by Felix Quigley

October 23, 2009

This is a very important analysis by DEBKAfile.

Much time has been wasted in answering, or not really answering, the antisemitism inherent in the Goldstone report on the Gaza War.

We on 4international have seen this Goldstone Report as linked to the Iranian Nuclear Bomb and direct attacks against the existence of Israel, also denial of the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews.

The aim is to create a massive hatred of Israel, to put Israel so much on the defensive psychologically that it takes its eye off the ball, the main issue, which is the need to destroy the Iranian Nuclear Bomb, a bomb which is directly aimed at Israel, and however delivered would cause loss of Jewish life in the millions. iranian leaders have already said that to destroy Israel would require just one bomb to get through.

This is the analysis by DEBKAfile

[Begin DEBKAfile analsis here]

The Netanyahu government’s slow-moving, lackadaisical handling of the Goldstone commission mandated for accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, played into the hands of a coalition formed to strip the Israeli military of legitimacy as a defensive strike force against Iran’s fast-moving nuclear weapons program and its Middle East allies’ missile arsenals. Those missiles are poised to strike Israel’s population centers if Iran is attacked.

Israel had – and still has – plenty of moral, diplomatic and strategic tools for defending itself. They were not applied and so this hostile coalition was allowed to strike Israel on three fronts in the last fortnight: Turkish prime minister Tayyep Recip Erdogan’s unleashed an unbridled assault on the Jewish state; Muslim riots suddenly flared on Temple Mount; and the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas changed his mind and pushed for a special UN Human Rights Commission session Friday, Oct. 16, to endorse the Goldstone report, after first accepting its postponement to March.

This sequence of events came together inexorably in Geneva where a predictable majority of the UNHRC voted to refer Israel’s alleged war crimes to the UN Security Council, while omitting to mention Hamas’ culpability.

The motivation behind this run of events was verified by its sequel:

Saturday, Muslim and Arab media, notably London-based news organizations, “predicted” that Israel would react to its “growing diplomatic isolation” with a “crazy military adventure” that would inflame the entire Middle East.

Al the region’s ills past and present were thus laid at Israel’s door and its military discredited from that day on.

The British prime minister Gordon Brown and French president Nicolas Sarkozy played along with this trend, first by staying out of the vote and second by then writing a letter to the Israeli prime minister, which smoothly confirmed Israel’s right to defend itself – calling it “an emotive issue” – without explaining why they failed to raise a finger against a UN motion denying this right.

In their letter, Brown and Sarkozy, who call themselves friends of Israel, expressed the hope that the international airing of the Gaza report would help promote peace negotiations because peace was the best safeguard for Israel’s security. Thus, with typical European hypocrisy, the two leaders committed themselves to helping the hate-Israel ball to continue rolling through international bodies which everyone knows are permanently loaded against the Jewish state by a majority of human-rights violators and tyrants.

Israel’s “emotiveness” was first invoked 39 years ago when Leila Khaled of the Palestinian Popular Liberation Front tried to hijack an El Al flight on Sept. 6, 1970, en route from Amsterdam to New York. Her accomplice was Patrick Arguella of Nicaragua, member of the Carlos international terrorist group, then backed by Russian intelligence.

The Israeli crew overpowered the two terrorists and the flight landed safely in London carrying Arguella’s body, Khaled tied up and a planeload of relieved passengers.

Then too the Foreign Office found the pilot over-emotional. And 24 hours later, the British authorities coolly released the Palestinian terrorist without charge although she had been armed with two grenades ready to detonate in midair. That free British pass for a terrorist endangers international aviation up to the present day. Nothing else appears to have changed in London.

Yet the Israeli prime minister continued to believe that calling European leaders in person and a charm campaign among them would be enough to reduce the fallout from the Goldstone report.

After the event – and much too late – Netanyahu’s office issued a determined statement Saturday: “We shall delegitimize all those who attack the legitimacy of our military. We’ll be every place where anti-Israel and anti-Semite forces are active.”

He vowed to mobilize all Israel’s best resources for building a task team to combat the fallout from the UNHRC resolution and put its recommendations before a special cabinet meeting – a process that will consume several more wasted weeks.

So how will this change the attitudes of the British and French leaders and line Europe up against the anti-Israel resolution?

And how will the Israeli government protect its top officials and generals from prosecution in the countries who voted for it or abstained?

Those are good questions given the Netanyahu government’s tame reaction to the crisis in Turkey’s relations with Israel: “Not everyone in Turkey is like Erdogan” or “Relations must be restored to their normal track without delay.”

They are dreaming. Erdogan’s violent anti-Israel and borderline anti-Semitic attitude is no passing phase. Israel must reconcile itself to the loss of this valuable ally and forget the friendly ties between the two air forces because the Islamic party ruling Turkey has gone fishing in extremist waters.

Netanyahu must also stop calling on the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to sit down and discuss peace without preconditions. Abbas has lost the Gaza Strip and the support of half of his people. To win them back, he has embarked on a rejectionist course in competition with the extremist Islamic Hamas. Two of the most dangerous powder kegs simmering in the Middle East today are not located in Washington or Paris but in Ramallah, 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip 78 kilometers to the south.

Israel has a boxful of powerful tools for dealing with the two Palestinian governments.

If sanctions are legitimate penalties for Iran, why not economic sanctions against the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah for setting the Human Rights Council loose against Israel and its military?

Why should Israeli soldiers, called “war criminals by Palestinians and copycat Israel Arabs, grant special passes for Palestinian VIPs to exit the West Bank at night and go partying in Israeli towns?

Why does the Netanyahu government continue to release INS 220 million (app. $50 million) every month to the Gaza Strip knowing that the Hamas uses the money to rebuild the smuggling tunnels Israel destroyed in its Cast Lead operation in January?

By charging customs duty on all smuggled goods funneled into Gaza through the tunnels, the Hamas regime has turned the them into a going concern with the help of revenue from Israel. The same income also funds its military operations.

After Israel dismantled more than 100 West Bank roadblocks as requested by the Obama administration, the Palestinians proceeded to turn the Goldstone Report and the UN Human Rights Council into one large roadblock for Israeli travelers abroad. At the very least, put the roadblocks back.

But most all, the government headed by Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Avigdor Lieberman is painfully slow-moving and cumbersome in the diplomatic-strategic arena.

The Goldstone report did not pop up this Friday. The panel started work on April 3, 2009 under a predetermined UNHRC mandate targeting Israel. The government had seven months at the very least prepare a counter-report documenting 10 years of murderous Palestinian campaigns specifically targeting Israeli civilians, women and children, and their consistent violation of every rule and standard of armed conflict and human rights.

This document should have been prepared in good time and handed in to the international court at The Hague with a list of the guilty Palestinian officials, some still in responsible positions with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.

The Palestinian delegate would then not have dared remark brazenly Saturday: “Anybody who kills children for no reason, or civilians should be prosecuted.”

One reason why the Middle East suddenly finds itself on a hazardous course today harks back to one of Barack Obama’s first acts as US president, which was to reach out to the Muslim world, including the Palestinians, in his June 4 speech at Cairo University. His conciliatory words planted high hopes in their minds that he was on their side and willing to squeeze Israel for gains which had eluded them in years of terror and military belligerence.

They misread his intentions: Obama sought to achieve peace for Israel with its Arab neighbors and the Palestinians, a tough call which all his predecessors in the White House had missed attaining, while the Arabs hoped to use Obama’s goodwill to neutralize Israel’s powerful military strength.

Feeling cheated of this hope, they proceeded to enlist the world, so far successfully, for disarming the IDF by having it discredited and criminalized.

The Palestinian-led campaign has nearly closed Israel’s window of opportunity for striking Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities; Netanyahu and his advisers were too slow off the mark. He will have to move fast and hit hard to turn the negative tide back.

[End DEBKAfile analysis here]

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1409

Although he disguised it Obama the President of the US is also an active Holocaust Denier. Of course he cannot say so directly but he does say it indirectly.

In his Cairo Speech referred to above Obama made a reference to the reality of the Holocaust. Fair enough you might say. But then he went on to make a comparision between the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews and the Palestinian Refugee issue.

That in fact is Holocaust Denial right there. Obama was saying that relatively speaking the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews was followed by the expulsion of the Arabs from their Homeland in 1948.

It is based on a lie. The Arabs who lived in Palestine, and many had only been living in Palestine for a very short time, having entered from neighbouring Arab areas attracted by the jobs and wealth created by Jewish initiative, itself based on the Zionist love for the land, had refused the offer of a state following the 1947 UN proposals, and had went to war in order to block the creation of the Jewish state.

This brings in the issue of Islam. It is the programme of Islam that it is impossible to have a Jewish, Christian or other state on their land, that is the land of Islam.

Who actually is Obama? This even now is very uncertain.

We know that he was born a Muslim, was educated in a Muslim school in Indonesia, while in that school in his most formative years worshipped as a Muslim.

That whole issue is very uncertain and indeterminate. But then Obama and his wife chose a Black and Israel Hating Church of a Chigago Christian sect in order to both worship and pursue their political careers, this was the Church which was run by Pastor Wright.

In this Israel hating environment Obama sat for fully 20 years.

Of course they rarely heard from Wright “We hate Jews” but they did all the time hear and support “We hate Israel”.

THAT IS THE PRESIDENT OF TODAY´S UNITED STATES!

This of course is the content of the phenomenon of “Palestinianism”, a kind of religion and sociological category in its own right. It is an entity that tends to draw the curtains down on any kind of investigation of the Arabs in the Middle East and especially in Palestine. This has the big and for them the essential effect in hiding the close connection between Islam and Hitler, and of course in the Holocaust.

So when Obama belittled the Holocaust in Cairo he was actually on a roll, and was part of a continuum which existed from the age old opposition of Islam to Christians and to Jews living in their midst.

The proof of this is in the existence of so many Jew Free states in the Arab world. And indeed very few Christians also!

Christians are being driven out of every Arab country. There is hardly a word about this from the Vatican especially.

Judaism is a different kind of ideology entirely. The religion of Judaism is different to Christianity, and of course Islam, because as a religion it gets its motive force from being at the centre of a nation, and a national liberation movement, in the most definite sense.

Islam hates the Jews because it seeks world domination behind an anti nation fog of lies and terror.

But the New World Order of Bush and now Obama et al also hate the Jews in this respect also. The Jews fought to exist over 2000 years of persecution in the Diaspora. It is this essentially which lies behind the Jews of Israel today and their bitter hatred for the present American Government.

In this sense Jews represent all of us. That is all of us who hate world governmental dictatorship and who still see value in being Welsh, Irish etc.

The Irish ran up against a plank of this New World Dictatorship when the EU annulled their vote against the EU and made them vote again in the midst of a terrifying world capitalist (banking) crisis.

