

“It is an act of deliberate vandalism to the basic premise on which negotiations have taken place for years and years and years,” Mr Clegg said.

He said there was “no stronger supporter of Israel than myself as a beacon of democracy in the region”, but added: “The continued existence of illegal settlements risks making facts on the ground such that a two-state solution becomes unviable.

“That, in turn, will do nothing to safeguard the security of Israel itself or of Israeli citizens. That is why I condemn the continued illegal settlement activity in the strongest possible terms.”

Clueless Clegg will undoubtedly be smugly pleased with what is essentially lame and seriously outdated commentary, even though it will have a lot of Israel Firsters foam at the mouth (it’s official Nick: you’re a New Anti-Semite!)

Or is this simply a case of having incompetent ‘special advisors’? “Making facts on the ground”? Settlement building in the West Bank (ooops: ‘Judea and Samaria’!) and East Jerusalem (ooops: ‘a neighbourhood of the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish State’!) has gone on unabatedly and in crescendo since Israel’s pre-emptive war [cough!] of 1967 and has practically reduced the Two State Solution to nothing more than soft porn for the impotent.

Clegg’s therefore no less guilty than any other Western mainstream politician: guilty of aiding and abetting land theft and much more beside that, committed by ‘the only democracy in the ME’ (an irrelevant point if there ever was one)

Mossad False Flag Operations: Posing as CIA agents?

Foreign Policy online:

Buried deep in the archives of America's intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush's administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents. According to two U.S. intelligence officials, the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives -- what is commonly referred to as a "false flag" operation.
The memos, as described by the sources, one of whom has read them and another who is intimately familiar with the case, investigated and debunked reports from 2007 and 2008 accusing the CIA, at the direction of the White House, of covertly supporting Jundallah -- a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization. Jundallah, according to the U.S. government and published reports, is responsible for assassinating Iranian government officials and killing Iranian women and children.

But while the memos show that the United States had barred even the most incidental contact with Jundallah, according to both intelligence officers, the same was not true for Israel's Mossad. The memos also detail CIA field reports saying that Israel's recruiting activities occurred under the nose of U.S. intelligence officers, most notably in London, the capital of one of Israel's ostensible allies, where Mossad officers posing as CIA operatives met with Jundallah officials.

The officials did not know whether the Israeli program to recruit and use Jundallah is ongoing. Nevertheless, they were stunned by the brazenness of the Mossad's efforts.

"It's amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with," the intelligence officer said. "Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn't give a damn what we thought."

Interviews with six currently serving or recently retired intelligence officers over the last 18 months have helped to fill in the blanks of the Israeli false-flag operation. In addition to the two currently serving U.S. intelligence officers, the existence of the Israeli false-flag operation was confirmed to me by four retired intelligence officers who have served in the CIA or have monitored Israeli intelligence operations from senior positions inside the U.S. government.

The CIA and the White House were both asked for comment on this story. By the time this story went to press, they had not responded. The Israeli intelligence services -- the Mossad -- were also contacted, in writing and by telephone, but failed to respond. As a policy, Israel does not confirm or deny its involvement in intelligence operations.

There is no denying that there is a covert, bloody, and ongoing campaign aimed at stopping Iran's nuclear program, though no evidence has emerged connecting recent acts of sabotage and killings inside Iran to Jundallah. Many reports have cited Israel as the architect of this covert campaign, which claimed its latest victim on Jan. 11 when a motorcyclist in Tehran slipped a magnetic explosive device under the car of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a young Iranian nuclear scientist. The explosion killed Roshan, making him the fourth scientist assassinated in the past two years. The United States adamantly denies it is behind these killings.

According to one retired CIA officer, information about the false-flag operation was reported up the U.S. intelligence chain of command. It reached CIA Director of Operations Stephen Kappes, his deputy Michael Sulick, and the head of the Counterintelligence Center. All three of these officials are now retired. The Counterintelligence Center, according to its website, is tasked with investigating "threats posed by foreign intelligence services."

