Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Philip Geraldi - Israel's Fifth Column

Another interesting column by Philip Geraldi


There is a history of American Jews closely attached to Israel being promoted by powerful and cash rich domestic lobbies to act on behalf of the Jewish state. To be sure, Jews who are Zionists are vastly overrepresented in all government agencies that have anything at all to do with the Middle East and one can reasonably argue that the Republican and Democratic Parties are in the pockets of Jewish billionaires named Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban.
Neoconservatives, most of whom are Jewish, infiltrated the Pentagon under the Reagan Administration and they and their heirs in government and media (Doug Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, Richard Perle, Bill Kristol) were major players in the catastrophic war with Iraq, which, one of the architects of that war, Philip Zelikow, described in 2004 as being all about Israel. The same people are now in the forefront of urging war with Iran.

American policy towards the Middle East is largely being managed by a small circle of Orthodox Jews working for presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner. One of them, David Friedman, is currently U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer who has no diplomatic or foreign policy credentials, is a Zionist Jew who is also a supporter of the illegal settlements on the West Bank and a harsh critic of other Jews who in any way disagree with the Israeli government. He has contributed money to settlement construction, which would be illegal if OTFI were doing its job, and has consistently defended the settlers while condemning the Palestinians in speeches in Israel. He endlessly and ignorantly repeats Israeli government talking points and has tried to change the wording of State Department communications, seeking to delete the word “occupied” when describing Israel’s control of the West Bank. His humanity does not extend beyond his Jewishness, defending the Israeli shooting thousands of unarmed Gazan protesters and the bombing of schools, hospitals and cultural centers. How he represents the United States and its citizens who are not dual nationals must be considered a mystery.

Philip Geraldi - Israel's Fifth Column

5 comments:

Tom Hickey said...

Scathing.

Tom Hickey said...

Zionism as an organized movement is generally considered to have been founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897. However, the history of Zionism began earlier and is related to Judaism and Jewish history. The Hovevei Zion, or the Lovers of Zion, were responsible for the creation of 20 new Jewish settlements in Palestine between 1870 and 1897.[1]

Before the Holocaust, the movement's central aims were the creation of a Jewish national home and cultural centre in Palestine by facilitating Jewish migration. After the Holocaust, the movement focused on creation of a Jewish state (usually defined as a secular state with a Jewish majority), attaining its goal in 1948 with the creation of Israel.

Since the creation of Israel, the importance of the Zionist movement as an organization has declined, as the Israeli state has grown stronger.[2]

The Zionist movement continues to exist, working to support Israel, assist persecuted Jews and encourage Jewish emigration to Israel. While most Israeli political parties continue to define themselves as Zionist, modern Israeli political thought is no longer formulated within the Zionist movement.

The success of Zionism has meant that the percentage of the world's Jewish population who live in Israel has steadily grown over the years and today 40% of the world's Jews live in Israel. There is no other example in human history of a nation being reestablished after such a long period of existence as a diaspora.[3]


Introduction to History of Zionism at Wikipedia.

Nebris said...

Yes, and...?

Tom Hickey said...

I don't think most people know how long a history Zionism has or what it actually is. This has been a long-term aspiration and it is the policy of the current Israeli hard-line government under Bibi. It accounts for much of the US policy in the MENA, which has been and continues to be strongly influenced by it. This is where the real foreign "collusion" is.

Had it been shorter and less unwieldy, [Netanyahu's book] “A Place Among the Nations” would have been the ultimate hasbara [public diplomacy] handbook. Many of the standard tropes of Israel’s defenders are set out there and have been echoed in thousands of Facebook posts and tweets by people who have never even read it.

At its core is the belief that Israel’s cause is unassailably just and that it is possible and imperative to convince all Westerners of that fact – with the exception of dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semites. Indeed, once the case for Israel has been properly presented, if you still disagree you probably are an anti-Semite.…


Haaretz
At 70, Israel Has Shunned Herzl's Dream for Netanyahu's Bleak Vision
Anshel Pfeffer

The Vineyard of the Saker
How is Biblical Zionism
Laurent Guyénot, author of From Yahweh to Zion: Jealous God, Chosen People, Promised Land … Clash of Civilizations, 2018

Nebris said...

I do happen to know it, Theodor Herzl's "Dreyfus moment' and all that stuff. I was raised by and with NYC Jews, even speak Yiddish...and I stand by my statement. Don't presume, shagetz.