The forces of Judaism today though are unable to fight this new Fascist threat. it is not accidental that one of their own tribe, Goldstone, has emerged to point a dagger at the very existence of the Jewish people. Goldstone is indeed a Jew and he thinks he is right. This is throwing the Jewish people into enormous crisis and Jews cannot take a step forward without a sharp critique of Judaism itself. Is Judaism an ideology which can defend the Jews in this period of sharp turns and speeding capitalist crisis. Obviously not.

Leon Trotsky warned about the Nazi Holocaust, and before his murder he urged that Jews escape from Europe and that they set up their state and insisted that Jews defended that state.

It is necessary to turn to Trotskyism, and to learn lessons from the principles of this great man, and I suggest that Israel must learn from the method of Trotsky in creating the Red Army.

We ask our readers to think on this and ask what this might mean for Israel and its supporters today. We will of course return to this. Thank our readers for writing in, especially those who wrote “private” above their letter. We will keep it private and we will keep in touch with you.

His government may not be able to avoid establishing a credible panel of inquiry to rebut Goldstone’s allegations for the sake of an US veto at the UN Security Council against the report’s referral to the international war crimes tribunal. It could have been set up quietly without outside pressure months ago and validated the exhaustive probes carried out by the IDF of every single complaint arising from the Gaza offensive.

by Felix Quigley

October 23, 2009

The appearance fo a British National Party leader on Question Time is a real tester. The dogmatists on the so called Left are condemning the BNP.

Yet the BNP is the only party I know of which supported the right of Israel to defend its country against Islam and Hamas in the war at the turn of the year!

I posted the following in a comment on Israp’undit:

[begin comment on Israpundit here]

There is another issue which is the nation state.

Judaism gets its progressive character because it is an expression of Jewish nationalism, the nation state and the Jewish Homeland, in secular as well as religious terms Zion.

That is the issue. THE KEY ISSUE.

And that is why the BNP was alone in Britain in giving support to the right of Israel to wage a war just some months ago to defend its nation state against Hamas.

The BNP emphasis on the English nation and nation state finds itself in the same camp, despite other contradictory things.

Trotsky made distinctions in his writings. For example he saw Rivera in Spain as an aristocrat, not a Fascist, (Many were getting this wrong, especially dogmatists were) because Rivera did not have a plebeian mass base, the central component of Fascism.

In Germany and Italy it was different. Mussolini did have a mass base and both he and Hitler used socialist demagogy in great amounts in their propaganda.

Islam on the other hand is a Fascist movement and ideology.

So are those in Britain who opposed Israel and its right to defend its citizens in the Gaza war. Those atacking the BNP on Question Time are actually closer to Fascism and to a last man are antisemites. Strange but true.

It was also a state Fascist movement which lied and stripped the Serbs of their nationality.

Goldstone is much closer to Fascism, state and world dictatorship Fascism than is the BNP.
This is the true Trotskyist analysis..
It is not a dogma. We think for ourselves and try to see reality for what it truly is.

Samuel is close to this spirit actually
See

www.4international.wordpress.com

By Felix Quigley

October 17, 2009

For purposes of discussion let me place on paper the arguments of Richard Landes in fisking Goldstone. It seems to me that Landes raises huge questions and I am not sure that the answers to these questions are contained in his method, that is the method of a progressive bourgeois commentator. Of especial importance are some reference Landes makes to the Hague Kangaroo Court that murdered Milosevic. This is perhaps the key issue about Goldstone. Anyway we will print the Landes fisking first, then later add more material from a revolutionary Trotskyist viewpoint. I think Richard could draw some lessons from Trotsky´s method of fighting in the Civil War.

In the spirit of discussion we shall look closely at what Richard Landes has to say about this Goldman antisemitic report on the Gaza War.

It is of importance that Goldstone is a Jew but remember he is a certain type of Jew, one who has been a cog in the Imperialist war machine for a very long time, a man who was at the centre of the destruction of Yugoslavia and the murder of President Slobodan Milosevic inside the cell of that very Hague Kangaroo Court run by the very same Goldstone.

There was a very big struggle waged on Israpundit by myself and others over many years in which we said that first they came for Yugoslavia and the Serbs, then they will come for the Jews and Israel.

We were opposed on this by Israpundit especially by editor Belman who could never make up his mind, but especially by Narvey, Levinson and above all by that traitor to the Jewish people calling himself “Yamit82″ (His true name is Nahum something) who Belman covers for.

Yes it sure looks that in Goldstone the Serb issue has come back to haunt the Jews.

Will the above named on Israpundit make any amends? No they will not. They are opportunists and essentially not principled and truthful people.

It is time now for truth and principle inside the Israeli Jewish movement.

[begin Landes fisking of Goldstone here]

by Felix Quigley

October 17, 2009

Richard Landes has just made an analysis of the Goldstone Report phenomenon and in his introduction he states “I address those readers of the news who still want to be part of a “reality-based” community, for whom evidence must be addressed, analyzed, and assessed”.

http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/09/17/fisking-goldstone-whats-happened-to-this-man/

At the moment there are everywhere all kinds of conspiracy nuts and spirit (ghosts) hacks doing the rounds. There are those who are suggesting that iran is a peaceful nation really. That if Iran gets the bomb so what, it will do nothing with it!

Yes Landes has it right. The key issue of today is the understanding of the real, law based world in which we live.

I come to this key issue from the standpoint of being a dialectical materialist and opposed to all forms of idealist and religious methods of thinking.

Landes probably comes from a different standpoint. I think he represents the best in bourgeois thinking and bourgeois science, there is certainly such a thing.

In that context we on 4international offer a hand in unity to people like Richard Landes.

We will be looking at his writings on the Goldstone Report. The following article was placed on our historical site today, along with some references tot he Fatah Constitution and the Hamas Charter. That site is called www.Jewishhistory.wordpress.com

The Goldstone Report

By Felix Quigley

October 17, 2009

The Goldstone Report should be read alongside the Hamas and Fatah Constitutions, the statements by the Iranian Mullahs as well as by Ahmadinejad.

But also alongside the speech made by Obama when a few months ago he travelled to Cairo to address “the Muslim world”. In his speech Obama made a direct comparision and drew equality between the Palestine Refugees of 1948 and the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis.

Thus it should also be read alongside the numerous statements made by George Bush Jnr in which he defined the answer as being the creation of an Arab “Palestinian”, that is in all truth Jihadist, state on the flank of Israel.

And it should also be read alongside the position of Reagan towards the Holocaust.

In reading the Goldstone Report people should also be aware of the role of Britain and the US Governments towards the Holocaust of the Jews, where they forced the Jews to remain in bloodbath Europe, note here the British White Paper of 1939 which basically set up the Nazi Holocaust and also the position of Roosevelt (clearly an antisemite) towards the Jews.

At another level Goldstone is a continuation of the Big Lie technique used over 2000 years against the Jews.

Major parts of this lie in recent years, that is in our living memory are

* Hiding the role of leading Arabs in the Holocaust

* Especially hiding the relations of Haj Amin el Husseini with Hitler, Himmler and Eichman

* And hiding that Arafat, Abbas and Hamas are direct continuation of the policies of Hajj Amin el Husseini

* Hiding the central hate-filled content of the Koran, not at all a religious document but the basis for modern Fascism

* Finally Goldstone must be understood against the background of other major lies, lies against the Jews

They are

Dir Yassin

The Qana “Massacre”

The Muhammed El Durra hoax affair

Perhaps of all of these the Goldstone Report is the worst of all. This relates to the modern drive for world dictatorship, to the rule of the US and EU extremists in Government who seek to control the world.

The essence of the Goldman Report on the Israeli fight against Hamas is this:

How can any country defend itself against attack from without? Does any country have the right to defend itself from attack from without?

Poised against Israel are the countries of the Arab League, the countries of the Islamic world, who have a controlling power over the United Nations.

Poised also against Israel is the power of the US Government and the whole of the EU Bureaucracy who wish to break down all national resistance to their overall world dictatorship.

If Israel as an example of a nation state is not able to defend itself against attack on its very existence (see above where we refer to Iranian, Hamas and Fatah aims) then Israel can no longer exist as a sovereign nation state.

And although they do not see it no nation, such as Russia, China or India, can exist either as a sovereign nation state.

The issues behind the Goldstone Report are these

1. Israel was bombarded with Hamas and other rockets for 8 years

2. Hamas fought from inside civilians and fought without wearing military clothing

Yet despite those two items Israel was asked by Goldstone to fight “humanely” against hamas.

To fight “humanely” against such an enemy, against enemy in war, is to ask the impossible and to not fight at all.

So the Goldstone Report is a continuation of the Dir Yassin Lie, Qana and El Durra. It is to create a lying scenario in order to stop Israelñ from defending itself.

The issue touches the future of every country and its right to sovereigny.

It is in a different form but is the same issue…The Irish reject the EU…The rules are rewritten and the Irish are made to vote until they accept the EU.

We on 4international say that there must be unity in action against these moves towards world dictatorship, and especially in defence of the rights of Israel to defend its sovereign right to use ANY means to defend itself.

Such unity in action does not mean that we will drop our revolutionary socialist programme. Far from it, in action we will show that only Trotskyism can lead the Israeli and other peoples, and working class, to victory.

Even as I write this the hopeless opportunist Ted Belman of Israpundit is continuing to cultivate his friendship with Sarah Palin and with reactionary republican circles, thus showing that Belman is now and always will be a crass American Imperialist stooge.

Belman hates socialism, hates Trotskyism.

Even so we on 4international propose unity in action against the Goldstone Report with even Belman. Will Belman offer the same to 4international. I doubt it personally and if he does not he will again be showing his true Imperialist and Reactionary colours.

by Felix Quigley

October 1, 2009

It is becoming clear that not only has one to understand Tom Paine but one also has to deal with those who write about him but use him for their own reactionary purposes. This is only a beginning stab at this. Paine has been claimed by just a few too many people for his own good.

This is an extract from a red pepper publication

[Begin Red Pepper extract here]

Tom Paine, restless democrat

This June marks the bicentenary of the death of a man who was buried in obscurity but whose ideas are today claimed by everyone from anarchists to neoliberals. Mike Marqusee celebrates the life, work and ideas of the great revolutionary who declared that ‘my country is the world and my religion is to do good’

The following is a further extract from this article (details below)

It is interesting in that it throws into the Mix the talkative but reactionary Christopher Hitchens who supported the Imperialist War against Yugoslavia and whjo is also an enemy of Israel.