The report then made its way to the White House, according to the currently serving U.S. intelligence officer. The officer said that Bush "went absolutely ballistic" when briefed on its contents.

"The report sparked White House concerns that Israel's program was putting Americans at risk," the intelligence officer told me. "There's no question that the U.S. has cooperated with Israel in intelligence-gathering operations against the Iranians, but this was different. No matter what anyone thinks, we're not in the business of assassinating Iranian officials or killing Iranian civilians."

Israel's relationship with Jundallah continued to roil the Bush administration until the day it left office, this same intelligence officer noted. Israel's activities jeopardized the administration's fragile relationship with Pakistan, which was coming under intense pressure from Iran to crack down on Jundallah. It also undermined U.S. claims that it would never fight terror with terror, and invited attacks in kind on U.S. personnel.

Read the MUST READ rest at FP

Watch an Al Jazeera interview with Mark Perry, here

"In the end," the officer noted, "it was just easier to do nothing than to, you know, rock the boat." Even so, at least for a short time, this same officer noted, the Mossad operation sparked a divisive debate among Bush's national security team, pitting those who wondered "just whose side these guys [in Israel] are on" against those who argued that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Yeah, rock the boat and have to deal with AIPAC types like this one here (spoof alert!), that would be a real pain in the proverbials, as Mark Perry is probably soon to find out the hard way…

The Only (Russian) Democracy in the Middle East

Russian MK Michaeli pouring a glass of water over MK Majadele is by now 'old' news (I first saw it at 972mag). Here’s the incident again:




Magnes Zionist has some interesting comments (H/T Jews sans Frontieres):

The Ethics Knesset sanctioned MK Michaeli by banned her from the Knesset for a month. After she expressed pride over the incident, she formally apologized last night. What got her so riled? If you look at tape, you see it was MK Majadele shouting "You shut up!" when she interrupted him. This deeply offended her, and she responded by saying that one doesn't talk in this manner to a female MK, and that she would take it up with Ethics Committee -- the same Ethics committee that subsequently banned her. Of course Majadele yelled, "You shut up!" because he was deeply offended; he saw her remarks not simply as a typical Knesset interruption, but as an affront to all Israeli Arabs, who have been silenced, or not listened to.

How true Maimonides' statement, "One should be offended rather than give offense."

This incident today in the Knesset parliamentary Education Committee probably won't make the mainstream media outside of Israel, or hasn't yet. Will it be shown in America? Sometimes MSNBC's nightly line-up needs some relief from talking heads on Mitt Romney, and they show parliaments from the Far East, or the Former Soviet Union, engaging in fist-fights. It's cute, and it reminds us in America how far we are from that.

So we have MK Anastasia Michaeli, a blond Russian-born settler in Israel, a gentile who became eligible to become a citizen of a modern state after a religious conversion, and is now a member of the ultra-nationalist Russian Jewish party, Yisrael Beitienu, who stands up, calmly pours a glass or water, and then throws it at Palestinian Israeli MK Raleb Majadele, a member of Labor, no less. There had been the usual heated words before that, as the Russian settler kept on interrupting the Palestinian Israeli's speach, while the chairperson of the Parliamentary committee, a fellow Russian-born ultra-nationalist, Alex Miller, looked on.

Folks, this is Israel today. Were there to be a two-state solution next week, were there to be a viable Palestinian state tomorrow, were the problems of the Palestinian refugees solved, the fundamental problem of Israel would not be solved. And what is that problem?

Simply put: A religio-ethnic-exclusivist Zionism that privileges, inter alia, ultra-Russian nationalist religious converts to Judaism, with automatic rights to citizenship, over native Palestinians. And it was always like this. Look at the first four prime ministers of the State of Israel: David Grun, Moshe Shertock, Levi Shkolnik, and Golda Meyerson -- all natives of the Russian Empire. They certainly had better manners than some of the Yisrael Beiteinu members of parliament today -- but the former weren't any less Russian and ultra-nationalistic than the latter.

Ah, the beauty of Israeli democracy,,,the indigenous natives are given the vote, and the political power to have water thrown at them.

Rick Santorum’s War on Islam

T’is a particularly cretinous bunch, this year’s Republican contenders for keepers of the US’s nuclear launch codes. The most ridiculous and Palinesque of them all, Michele Bachmann, recently decided to call it a day and we’re now left with a Naqba denier (Lizzard Gingrich), Mitt ‘Mr Bland’ Romney (the most innocuous of a bad lot, it would seem), Dr Ron Paul - a suspected racist, and Rick Santorum, a kind of 'pro-life'/pro mass murder ideal-son-in-law figure for brain-dead Conservative mothers, I imagine (I brush over a few that thankfully don’t stand a cat in hell’s chance).

Santorum’s always struck me as the kind of total nincompoop that could only garner some support in a very large country because assuming the general twit percentage doesn’t vary that much from one country in the ‘Free World’ to another, in the case of the US that makes for dangerously large numbers of twits, quod erat demonstrandum.

Now intrepid Internet sleuth Max Blumenthal has unearthed one of Ricky’s more memorable performances in the shape of an interview given to the truly execrably FrontPage Mag, Uberbigot David Horriblewitz’ outfit.

Richard Silverstein has picked up on the story but his link to Blumenthal is well worth exploring. Mr Santorum's antics however make interesting stand alone reading:

…This will be a long war. This will — remember, when they [Muslims] had the technological ability to fight us, they did, for a thousand years. A thousand years. This is hard for us to understand — a country scantly 250 years of age. A thousand years is incomprehensible to us. It is not to them. It is not to them. Their history is that history.

And they know their history. They know who they are. They know who we are. And we have no idea who they are…

…They are in a whole new war with us. We can choose not to be in one; doesn’t mean we aren’t. We are in a war, and theology is its basis. Just like we were in a war against Communism, and ideology was its basis. We need to understand that.

[snip]

“What must we do to win [against Islam]? We must educate, engage, evangelize and eradicate.”

[snip]

“Look at Europe. Europe is on the way to losing. The most popular male name in Belgium — Mohammad…They [Christian Europeans] are losing because they are not having children, they have no faith, they have nothing to counteract it. They are balkanizing Islam, but that’s exactly what they want. And they’re creating an opportunity for the creation of Eurabia, or Euristan in the future…Europe will not be in this battle with us. Because there will be no Europe left to fight.”

[snip]

We should “talk about how Islam treats homosexuals. Talk about how they treat anybody who is found to be a homosexual, and the answer to that is, they kill them.”

[snip]

“…The Shia brand of Islamist extremists [is] even more dangerous than the Sunni [version]. Why? Because the ultimate goal of the Shia brand of Islamic Islam is to bring back the Mahdi. And do you know when the Mahdi returns? At the Apocalypse at the end of the world. You see, they are not interested in conquering the world; they are interested in destroying the world.”

“The other thing we need to do is eradicate, and that’s the final thing. As I said, this is going to be a long war.” [my emph.]

For a thousand years, Sunni Islam fought Christendom — a thousand years. And in fact, for most of the time, won; for the most of the time, was on the offensive. It wasn’t till the late 17th century that Islam was stopped. And it was stopped at the gates of Vienna, in the heart of Europe, in Austria. The siege of Vienna — the second siege of Vienna in 1683 — that ultimately was the highwater mark of Islam.

Does anybody know when the highwater mark of Islam was? September the 11th, 1683. It was the very next day, on the plains of Vienna, that Christendom — the Holy League, it was called — united. All of Europe…, we conquered — they conquered — the Sunnis, and drove them into finally a treaty in 1699. And for 300 years, they have been silent. Why? Because they didn’t have the resources or the technology to compete with the modern world. For 300 years, they lay silent.

But now Sunni Islam, through al-Qaeda, which is Sunni; through resources, known as oil; through technology that is now off-the-shelf, and through frustration — imagine you’re a Muslim. You are the person who has the faith that is the successor to the two incomplete faiths — Judaism and Christianity. You are the final revelation. You are the one that is going to control the world. You are the one for a thousand years dominated the world. And for 300 years, you sit in a backwater, looking at Christendom thrive, while you sit in squalor and poverty. How can this be?