And it contains a useful paragraph which refers to the fact that while Payne was a deist this was a very revolutionary concept for his period

When Paine returned to the US in 1802, he received a cool welcome. He was now the infamous author of The Age of Reason, an infidel with whom even old allies like his friend in the White House, Thomas Jefferson, were reluctant to associate. Meddlesome Christians urged the sick and dying man to embrace their faith, but were brusquely dismissed. One of his friends facetiously suggested that Paine could resolve his financial worries by publishing a ‘recantation’. The author of The Age of Reason replied, ‘Tom Paine never told a lie’.

In the two centuries since his obscure burial, Paine has been claimed by as many as once disclaimed him. Liberals, Marxists, anarchists, right wing libertarians, American exceptionalists, neoliberals (a passage in Rights of Man reads like a hymn to globalisation). Even New Rochelle finally got around to awarding Paine posthumous citizenship – in 1945.

Recently ‘New Atheists’ such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have staked a claim. Dawkins simply omits the fact that Paine was not an atheist but a deist. Hitchens takes a different route, dismissing Paine’s deism as a halfway house to atheism. What both miss is that Paine’s deism was part and parcel of a sustained challenge to the hierarchies and powers of his day – which cannot be said of their atheism.

The writer of the above was Mike marqusee

Also more columns by Mike Marqusee at www.mikemarqusee.com

8 June 2009

Thomas Paine 1737 – 1809 ,

 
the

“Father of the American Revolution”,

was the first to propose, with his publication of Common Sense, actual American Independence from a system of Aristocratic Royalty  - 
by suggesting a Democratic Republic for the “United States of America,” a name attributed to him -

with a Unicameral Congress, as adopted by Pennsylvania.  He inspired the Declaration of Independence.

He proposed the Abolition

 of Negro Slavery; proposed

 Arbitration for

International Peace;

 advocated Justice for Women; pointed out the Reality of Human Brotherhood; suggested International Copyright; invented a suspension bridge and smokeless candle; proposed the Education of Children of the Poor at public expense; suggested a Great Republic of All Nations of the world.  He urged the Purchase of the great Louisiana Territory.  He proposed pension payments or Old Age Pensions.  He also suggested protection for dumb animals.  We have honored him when we have adopted these sane propositions.

Tom Paine had a gripping style of writing with daring ideas and daring words.  He served as inspirer of soldiers in retreat. He was a soldier from Pennsylvania at Perth Amboy, NJ and, subsequently, served with General Greene near Fort LEE, NJ.  Paine saw the defeat of the Americans at Fort Washington, NY on “Washington Heights” across the Hudson River from Fort Lee.  He marched through New Jersey, where he began his inspiring writings, CRISIS ..., which George Washington had read before his troops.

Tom Paine had been a friend of Thomas Jefferson - 
and of  “BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, the only signer of four major documents: Declaration of Independence; Treaty of Alliance with France; Treaty of Paris to end the war; and the Constitution“.  

Tom Paine strove to spread the idea of a Republic with Wide Suffrage – in America, England and France, and he even went to a dungeon-jail in France and narrowly missed execution for many of “his” – now “our” courageous beliefs.  

                                                                      
He died in 1809 in Greenwich Village, NY on Grand Street in relative poverty. 
His bones had been buried near his home in New Rochelle, NY, but ten years later,
the bones were brought to England for a monument to him – which was refused.       
His marked bones are here-and-there . . . thankfully,                                               
                   a search and expensive DNA studies of his relics are slowly being pursued to honor him again.   

http://www.nellbrinkley.net/tompaine.htm

More from the Neil Brinkley website:

love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. 

by Felix Quigley

October 1, 2009

The radio speaker was Joseph Lewis

Thomas Paine and the Age of Reason

This is a really strange piece which was in the form of a radio address made by a Joseph Lewis half a century ago. Lewis was part of a group supporting the memory of Paine.

It is valuable in parts but I notice that Lewis was covering for the system, and he omits to mention that Paine was disgusted by the failure of the American leaders to come to his aid in the French jail, also he omits or does not know that although Lincoln was a big fan of Paine, he met much opposition on that score from I think the equivalent of the State Department, ruling circles anyhow.

[Begin Lewis´s radio address here]

(Address delivered Feb. 17, 1957,
over Radio Station WMIE, Miami Florida)

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am going to make the most remarkable offer ever made over the radio. This offer is Free. Absolutely Free. No obligations of any kind. It concerns one of the greatest books ever written. A Book that has done more for the emancipation of the human mind from ignorance, and superstition than any other volume in existence. It has been responsible for the education of some of our greatest men. The title of the book is, “The Age of Reason” by Thomas Paine. Do you know who Thomas Paine was? He was born in Thetford, England in 1737. When he was 35 years old he met Benjamin Franklin in a coffee house, in London. Benjamin Franklin sensed something unusual in this “ingenious worthy young man” and gave him a letter of introduction and urged him to go to America. He did.

The wisdom of Benjamin Franklin was never better exemplified than when he recognized the rare ability of Thomas Paine. How fortunate was that meeting.

Thomas Paine landed upon our shores penniless, and like many immigrants he enriched our country. Not only that, but he also made one of the most valuable contributions in behalf of Freedom in the history of mankind.

Shortly after his arrival here he became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine, and could not help but feel the tyranny under which the people were living. He saw an opportunity that never existed before. He saw an opportunity to establish a new government and wrote the pamphlet “Common Sense.” It electrified the people as no other writing before or since! That pamphlet, “Common Sense” caused the Declaration of Independence to be proclaimed, provoked the Revolutionary Was and was responsible for the establishment of the United States of America.

No wonder Benjamin Franklin took pride in being responsible for Thomas Paine’s contribution to the cause of America’s Independence. He said, “I value myself on the share I had in procuring for America the acquisition of so useful and valuable a citizen.”

In fact, when I made a study of Thomas Paine’s association with the American Revolution, and reread his Common Sense, I was forcibly impressed with the similarity of the writings of this pamphlet and the language of The Declaration of Independence.

I worked for years in further research, and became convinced that Thomas Paine wrote the ORIGINAL draft of that immortal document. I wrote a book to prove my premise, and I am happy to say that this book is now used in the classrooms of many colleges in the United Sates and Europe.

But when the war started and defeat after defeat had been suffered by the Continental Army, it became a grave question as to whether we would be successful in the conflict. This concern was expressed time and again by the Commander-In-Chief of the Army. On more than one occasion, General Washington sent up moans of despair, which culminated in his final gasp of desperation, when he cried, “I think the game pretty well up!”

And now there has just come to public light an hitherto unknown letter which makes us realize the desperation of Washington’s plight. This letter was written to George Mason, one of the leaders of the Revolution. Washington wrote: “We are without money … without provisions … the history of this war is a history of false hopes … our efforts are in vain.”

If the Commander-In-Chief of the Army thought our struggle for Independence was a “false hope,” and that our efforts to achieve Freedom “are in vain,” what must have been the temper of the people in such a hopeless situation. They too had become discouraged, enthusiasm began to wane, many deserted the great Cause, and mutiny had already taken place in the Army.

It was during this time, in the very depths of despair, that General Von Stueben said that pamphlet written by Thomas Paine “would produce a better effect than all the recommendations of Congress, in prose and verse.”

He was right. It did. It began with these immortal words: “These are the times that try men’s souls … ” Paine called it, THE CRISIS. Washington had it read to his soldiers, and I need not tell you what effect it produced. It was on the lips of all the people, and a revolution in sentiment and determination came over the American colonies. They were once more determined that the war for Independence must be won. Whenever the situation became desperate, whenever another defeat was suffered, these words of Paine reverberated throughout the camps:

“These are the times that try men’s souls … He that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

Whenever there was a shortage of food, whenever there was insufficient clothing, whenever there were mumblings of discontent, these words suddenly became audible:

“These are the times that try men’s souls … Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.”

Whenever plagued by anxious thoughts of home and farm, the soldier heard these words.:

“These are the times that try men’s souls … The harder the struggle the more glorious the triumph.”

Whenever in moments of loneliness, thinking of wife and child, wondering whether his patriotic devotion to enlist in the Cause was too high a price to pay, he was answered by the gem:

“These are the times that try men’s souls … ” What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: It is dearness only that gives everything its value.”

When fighting seemed never to cease, these words rang out, drowning all despairing thoughts:

“These are the times that try men’s souls … Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”

Paine’s inspiring words had been mixed with the blood of Washington’s soldiers and never before had such a combination flowed through the arteries of man.

In these Crisis papers, thirteen in all, are to be found not only messages of inspiration, comforting and reassuring words, but sound military advice, valuable suggestions of administration, and equally as important precious knowledge that was so essential for the proper guidance of the people during so serious a time. They also cemented the diverse forces when the country was so dangerously divided.

While words can cheer, while words can inspire, while words can dry eyes wet with sorrow and soothe the heart gripped with fear, words cannot feed you, they cannot clothe you, they cannot protect you from the chills of night, the winter’s blast, the cold of snow, nor can they stay the pangs of hunger. While words can fortify the mind and make the timid courageous, something more practical is needed to meet the realities of life. More than words are needed to plant the food, fell the forests, turn the wheels of machinery, provide transportation for an Army, sustain the soldiers in battle, and achieve victory in the struggle.

Many a genius has been lost because he needed first the wherewithal to feed and clothe his body.

Many a cause has failed because of the lack of the means of achieving it. Thomas Paine combined inspiration with action and deeds. And so at the crucial moment when the Army was without food and clothing and ammunition, Thomas Paine went to France to secure those things which we lacked, and which were so essential to hold our Army together.

His plea to the French Government resulted in a shipload of ammunition, clothing and money.

Such help in such a crisis is beyond the measure of words to tell. Only let it be known that it was Thomas Paine’s efforts which accomplished these results!

No wonder John Adams said, that “History will ascribe the American Revolution to Thomas Paine.”

Through seven long years of this struggle Paine continued his labors, both as a soldier and author until the publication of the thirteenth and last crisis, beginning with these cherished words:

“The times that tried men’s souls are over, and the greatest and completest revolution the world has ever known, gloriously and happily accomplished.”

I have no hesitation in stating emphatically, that if there had been NO Thomas Paine, there would have been no United States of America.

Recently, a prominent citizen of Miami, and a well known writer, Mr. Tom Thursday, referred to Thomas Paine as “Mr. U.S.A.”

In my opinion, this is the most appropriate name ever applied to this great patriot.

When the war was over, Benjamin Franklin said to Paine:

“Where liberty is, that is my country,” and Paine replied, “Where liberty is not, that is mine.”

And so Thomas Paine left these shores for Europe to help establish Republics in England and in France.

When Thomas Paine arrived on French soil he was hailed as the “Symbol of Freedom.”

So great was his fame, that he was elected by four “departments,” that is, four separate constituents, to represent them in the new National Assembly.

Paine wrote the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, a manifesto similar to our own Declaration of Independence.

He also wrote the new Constitution of France, and if the French Deputies had heeded his advice, there would have been no “Reign of Terror.”