…This is what we fight. They want to reconquer the world. They want to establish a new Kalifat…

But it’s not just radical Islam; it is also the radical left. Because what we’re seeing now is the old adage you learned when you were a kid — the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And the left — whether it’s here in this country, and certainly around the world — sees America today as the enemy. They fight us on college campuses, and they fight us in the streets of Central and South American countries, in North Korea, in other places.

Blumenthal goes on to explain why Ron Paul's (alleged) racism has been plastered all over the US MSM, while Santorum will in all likelihood get off scott free:

The Islamophobic rant Santorum delivered at an event organized by a known bigot was no less extreme than anything contained in Ron Paul's newsletters. But don't wait for the American mainstream press to discuss Santorum's disturbing views on Muslims as anything other than proof of his "authenticity."

Third Intifada?

Snotzies from the AOF pointing loaded guns at Palestinians protesting Apartheid in the West Bank:



This video was taken outside Jericho as Israeli Soldiers banned Palestinians to drive their cars in the west banks with National flags attached atop of the cars.

This Palestinian woman was arrested for driving on Israel's apartheid roads today:




Big Hat Tip: Mondoweiss

Israel and South African Apartheid – the Good Times

Excellent article by Tony Greenstein:

South African Politicians Never Hesitated to Compare Apartheid and Israel





Here is a quote from the last white South African Prime Minister, F W de Klerk. For those with long memories, you might recall that when the former South African Prime Minister PW Botha stepped down, he was succeeded by the most right-wing candidate de Klerk, leader of the Trasnvaal Nationalists. Which just goes to prove that the ‘leftists’ in settler-colonial countries aren’t necessarily those to do business with. [thanks to Jewssansfrontieres for this]

What I supported as a younger politician was exactly what the whole world now supports for Israel and Palestine, namely separate nation states will be the solution. In our case we failed. There were three main reasons.

We failed because the whites wanted too much land for themselves. We failed because the majority of blacks said this is not how we want our political rights. And we failed because we became economically totally integrated. We became an economic omelet and you can never again divide an omelet into the white and the yellow of the egg. And we realized in the early eighties we had landed in a place which has become morally unjustified.

It comes from a BBC 4 radio programme. Whereas the BBC was implacably opposed to the Boycott of South Africa at the time, something it conveniently forgets to mention now, it is more than happy to pick up the plaudits today.

There is also an excellent article by Chris McGreal in the Guardian Brothers in arms - Israel's secret pact with Pretoria which was published in February 2006.

Many have been the comparisons made by South African politicians, irked at the free ride that Israel was receiving, when Zionism was no different from Apartheid. As the South African press asked:

Is there any difference between the way the people of Israel are trying to maintain themselves amid the non-Jewish peoples and the way the Afrikaner is trying to remain what he is? The people of Israel base themselves upon the Old Testament to explain why they do not wish to mix with other people. The Afrikaner does this too. [Henry Katzew South Africa - A Country Without Friends' Midstream Spring 1962 p. 73, RP Stevens, 'Israel & South Africa' Zionism & Racism, p. l6]

Likewise Dr Verwoerd, in many ways the architect of Apartheid, wrote: “The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs lived there for a 1000 years. In this I agree with them. Israel like South Africa is an apartheid- state.” And the Jerusalem Post made clear in April 1976 on the conclusion of a. pact between Israel and South Africa, after Vorster's visit there:

The Afrikaners were especially enthusiastic... seeing a similarity of interest in two 'white' nations at the head and foot of the African continent waging lonely fights for survival against overwhelming black numbers.

This alliance was not of recent origin. The founder of Political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, wrote to Cecil Rhodes, the British colonialist after whom Rhodesia was named:

Please give me a statement saying you have examined my programme and found it appropriate. And why do I come to you, Mr Rhodes, you will ask. Because- my programme is. a colonial programme. [T Herzl; Diaries, , Vol III p.105]

B’Tselem End of Year Video (Camera project)