Paine wanted the French people to adopt a Constitution as their first order of business, while Robespierre and Murat, and other fanatical leaders of the Revolution, demanded, as the first act of the new government, the death of Louis the sixteenth.

Thomas Paine, with, I believe, some knowledge that it might mean his death, stood up in the National Assembly and made an eloquent plea for the life of the French ruler in the face of a fanaticism that demanded the King’s death. The enraged Assembly, upon the slightest provocation, was ready to tear limb from limb any who dared to interfere with their mad determination, to make the King pay the supreme penalty, because of the accident of birth. Nevertheless, Thomas Paine stood firm and said, “I would rather record a thousand errors, dictated by humanity, than one of severe justice”; and at the conclusion of his impassioned plea, he cried, “Kill the King; but not the man.”

By this act, Thomas Paine not only proved his love for mankind, but gave the world an example of unparalleled courage.

Thomas Paine stood before that hostile convention and pleaded for the life of a man for whom he had no personal regard, and for no other purpose whatever, except to save a life — to prevent an injustice, and to heal the scars of battle with the salve of mercy.

The Bible says what greater act can a man do than lay down his life for his friend. Thomas Paine performed even a greater deed — he faced the ire and fanaticism of blood thirsty tyrants, not to fight for the life of a friend, on the contrary, he fought for one whom he detested and whose office he abhorred.

To Thomas Paine, justice and humanity were above personal safety.

When you consider the circumstances, when you consider Paine’s detestation for monarchy, when you consider Paine’s hatred of tyranny, then it is the inevitable conclusion that this was one of the grandest acts of moral courage ever performed by a single individual. Thomas Paine was ready to die that the principles of just might prevail.

This heroic act of Thomas Paine shall be remembered forever as unequaled in the annals of man’s struggle for Freedom and Justice.

For this sublime deed Thomas Paine was arrested, thrown into prison, and condemned to be guillotined.

Before being taken to the Luxembourg Prison, Paine gave Joel Barlow the manuscript of his book “The Age of Reason,” with the request that if anything should happen go him, Barlow should see to it that the book was published.

On the very first page of the book, Paine wrote: “It has been my intention, for several years, to publish my thoughts upon religion. I am well aware of the difficulties that attend the subject, and from that consideration, had reserved it to a more advanced period of my life … and at a time when the purity of my motives could not admit of a question … ”

However, the book had not been completed, and from all appearances, only the First Part, would ever see the light of publication.

While Paine was in prison, orders had been issued, to mark, with a white cross, the door of the cell of each prisoner, who was to be taken out at daybreak, to be guillotined!

That night, Paine’s cell was extremely hot, and he opened the door to get some air.

Now it happened, that the doors of the prison cells, were so constructed that, when open, or closed, they looked alike.

During the night, when the guards came to mark the doors of the doomed men, they made a white cross on the door of Paine’s cell, while it was open!

Just before daybreak, his cell having cooled off, Paine closed the door. Thus, the white cross was on the inside, which left the outside of his cell door, unmarked!!!

At daybreak, when the guards came to take the prisoners to be guillotined, there being no white cross on the outside of the door of Paine’s cell, they passed him by!!!

Because of this strange coincidence, THOMAS PAINE ESCAPED BEING GUILLOTINED!!! Without the slightest knowledge of what was taking place, Thomas Paine was saved from death!!!

Through the connivance of the detestable Gouverneur Morris, our then Ambassador to France, Paine remained in the Luxembourg Prison for over nine tortuous months.

However, WHILE IN PRISON HE WROTE THE SECOND PART OF THE AGE OF REASON.

Fortunately, for the world, Gouverneur Morris was recalled as our Ambassador from France and was replaced by the distinguished James Monroe.

When James Monroe arrived in Paris, he wrote to Paine while still in prison this letter.

“The crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain, our national character. You are considered by them as not only having rendered important service in our own revolution, but as being, on a more extended scale, the friend of human rights, and able advocate of public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas Paine, the Americas are not, nor can they be, indifferent …

To liberate you will be the object of my endeavors, as soon as possible.”

After much effort, Ambassador Monroe secured the release of Paine. He took him to his home, and he, and Mrs. Monroe, nursed Paine back to health.

Now it is this world famous book, The Age of Reason, which Thomas Paine finished while in prison, that we want to send to you absolutely free.

But another word concerning Thomas Paine before giving you the details.

Thomas Paine wanted to abolish slavery at the same time that American Independence was won, but the pressure from slave owners was too great to overcome, and so it was left to another man to finish the job. Early in life Abraham Lincoln was inspired by Paine’s writings, particularly his essay advocating the abolition of Negro slavery. Lincoln said, “I never tire of reading Paine.” As a result of Paine’s influence, Abraham Lincoln became the Great Emancipator and saved the Union.

And in view of the statement which I am about to read I think I can rightfully ask — what was the secret of Thomas A. Edison’s greatness? He tells it in his own words. In a letter to me shortly before his death, he wrote:

“I have always regarded Thomas Paine as one of the greatest of all Americans. Never have we had a sounder intelligence in this republic … It was my good fortune to encounter Thomas Paine’s works in my boyhood … it was, indeed, a revelation to me to read that great thinker’s views on political and theological subjects. Paine educated me then about many matters of which I had never before thought. I remember very vividly the flash of enlightenment that shone from Paine’s writings, and I recall thinking at that time, “What a pity these works are not today the schoolbooks for all children!” My interest in Paine was not satisfied by my first reading of his works. I went back to them time and again, just as I have done since my boyhood days.”

These are Mr. Edison’s own words acknowledging his indebtedness to Thomas Paine.

What Thomas Paine did for Abraham Lincoln and Thomas A. Edison, he can do for you!

Through the generosity of a friend who attributes his success in life to the reading of Paine’s works, and who has made a very substantial contribution to The Thomas Paine Foundation, we will send you, absolutely free, as part of an educational campaign, a copy of the complete and unexpurgated edition of this remarkable book “The Age of Reason,” containing 190 pages, beautifully printed and finely bound. It is yours to keep. You will read it and treasure it as have hundreds of thousands of others. In it you too will find inspiration and courage, and who knows, you too may be inspired by its great logic to become another Lincoln or another Edison.

In sending for your copy, we would appreciate your enclosing 10 cents to cover the cost of mailing and handling. This is all you have to do to get your FREE copy of “The Age of Reason.” Address The Thomas Paine Foundation, 370 West 35th street, New York, 1, New York, and simply enclose 10 cents to cover the cost of mailing and handling.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity — as this offer may never be made again!

Thank you for listening. Good night.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/lewis/lewis01.htm

by Felix Quigley

October 1, 2009

I believe it is vital now for readers to make a serious study of the American Revolution and especially of the life and political positions of Thomas Paine who wrote Common Sense and The Rights of Man.

As part of that I have found this survey of a book on an Amazon site which at least allows us to dip our toes into the water, rather tentatively.

The book in question is “Thomas Paine and the Promise of America” by author Harvey J. Kaye

The first review of this book is by

[Begin review on Amazon here]

The astonishing revolution that brought forth the American republic seems an unending source of curiosity; in the past year there has been one book after another about the American Revolution itself or about the Founding Fathers who eventually brought a Constitution to cap the Revolution’s success. Perhaps we will never tire of examining the start of our nation. Perhaps, as Tom Paine himself wrote, even now “It is yet too soon to write the history of the Revolution.” Paine himself has been written out of the Revolution many times by those who could not stand his political or religious principles, but as Harvey J. Kaye shows in _Thomas Paine and the Promise of America_ (Hill and Wang), Paine’s authentically radical voice was not only an essential spark to unite the colonists against Britain, but also provided a legacy of inspiration to reformers in the succeeding two centuries.

Kaye’s book encompasses two parts, one a brisk biography of Paine, and then a biography of Paine’s posthumous life within American history and ideas. It was only in 1774 that Paine, upon the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin, crossed the Atlantic to Philadelphia. He was 38 years old, and quickly became a journal editor. He wrote _Common Sense_ anonymously, exhorting his countrymen not only to independence, but to republicanism. He formulated his arguments so that everyone could understand them, and everyone did; _Common Sense_ united and inspired the colonists to a new American cause. He became involved in politics again in France with the storming of the Bastille. He wrote _The Rights of Man_ which exhorted both Frenchmen and Americans to ensure revolutions so complete that slavery would be ended, women would be equals, peace would be enforced by a global union of republics, and church and state would be completely separated. _The Age of Reason_ was his assault on scripture and organized religion as mythologies imposed on humanity by clerics “to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” He scorned the Bible for its cruelty and its lack of morality, leading antagonists for centuries to berate Paine as an atheist. He was, however, like many of the most famous of the founders, a deist, but he was one who put into book form his distrust of the general religion of his society.

The religious controversy has continued and has been kept alive both by the freethinkers who have claimed Paine as their own and by Christians who not content with hating the facts of Paine’s life made up scurrilous lying biographies about him and false legends such as the one about his deathbed recantation of his disbelief. Teddy Roosevelt called him a “filthy little atheist”, but he was none of those three. His lack of conventional religious belief has colored how his countrymen have perceived him ever since. Mark Twain and Herman Melville admired him; Lincoln avidly read _The Age of Reason_ and may well have written a deist treatise of his own, but his friends ensured no one else ever saw it. Franklin Roosevelt was the first president since Jefferson to quote Paine by name, in a wartime radio address that included Paine’s famous “These are the times that try men’s souls” passage. Even President Reagan in his turn was able to quote Paine, but the radicals on the left are the ones who always admired Paine’s convictions. A key story here is about the communist Howard Fast, who in 1943 published the historical novel _Citizen Tom Paine_. Paine was thus drawn into the witch hunts, and when Fast was summoned before Congress and refused to name names, he was put into jail in 1950. His book was removed from the public school libraries of New York City, and J. Edgar Hoover sent agents to major libraries instructing them to remove and destroy Fast’s works. It was the sort of oppression Paine would have recognized and abhorred. Kaye’s book successfully charts the development of Paine’s ideas during his life, and the utility and appropriations of his ideas even into our own times.

[end review by Hardy here]

You may be able to read some of the book on

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Paine-Promise-America-Harvey/dp/080908970X#reader

Some of this is also interesting and informative (from the editors who are flogging Kaye´s book!)

Editorial Reviews

by Felix Quigley

October 1, 2009

No sooner was it announced that Iran had been hiding a Nuclear Bomb Making operation in a mountain in Iran than the bullshit on the so called Left in Europe started.

Such idiots as Stephen Ritson announced that iran was in the right all along. Meanwhile the somewhat demented Scottish Steve Gilmore announced to listeners in Europe that “The Chinese buggers need to be watched”

(Statement by Gilmore last night September 30 at about 8.30 pm on Radio Talk Europe)

The Iranian bomb situation was explained on this comment to the main article on JW

“The ball is in the Iranians’ court”…

The ball has always been in Iran’s court…It’s their game, they make up the rules…This will continue until someone takes the ball away from them…It won’t be Rasool Obama, maybe Israel…

 

Surprise!

Western powers give

Iran its next deadline

to come clean

on nuke program

 

 

 

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” – Albert Einstein

Deadlines are a convenient, renewable resource in foreign policy. They give the appearance that action is being taken, and they buy time before having to do something more substantial. The problem is, they buy Iran time as well.

An update on this story. “West gives Iran three months to prove it does not want nuclear weapons,” by Nick Meo and Richard Spencer for the Telegraph, September 30:

Thursday’s meeting in Geneva between Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and western governments will be the last chance to come to a settlement over the programme, diplomats said yesterday. If not, western governments would seek tough new sanctions at the United Nations.

“The ball is in the Iranians’ court,” said one source. “What they do in Geneva will be a fundamental test for the Iranians.”

The meeting is the first of its kind for more than a year and the first with Iran at which Washington will be a full partner for three decades. It follows last week’s revelation that the Iranians were developing a secret uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom.

That disclosure may have rattled the Iranian government, but its president was in bellicose mood yesterday in setting out his terms for the meeting.

He said it was the West, not Iran, which had the opportunity to show it had changed its attitudes.

“The leaders of these countries made a historic mistake with their comments about the new plant,” he said. “The negotiators can definitely adopt any policy that they want, but we will not be harmed.”

The West’s negotiating team, led by the European Union’s foreign policy representative Javier Solana, is hoping that the hardline bluster is preparing the way politically for a more conciliatory approach face-to-face.

They say do not know whether Iran wants to cut a deal or not.

“The key thing is, by the second half of the day, is there any sense of whether they are in a frame of mind where they want to engage?” the source said. “We are offering a process of co-operation with Iran – on economic issues, energy, even things like education.”

Close attention will be paid to the reaction from Russia and China, which have the power to veto any proposed sanctions.

Russia reacted critically to the disclosure of Iran’s latest secret programme, but China has shown no willingness to shift from its previous opposition to more sanctions.

The West’s general stance received some backing from Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The West claims that the secret construction of the new facility was in violation of Iran’s commitments, but Tehran says it was not obliged to inform the IAEA until six months before it introduced nuclear material.

But Mr ElBaradei told a television interviewer: “They have been on the wrong side of the law in so far as informing the agency about the construction.

“Iran was supposed to inform us on the day it was decided to construct the facility. They have not done that.”

Posted by Marisol on September 30, 2009 

Surprise! Western powers give Iran its next deadline to come clean on nuke program

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” – Albert Einstein

Deadlines are a convenient, renewable resource in foreign policy. They give the appearance that action is being taken, and they buy time before having to do something more substantial. The problem is, they buy Iran time as well.

An update on this story. “West gives Iran three months to prove it does not want nuclear weapons,” by Nick Meo and Richard Spencer for the Telegraph, September 30:

Thursday’s meeting in Geneva between Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and western governments will be the last chance to come to a settlement over the programme, diplomats said yesterday. If not, western governments would seek tough new sanctions at the United Nations.

“The ball is in the Iranians’ court,” said one source. “What they do in Geneva will be a fundamental test for the Iranians.”

The meeting is the first of its kind for more than a year and the first with Iran at which Washington will be a full partner for three decades. It follows last week’s revelation that the Iranians were developing a secret uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom.

That disclosure may have rattled the Iranian government, but its president was in bellicose mood yesterday in setting out his terms for the meeting.

He said it was the West, not Iran, which had the opportunity to show it had changed its attitudes.

“The leaders of these countries made a historic mistake with their comments about the new plant,” he said. “The negotiators can definitely adopt any policy that they want, but we will not be harmed.”

The West’s negotiating team, led by the European Union’s foreign policy representative Javier Solana, is hoping that the hardline bluster is preparing the way politically for a more conciliatory approach face-to-face.

They say do not know whether Iran wants to cut a deal or not.

“The key thing is, by the second half of the day, is there any sense of whether they are in a frame of mind where they want to engage?” the source said. “We are offering a process of co-operation with Iran – on economic issues, energy, even things like education.”

Close attention will be paid to the reaction from Russia and China, which have the power to veto any proposed sanctions.

Russia reacted critically to the disclosure of Iran’s latest secret programme, but China has shown no willingness to shift from its previous opposition to more sanctions.

The West’s general stance received some backing from Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The West claims that the secret construction of the new facility was in violation of Iran’s commitments, but Tehran says it was not obliged to inform the IAEA until six months before it introduced nuclear material.

But Mr ElBaradei told a television interviewer: “They have been on the wrong side of the law in so far as informing the agency about the construction.

“Iran was supposed to inform us on the day it was decided to construct the facility. They have not done that.”

Posted by Marisol on September 30, 2009

 

 

by Felix Quigley

October 1, 2009

This is most interesting, from Jihadwatch

First of all a comment tot eh main article which sums up the content

1. Apply for the job of the Head of UNESCO.

2. Line up all your potential referees and sponsors.

3. Call for the burning of Jewish books.

4. Uncharacteristically – (we thought 3. would have clinched it for you at the UN) – get turned down for the position because of anti-Semitic remarks

5. Blame the Jooooooooz.

The article is by Robert and deals with the level of antisemitism in Egypt and the strange fact that Israel made a “Peace” with Egypt turning over the vast area of Sinai. But they did not find peace through that deal.

[begin Jihadwatch analysis here]

Egypt has a peace accord with Israel and is supposed to be discouraging antisemitism within the country. But the Farouk Hosny bid to become chief of UNESCO reveals just how spectacularly Egypt has failed to live up to that commitment. And that, of course, is not surprising, given the deep Koranic roots of Islamic antisemitism. But that is something no one is supposed to notice. More on this story. “Egypt Ponders Failed Drive for Unesco,” by Michael Slackman for the New York Times, September 29:

CAIRO — For days after Egypt’s culture minister, Farouk Hosny, failed in his bid to lead the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Egyptian newspapers and government officials presented the defeat as a sign of Western prejudice against Islam and the Arab world, the product of an international Jewish conspiracy.

“America, Europe and the Jewish lobby brought down Farouk Hosni,” read a headline in an independent daily newspaper, Al Masry Al Yom. The foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, criticized “international Judaism and Western powers” in a television interview. Mr. Hosny himself helped stoke those sentiments, saying, “There was a group of the world’s Jews who had a major influence in the elections who were a serious threat to Egypt taking this position.”

All of Egypt, indeed all of the Arab world, was talking with one voice of outrage and insult.

Or so it seemed….

The defeat provoked a degree of quiet soul-searching here. The state’s retreat to anti-Zionism and to some extent, anti-Semitism, underscored for many here the region’s collective political impotence, a failure of Arab leaders to form a powerful regional bloc capable of winning support from power brokers in Washington, London or Paris that has lasted decades.

The pan-Arab daily newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi wrote that Mr. Hosny’s loss “comes as yet another confirmation of the Arab world’s — and Egypt’s in particular — backslide on the international arena, and the general lack of respect towards it in all areas, not exclusively culture.”

Mr. Hosny, 71, is a well-known figure in Egypt. He has been the minister for more than two decades. Oddly enough, considering the charges of anti-Semitism that derailed his candidacy, he has never been known as a strong opponent of normalizing ties with Israel.

True, he has resisted a warm peace, refused to visit Tel Aviv and was quoted as saying that he would burn Israeli books if he found them in a library. But proponents say he took these actions as the bare minimum to defend himself from a population that views Israel as the enemy.

Throughout his candidacy, Mr. Hosny struggled to mute the charges of anti-Semitism, efforts that caused many people in Egypt to wince as they watched a stalwart of the state apologize, to Israel no less. And they winced again, when he blamed a Jewish-Zionist conspiracy for his loss.

“He did not take an anti-normalization stand until the end,” said Hossam el-Hamalawy, an independent Egyptian blogger and journalist. “The moment he lost he came back and started saying some of the most foul anti-Semitic statements against the Jews, confirming what the West had said about him.”

Mr. Hosny lost his bid for Unesco, but tried to turn that into a victory at home, returning as a victim, and for the state-run media a hero. The charges of a Western, Jewish-Zionist conspiracy may have been amplified by a government eager to limit its embarrassment after having staked its credibility on Mr. Hosny.

But they are not new, said Hala Mustafa, editor in chief of the weekly magazine Democracy and a member of Mr. Mubarak’s governing party. When it comes to domestic politics, she said, Egyptian officials often try to present themselves as anti-Israeli, even while serving as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians.

Ms. Mustafa has been squeezed by that dual identity.

In her capacity as an editor and academic in the state-financed Ahram Center, she recently met with Israel’s ambassador to Egypt, Shalom Cohen. She has since been tarred in the press as a “normalizer,” and the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate has tried to blacklist her. Ms. Mustafa said she saw the state’s rush to blame Israel for Mr. Hosny’s loss as stemming from the same forces busy attacking her.

“We have been under this propaganda for 30 years,” she said. “Like Egypt doesn’t have a peace treaty with Israel? Like Egypt does not play a peace role between Israel and the Palestinians? If that is Egypt’s role, why are we not allowed to play the same role?“

There is another view, too, one that was published in English, allowing, perhaps for a degree of candor not found in the Arabic news media. Writing in the English-language Daily News, the chief editor, Rania al-Malky, suggested that Mr. Hosny might have done as well as he did because he was Arab and Muslim, not because he was qualified. His defeat, she wrote, should not surprise anyone.

“I will say this at the risk of being branded unpatriotic, but no matter where you stand on the political spectrum,” she wrote, “you must admit that the Egyptian administration did not deserve to win this bid. How can a 22-year minister of a country where culture, education, health and science have regressed to the Dark Ages become the head of Unesco?”

Good question! Posted by Robert on October 1, 2009 

by Felix Quigley

October 1, 2009

We do not like to say it,  nobody if sane wants war, but we are fast approaching a Chechoslovakia moment.

Basically as we have said here for many months the Israeli state and nation, the nation of the Jews butchered by other Nazis, has simply got no alternative no matter how it dislikes the idea but to strike against the Iranian nuclear bomb threat.

If it does nothing it will be destroyed.

In this sense the Iranian Islam Fascists are worse than Hitler because the power of destruction of Jewish people is far worse than what the Nazis had in their hands.

The second reason that they are worse is because of the American Governments who since 1948 have been in league with Islam.

This is why the American CIA recruited the German Nazis and then along with the British sent them into Palestine in 1947 to stop the Jews setting up Israel.

Basically the situation is today as it was then. The main destroyers of jews is US, EU in alliance with Islam

NOTHING HAS CHANGED!

There is of course no way that Obama will stop Iran, but he will seek to stop by every means at his disposal the Israel air force defeating trhe Mulllahs

The whole situation could rightly be called “water off a ducks back”

The Iranians know their man, and his name is Obama.

Sanctions are a joke. The reactionary Stalinists who run China and Russia are so into trade with Iran and Chavez etc that they will block any sanctions and Israel be damned. This is also the position of Europeans, I know the Irish and Spanish best in this, but they are all alike in Europe, the Germans in particular having extensive trade witht he Mullahs.

The whole issue of thje killing of millions of Jews by the Mullahs is now tied in with mundane trade deals. Capitalism is what it is all about. What it was always all about.

The Allied air planes overflew the railway lines bring Jews to the ovens and refused to bomb them because Jews were not really that important…only trade and capitalism was.

It is the same today as this feature from DEBKAfile makes clear

[begin feature by Debka here]

Maestro Barack Obama’s histrionics in New York and Pittsburgh Thursday and Friday, Sept. 24-25 – and his threat of “confrontation” for Iran’s concealment of its nuclear capabilities – were water off a duck’s back for Tehran, whose nuclear weapons program has gone too far to stop by words or even sanctions.

The Islamic regime only responded with more defiance, announcing that its second uranium enrichment plant near Qom would become operational soon.

The US president’s tough words and willingness to step out of his axiomatic insistence on dialogue and turn to economic warfare against Iran may be impressive but it is no longer effective. Tehran is too close to its goal of a nuclear weapons capability to be deterred by offers of engagement or economic penalties.

Obama certainly knows this. He also understands that Iran is now unstoppable except by force. His performance was therefore directed at another target: Israel, whom he is determined to dissuade from resorting to military action against Iran’s nuclear installations.

Defense secretary Robert Gates hit the nail on the head when he said Friday: “The reality is there is no military option that does anything more than buy time. The estimates are one to three years or so.”

Iran was allowed to reach the point defined by Gates thanks to the permissiveness of two US presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and two Israeli prime ministers, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. They had no illusions about the deterrent value of the three sets of UN Security sanctions imposed to punish Iran, but held back from pre-emptive action on the pretext that there was still plenty of time before Iran was in a position to destroy Israel.

In any case, Israeli leaders argued, Iran’s nuclear ambitions were a threat to the whole world and it was therefore incumbent on the “international community” to take care of them.

This of course did not happen. Iran carried on exploiting international inaction, finally capitalizing on Obama’s foot-dragging in his first nine months in office.

By now, Iran has used the gift of time to process enough enriched uranium to fuel two nuclear bombs and is able to produce another two per year.

Its advanced medium-range missiles will be ready to deliver nuclear warheads by next year.

Detonators for nuclear bombs are in production at two secret sites.

And finally, a second secret uranium enrichment plant – subject of the stern warning issued collectively in Pittsburgh Friday by Obama, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and British premier Gordon Brown – has come to light, buried under a mountain near Qom. Its discovery doubles – at least – all previous estimates of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Caught red-handed yet again in massive deceit, the Iranian president Mahdmoud Ahmadinejad had only more defiance to offer. America owes his government an apology, he told interviewers in New York Friday, because the new plant would not be operational for 18 months, and Tehran had therefore not violated International Atomic Energy Agency rules requiring notification.

He was soon caught in another lie.

Saturday, the Iranian news agency was informed by an aide of supreme leader Ali Khamenei that “the new plant would become operational soon.”

Iran’s published concealments and deceptions are disquieting enough. But a whole lot more are undoubtedly buried in fat intelligence dossiers on Iran’s nuclear program – plutonium production, for instance. The progress made in its plutonium-based weapons program was never mentioned in the stern condemnations of the last few days, except indirectly in a quiet comment from an anonymous Israeli official Friday night.

He said Iran operates on two hourglasses and both were running out fast. He was referring obliquely to the enriched uranium and the plutonium tracks.

Sarkozy was clearly thinking about those undiscovered Iranian secrets and evasions when he declared in Pittsburgh:

“Everything – everything must be put on the table now” (at the October 1 meeting of the Six Powers with Iranian negotiators). Obama too urged Iran “to come clean.”

All the powers concerned – the US, Russia, France, Germany the UK and even China – have the same information as Israel and are fully aware that Iran has already crossed a number of red lines this year and will cross more in 2010. The more time allowed for diplomacy and engagement, the greater Tehran’s defiance. Meanwhile, world powers will argue – not over futile sanctions, but on how to stop Israel, so wasting several more months.

DEBKAfile’s sources note that the Gates assessment and the cooling note he injected into the US president’s oratory came after Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak visited the Pentagon. The visit clearly did not change Gates’ view that the Iranian nuclear program was now too advanced to stop, while the use of force would only gain an interval of up to three years, after which Tehran would pick itself up and start again. Therefore, according to Gates, diplomacy remained the only viable option.

The answer to this argument is simple: It is exactly this approach which gave Iran 11 quiet years to develop its weapons capacity. For Israel and Middle East, a three-year setback is a very long time, a security boon worth great risk, because a) It would be a happy respite from the dark clouds hanging over the country from Iran and also cut back Hamas and Hizballah terrorist capabilities, and b) In the volatile Middle East anything can happen in 36 months.

But the US defense secretary believes Israel, like the rest of the world, must accept life under the shadow of a nuclear-armed Iran and make the best of it.

This view is shared by the Kremlin. It was advanced by prime minister Vladimir Putin to Binyamin Netanyahu during his secret trip to Moscow on Sept. 7.

According to DEBKAfile’s Russian sources, when the Israeli prime minister tried to counter Putin’s thesis and explain what restraint meant for Israel, the Russian prime minster became impatient and told his guest to leave.

After that interview, the Israeli government can no longer avoid appreciating that Gates and Putin talk the real talk for Washington and Moscow, while their leaders’ moralistic condemnations of Iran are mainly hot air for public consumption and for maneuvering Israel into a position where a military strike would be hard to conceive.

Netanyahu’s Sphinx-like silence on the nuclear to-do in the US this week was apt. But it is hard to tell what he is hiding. Will he succumb to the world powers’ pressure to sit tight while Iran goes all the way to a military nuclear capability – or face up to it and act?

This is the most important decision of Netanyahu’s political life as two-time prime minister of Israel. It will also determine Israel’s future.

by Felix Quigley

September 30, 2009

In 2006 Jared Israel wrote the following and the points he made are very relevant today

Read it yourself on

http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/ahmadine.htm

“

Why TENC is Posting “Ahmadinejad’s World”
by Jared Israel

I see two main problems with the extensive media coverage of Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  One is the media’s tendency to accept Ahmadinejad’s preferred self-image, that of a third world populist, albeit with Islamist views, regarding whom the media celebrates supposed signs of moderation.  This approach avoids examining Ahmadinejad’s ideology and its roots in the political life of post 1979 (i.e., Islamist) Iran. 

Matthias Küntzel’s piece, “Ahmadinejad’s World,” goes a long way towards filling the void of ignorance about how this man thinks. It turns out that not only does Ahmadinejad deny the Holocaust, sponsor Hezbollah, and incite the murder of Jewish people around the world, but he took part in the government-organized murder of untold thousands of Iranian children, and is now promoting a state cult glorifying that murder.

The second problem is that the media – mainstream, extreme right, extreme left, alternative, pro-Israel, anti-Israel – unquestioningly propounds the view, fostered by the US and Iranian governments, that they are what they appear: fierce opponents.  Evidence contradicting this view is disregarded; for example, I could find no English language newspaper or TV news program that even noted the following remark, which Ahmadinejad made during his UN speech a week ago:

“The occupiers are incapable of establishing security in Iraq. Despite the establishment of the lawful Government and National Assembly of Iraq, there are covert and overt efforts to heighten insecurity, magnify and aggravate differences within Iraqi society, and instigate civil strife.” (My emphasis – JI)
–Transcript of Ahmadinejad’s UN speech
http://www.un.org/webcast/ga/61/pdfs/iran-e.pdf

Two things are noteworthy here.

First, Ahmadinejad did not, in this quote or anywhere else in his speech, demand that the US get out of Iraq.  Rather, he criticized the occupation forces for being “incapable of establishing security.” 

Second, Ahmadinejad referred to the current Iraqi government as “the lawful Government and National Assembly of Iraq.”  But said government is the creature of the occupation forces, first and foremost the US. For example, US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad oversaw the writing of the Iraqi constitution.

For three years we have been told that the US is on the verge of a military assault on Iran. Yet here is the Iranian President, commenting on the presence of massive US and allied forces in Iraq, and instead of denouncing this multi-national attack force on his doorstep, instead of saying, “Of course we need nuclear weapons; thousands of US and other infidel troops are poised on our border!” – instead he chides the US for not being tough enough and commends the US-created Iraqi government as “lawful.”  Doesn’t this suggest that the US-Iranian relationship is different from what it appears? That mutual denunciations and threats made by the Bush and Ahmadinejad governments may be political theater? But this and much other evidence that, as Emperor’s Clothes predicted before the US went into Iraq, Iran has gained from the invasion and has in crucial ways supported US efforts – this evidence is simply ignored. [I]

Food for thought, about which more later. First, here is Matthias Küntzel’s account of what President Ahmadinejad has done and what he stands for. As you read, consider what it means for Ahmadinejad to say the Iraqi government is “lawful.”

Jared Israel
Editor, Emperor’s Clothes

I would like to add another point to the above by Jared Israel.

It got little media coverage but I read in a brief report that the CIA interviews with Saddam showed that Saddam was above all fearful of Iran, thus Saddam boasted every chance he got that Iraq had nuclear weapons. This was deliberate and indeed throws a new light on why the US took out the relatively speaking anti Islam regime of Saddam and promoted thus the Islamic Republic

These interviews should be made available for all to read.

But they will not be because they tell too much about US and EU programme of alliance with Islam.

The big question is why is America allied with Islam.

To understand that one must make a study of the history of America and the history of Islam.

As we noted the American Revolution and the life of Tom Paine is very relevant in today´s puzzle.

by Felix Quigley

30 September, 2009

Iran is the big issue which is facing anybody who is in the slightest interested in the world around them, in reality (another name of course for politics) today

What exactly is Iran? What is the Islamic Re`public? What is therefore Islam?

A major question is why is all of the so called “Left” in support of Iran to one degree or another?

What is the role of Stalinism in the left wing movement? What is the historical role of Leon Trotsky who inside the socialist moveemnt fought against the ebtrayals of Stalinism?

What is the roots of the present hatred for Israel among those who call themselves socialists?

What is the connection between the hatred for Zionism which the Soviets in the 60s adopted and churned out in massive propaganda.

And indeed what actually is Zionism?

The latter question is of such importance we cannot allow it to hang in the air as it were. Zionism is the wish of the Jewish people to have a Homeland of their own. Not just any Homeland but in the aprt of earth that they were expelled from in the most brutal fashion by the Romans. This also means that this wish for a Homeland is interconnected with their Book, the Bible, which among other things is a history of their people.

So in that real sense every Jew who is conscious of himself as a Jew is a Zionist.

It is the oldest nationn on the earth and ebcause it is the oldest this aspect of the issue has drawn the most bitter attacks from so called “socialists” who unfortunately treat theory and history as a dogma.

1. What is Iran today?

2. Who was Hajj Amin el Husseini? What is the link between Islam and the Third Reich of Hitler (Nazism)

3. Great Britain is based on many things but one of them is racism. This is shown very clearly in their attitude to the Irish over many generations. So in the key period of 1920 following the First WEorld War Britain was racist towards the Jews in Palestine. And that form of racism is also called anti-Semitism

4. Mein Kamph was a critical document. This document led on to the Wannsee Conference held in a suburb of Berlin in January 20, 1942, at which was planned the extermination of the whole of the Jewish people. Even Ireland was listed at this conference and the 4000 Jews in Ireland in 1942 were noted down for extermination. Every Jew in Ireland at that time is thus a “Holocaust Survivor”, indeed ewvery jew on the planet must be termed as a Holocaust survivor.

5.The role of Henry Ford leading on to the Holocaust

“In 1918, Ford’s closest aide and private secretary, Ernest G. Liebold, purchased an obscure weekly newspaper, The Dearborn Independent for Ford. The Independent ran for eight years, from 1920 until 1927, during which Liebold was editor. The newspaper published “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” which was discredited by The Times of London as a forgery during the Independent’s publishing run.”

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

6. The role of Tom Paine

Born 29 January 1737

Died 8 July 1809

Author of two key works which had a great influence on America and which is relevant in today´s discussion

Common Sense

The Rights of Man

And from this the connection between the British Revolution under Cromwell, the American and French Revolutions

8. Who was Karl Marx and his friend Engels? How do they figure in this narrative, greatly see our notes on the left above.

In order to understand the left and its hatred for Zionism we must understand October 1917, Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky. Thus the 4international.

So it can be seen that the present situation and the answer to the first question, what is Iran today, what is Islam, what is Christianity, what is Judaism, is a very complex question

We will look at some of these in more detail as we go on.

by Felix Quigley

September 27, 2009

This is the report by Jihadwatch on the crucial issue of the finding of that secret Iranian Nuclear Bomb plant

[begin report here]

Although the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) has been tracking construction of the plant for several years, Mr Obama decided it was time to put maximum pressure on Tehran by revealing its existence.” It is likely that Obama is overestimating the impact this will have upon the mullahs. They respect strength. The threat of sanctions is not strength.

“Iran admits to secret second nuclear plant built inside mountain,” by Michael Evans and Nico Hines for the Times Online, September 25 (thanks to Alexandre):

Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it has been building a previously undeclared nuclear facility to enrich uranium, raising fears that Tehran is closer to acquiring an atomic bomb than has been predicted up until now.

The presence of a secret second site – built inside a mountain near the holy Shia city of Qum – has been known about by American and other Western intelligence agencies for some time, although nothing has been revealed until now.

Iran’s formal letter to the IAEA in Vienna, sent on Monday, pre-empted an announcement to be made today by President Obama, Gordon Brown and President Sarkozy of France before the opening of the G20 economic summit in Pittsburgh, in which Tehran will be accused of building the secret facility about 100 miles southwest of the Iranian capital.

Although the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) has been tracking construction of the plant for several years, Mr Obama decided it was time to put maximum pressure on Tehran by revealing its existence.

Reports from Washington indicate that Iran had learnt of the West’s uncovering of its second plant and moved to declare it formally to the IAEA.

Iran wrote a brief, cryptic letter to the IAEA saying it now had a “pilot plant” under construction, whose existence it had not revealed. Iran’s first and officially declared facility is at Natanz in southern Iran.

Marc Vidricaire, IAEA spokesman, said: “I can confirm that on September 21 Iran informed the IAEA in a letter that a new pilot fuel-enrichment plant is under construction in the country. The letter stated that the enrichment level would be up to 5 per cent.”

Uranium enriched to around 5 per cent can be used as nuclear fuel, but has to be enriched to around 90 per cent to be effective in a nuclear weapon. The United States, Britain and other Western countries believe that Iran has been attempting, at its plant at Natanz, to achieve a higher enrichment of uranium, although the plant has been subject to IAEA inspections….

 

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/09/iran-well-yes-we-do-have-a-secret-second-nuke-plant.html#comments

 

READ ALL THE COMMENTS

 

 

BUT THIS ONE SUMS UP THE CRITICAL SITUATION FACING THE JEWISH PEOPLE

 

I heard Obama say (on a TV appearance) that he planned to have IAEA “investigate” the Iranian nuclear plants…whoo hoo, like the Iranians are going to cooperate…”You realize that the head of the IAEA is named Mohammad? Right? I Think that Iran will cooperate with the IAEA, because the head of the IAEA is a fucking Muslem!

Its like sending a Nazi to inspect a concentration camp!

SNAFU

 

by Felix Quigley

September 27, 2009

Jihadwatch has carried an article on the great dangers to Russia from Islam.

But the answer which these diiots make to this theat is to find a solution by all becoming Christian.

And what then Jihadwatch? Are you all going to turn your site over to pray so that the world will be safe from Islam. That is pray to Jesus or whoever.

The absurdity is mind boggling but shows the essential political bankruptcy of these kinds of sites.

Jihadwatch must learn that the central issue in the world today is Iran and Israel and that if the Jews will go on living then they have to destroy by force the Iranian Nazi bomb, all the Christian praying that there ever was will not change the intentions of the Mullahs.

FIRST OF ALL THE ANALYSIS BY JIHADWATCH

Chechnya: “It’s not separatism anymore, it’s a jihadist insurgency”

Posted by Marisol on September 26, 2009

While the Muslims have been busy recruiting young nominal Muslims in Russia for Jihad, and teaching them to hate and kill non-Muslims and overthrow the Russian social and legal and political order, the Christians have been handing out Bibles and doing their best to encourage young Russians to become responsible, peaceful, loving, productive human beings. Bible Camp + informal good citizenship teaching.

September 26, 2009

The trap which is set for Israel through its links with the US Government is seen in the following report about the Russian Stalinists from YNet

Russia said on Friday that Iran’s construction of a second uranium enrichment plant violated UN Security Council decisions and should be investigated immediately by the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

A statement by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called on Iran to cooperate with the proposed probe and said Moscow remained committed to dialogue with Tehran on nuclear issues. The statement made no mention of sanctions. (Reuters)

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3782006,00.html

Note in the above these reactionaries say they remain open to dialogue with Iran. Now this is precisely the same position that Obama takes.

Yet the discovery of the plant near QOM which the iranians were keeping hidden shows that Iran is determined to get the nuclear bomb.

So what then is there to talk about?

The more they talk surely then the more time that Iran has got to create its nuclear bomb.

It is only some weeks that America was threatening to blow out of the skies any Israeli planes that were moving against Iran.

Sop it seems to us here that the US Government of Obama and the Putin Government are going hand in hand to try to stop Israel doing anything.

This is extreme antisemitism by both Obama and the Russians.

The Iranian Government have been totally explicit that they intend to destroy the Israeli state, calling it a cancer, a dirty black virus etc.

Yet Obama and the Russian Stalinists hand in hand are trying to stop Israel defending itself.

In this situation Netanyahu must break free from these antisemites on the world stage.

Israel must now act independently against the Iranian Nazis of Ahmadinejad and must also make a direct appeal to the Israeli and Iranian peoples to join together in a unity against antisemitism.

The position of these Putin Stalinists is also tragic for the Russian peoples as well as for the Jewish because Russia faces a direct threat from Islam in its own country.

AS THE IRANIAN FASCISTS WITH

 THEIR HIDDEN ENRICHMENT PLANT

MOVE IN ON THE JEWS FOR THE KILL

OBAMA IS IN CRISIS AND

WANTS THE JEWS TO PAY

THE ISRAELI PUBLIC HAS

MOVED BEYOND ALL TRADITIONAL

 BOUNDARIES

ISRAPUNDIT AS FAR AS

JEWISH LEADERSHIP IS

CONCERNED IS USELESS

We now enter a period of the terminal decline of the capitalist system

We also enter a period of wars, revolutions and do not forget counter revolutions.

It is the counter revolution that Obama is leading in the world todaty, as he turns America away decisively and finally from the principles of the American Revolution, the principles of Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense and The Rights of Man.

In this situation all of the traditional leaders are found wanting and themselves are bound to enter into deep crisis and terminal decline.

We are now in a situation where either the Israeli Government, its army and air force will be able to destroy the Iranian Bomb, or Israel will perish.

Also if Israel is not successful then the whole of the Middle East, and Europe, especially all the countries in the Meditteranean, will be in danger, great danger of Nuclear Conflagration

THE MOVEMENT OF THE MASSES, INCLUDING THE ISRAELI PEOPLE

A Jewish man who was interviewed on a Jewish street in Israel by the BBC asserted his opinion as to why the US was sticking its nose into affairs between Arabs and Jews.

This is not only a good comment but represents an historical change in the Jewish people of Israel.

For many decades Jews and Israel have looked to America as the “land of the free”.

What we have seen on Israpundit, a Jewish blog, is that the traditional leaders of the Jewish people are bankrupt and can offer only defeat.

This is a conclusion I reach after watching the various political positions of a whole selection of bloggers there who are pretty representative of the whole Jewish movement.

Let us take some of these “personalities”.

The editor Ted Belman. He swings from one position to another but essentially remains tied to the US political class, mainly republican, as shown in his recent support for Sarah Palin as a possible “saviour”, a crazy idea you might think.

Long time writer Bill Narvey. Remains tied to all US Governments democrat or republican, is very anti revolutionary and is conservative with a small c. His record towards the Serbs degutted the Jewish movement.

Yamit82. The origins of this man are hazy. He claimed to have tea with Ben Gurion. This man is out of the nigoted side of Judaism and is so inward looking that he cannot stop himself from attacking every other tendency and person on the planet. As he would have walked into Hitlers death camps he would have exclaimed “Good! At last we are alone”. This man does not have ONE single policy to put forward, he holds the ordinary peiople of Israel in total contempt, openly saying that only a minority counts. That is a minority with the knowledge and backed by a supernatural of course!

A Bill Levinson and a Ayn Reagan. Simply advocates for the Republicans in America. Their connection with Jews in Israel is purely secondary to that. Reagan is an open supporter of Nixon and the butchery of US in Vietnam and Cambodia. Essentially both in the footsteps of Joe McCarthy

The essential problem with all of these people, and I stress that they mirror rather accurately what goes on in the Jewish movement as a whole, for example Yamit82 is a Feiglin without his character, is that they turn their back consciously on finding out the truth about history.

To these people the English Revolution of Cromwell means nothing, the French Revolution nothing to them, and when it comes to the dialectic of socialist thought they deliberately close their minds because in American elitist tradition they are total anti communists, in fact are communist haters and baiters. Consequently you will never find one of these people trying to understand the phenomenon of Stalinism. All have nothing but hatred for Trotsky and set out consciously to hide and distort his principles and principled struggle.

And as we move in to a situation of extreme peril for the Jewish people, and extreme peril for people everywhere, in a situation where Nazi Islam represented by Iran has to be stopped, the very question of leadership and of  the building of the revolutionary party is number one question of the day.

by Felix Quigley

September 17 2009

The case of Rifka Bary was summed up in this comment on Jihadwatch

I hope I’m wrong…on both accounts, but…
The proof that she was in danger will be in the form of her dead body.
The proof that Iran wants to nuke Israel will come in the form of a mushroom cloud over same.
On the former, she only has to hold out a little longer and she can file for emancipation I bleeb.

On the latter…stash some gas cause Israels about to kick ass. No mushroom clouds allowed over Jerusalem…unless they drift over from Iran.

islam is a lie and
Truth is killing it.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/09/12-year-fbi-veteran-says-serious-flaws-in-fdle-report-claiming-rifqa-bary-wasnt-abused.html#comments

Yes indeed this is correct. Islam is indeed a lie and the main purveyors of this lie are the Governments of the western caspitalist world, especially of the US and of the EU.

They are assisted in this by the Left, so called, which is in support of Islam.

the reference above to Iran, Israel, and the danger to Israel from an Iranian Nuclear bomb is especially apt.

We have shown in recent articles here that the essence of the Iranian regime is utter falsehood. I believe the technical name for thios form of Islam lying is “takkiya”.

This is of erxtreme importance because we on 4international believe that Iran with the nuclear bomb is of exttreme danger to Israel and its population of Jews.

Of course many Arabs would also be killed by any sort of Iranian nuclear action on Israel, because Israel geographically is a tiny country.

That however would not deter Iranian Islam in the slightest because the war which they waged against Iraq when Saddam was in power a couple of decades ago shows that Islam places no value on human life, including the life of its own people, since they have the concept of martyrdom, a concept to be used in any situation.

It appears that Rifka is a Sri Lankan girl and the following comment from JW shows that the danger to this girl is going to be long time

In it, Mr. Safi notes that individual apostates cannot be killed for a “quiet desertion of personal Islamic duties,” but can be put to death as “just punishment” when the apostate deserts Islam publicly.

You can’t desert Islam much more publicly than by seeking refuge through the Infidel courts.

Even if Rifqa’s parents decided that doing her in might draw too much unwanted attention on them at this point, members of the fundamentalist mosque the family attended in Ohio would likely “see to things”.

The other likely scenario is that she would be sent back to Sri Lanka–away from the possible protection of a sympathetic American legal system–and either murdered or forced into an arranged marriage and “reversion”.

This comment also on JW from Hesperando deals with a vital isue, that is how Islam seeks to obfuscate facts. the reference is to the Guardola report

Agent Guandolo has produced a nice tight, lean mean argument: no more fat or irrelevant tissue left for any Occam’s Razor to shave off: all muscle and brain. The PC MC establishment and the Muslim apologists they enable, however, don’t like just the facts, ma’am: they like, and need, obfuscation — lots of fat and complicating tissues to distract from the grimly clear diagnosis of the disease, and thence the appropriate treatment. The latter does this out of mendacious evil, the former out of what I call quantum ignorance, born of the muddled sincerity of its acolytes.

This case of a little ex Muslim girl in America is of extreme importance. Her name is Rifka Bary.

Jihadwatch has carried the following report by an FBI investigator into the probable or possible risk to Ms bary from her parents. The re`port is self explanatory

[begin report by FBI investigator Guandola here}

"Florida Department of Law Enforcement earns an F," by John D. Guandolo for the Center for Security Policy, September 16:

[Note: John D. Guandolo is a 12 ½ year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. At the request of the Center for Security Policy, he prepared an assessment of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's (FDLE) investigation of the Ohio-based parents of former Muslim Rifqa Bary, the 17-year old apostate from Islam who has sought refuge in the state of Florida. The FDLE report is provided here, and is available as searchable text for the first time, below his analysis. The significant errors and omissions that Mr. Guandolo and other experts have found in this FDLE investigation show a failure in FDLE's professional responsibility in handling the Rifqa Bary case. Governor Crist and FDLE management need to get new investigators on the job, start over, and this time do it right. A life may be at stake due to FDLE negligence-- and willful blindness-- in conducting this investigation.]
John D. Guandolo:
Response to FDLE Investigative Report on Rifqa Bary Matter

Upon my review of the report filed by the FDLE regarding the Rifqa Bary Matter in Florida, I offer my professional opinion.

1. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Investigative Summary OR-73-1741 encapsulates the investigation into allegations made by Fathima Rifqa Bary (hereafter referred to as “Rifqa Bary”) that she is or may be in physical danger from her father, Mohamed Bary, or others. Point 4 on page 2 of the report states Rifqa Bary believes her life to be in danger from an “honor killing” by her family or others, which she states is in accordance with Islamic Law. The report finds: “Ms. Bary’s concern that she may be killed because of her conversion from Islam to Christianity remains a subjective and speculative concern…” and concludes there is no conspiracy to commit violence against her. The investigators in this matter offer this opinion void of any knowable facts. In fact, a due diligence review would reveal the existence of authoritative Islamic Law texts officially translated into English. This review would further reveal Islamic Law – which is real law – has requirements and rules as to how to deal with those who leave Islam [eg The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, "Umdat al-Salik" also known as "Reliance of the Traveller" - publicly available]. If it can be shown (1) there is a requirement in Islamic Law for killing Ms. Bary as a publicly declared apostate from Islam, (2) that her parents adhere to Islamic Law, and (3) that she did, in fact, leave Islam and convert to Christianity, then the FDLE has a professional responsibility to include these facts in this report, and investigate this matter fully. There is nothing subjective about this – these are all ascertainable facts. I would hope the Florida State’s Attorney’s Office has done their due diligence on this matter and is aware of this

2. Mr. Bary’s comments to the Investigators claiming there is “absolutely not” any concept of Honor Killings under Islamic Law can also be comparatively and factually reviewed against Islamic Law. There are, in fact, rules and requirements as to how apostates should be handled within the context of Islamic Law, and these facts must be reviewed by FDLE if a professional and factual report is to be completed.

3. It was noted that the Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) -Columbus (Ohio) and the Staff Attorney for CAIR were present during the interview of Mr. Bary by FDLE Investigators. Absent from the FDLE report was any mention that CAIR is a known Muslim Brotherhood entity and an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial – the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history – revealing HLF as a Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood front in the United States. All defendants in this case were found guilty in November 2008 and are serving long prison terms. These facts about CAIR were testified to at trial, and accepted as legally true. They are irrefutable – the documents demonstrating these facts were stipulated to by the defense. The Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) creed is “Allah is our goal; the Messenger is our guide: the Koran is our constitution; Jihad is our means; and martyrdom in the way of Allah is our inspiration,” and their stated objective in America is a “Civilization-Jihad” to destroy the United States from within, and the MB exists to implement Islamic Law here in the United States. All of these facts are relevant for two critical reasons. First, these material facts should be made known to the State Attorney’s Office and any Judges involved in this case as a matter of course. Secondly, when representatives from an organization that is objectively known to be hostile towards to the United States and unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history, are allowed to be present during a law enforcement interview of someone, it raises questions as to why they were allowed to be present at the interview at all. These facts further demand an objective look to determine if the Muslim Brotherhood itself has a position on Islamic Law and Apostasy. One of the MB’s two stated objectives is to implement Islamic Law in North America (and across the globe), and it is known they call for adherence to Islamic Law wherever Muslim communities exist. The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law: Reliance of the Traveller is approved as valid Islamic Law by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a known Muslim Brotherhood entity, as proven in the HLF trial. In Reliance of the Traveller, Investigators will find specific legal doctrine on how apostates are to be treated under Islamic Law. Furthermore, the Muslim Brotherhood has a history of officially addressing the issue of Apostasy. In 1984, Ismail R. Al-Faruki , the Founder of IIIT, stated: “That is why Islamic Law has treated people who have converted out of Islam as political traitors…[Islam] must deal with the traitors when convicted after due process of law either with banishment, life imprisonment, or capital punishment…but once their conversion is proclaimed, they must be dealt with as traitors to the state.” Apostasy is also specifically addressed in Peace and the Limits of War, published by IIIT and written by Louay Safi, the former Executive Director of IIIT, Malaysia, the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (a proven Muslim Brotherhood entity), and the Executive Director of the Islamic Society of North America’s (ISNA) Leadership Development Council. ISNA was proven to be a Muslim Brotherhood entity and is also an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history – HLF. The book is also approved by the Secretary General of ISNA. In it, Mr. Safi notes that individual apostates cannot be killed for a “quiet desertion of personal Islamic duties,” but can be put to death as “just punishment” when the apostate deserts Islam publicly (p. 31).

4. This is a statement of facts regarding this matter:

* There are requirements in Islamic Law regarding someone who deserts Islam
* The Muslim Brotherhood’s objective is the implementation of Islamic Law in the United States
* Rifqa Bary has left Islam and become a Christian
* Rifqa Bary has made statements to FDLE officials and others that her parents have threatened to kill her because she has left Islam
* The Bary’s appear to be adherent to Islamic Law
* The Bary’s appear at an interview with two Muslim Brotherhood representatives doing business as CAIR, a group known to be hostile towards the United States which is also an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history
* The Muslim Brotherhood supports the killing of Muslims who publicly leave Islam

5. It is my professional opinion that sufficient Probable Cause exists to believe that Ms Bary’s concerns for her personal safety are based in a realistic and factual understanding of her situation, and, therefore, a further criminal investigation is warranted

 

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/09/12-year-fbi-veteran-says-serious-flaws-in-fdle-report-claiming-rifqa-bary-wasnt-abused.html#comments

 

 

 

 

A comment (by Cornelius) summed up the situation and problems which this young lady faces from Islam rather aptly:

 

Rifqa had better prepare an escape plan in case the Florida courts do the unconscionable and attempt to return her to her parents.

By Felix Quigley

September 17, 2009

The recent UN report on the Gaza War by the UN is going to be quoted by every antisemite for months and years. It is a stitch up.

hence the following analysis is of great importance in

1. understanding the depth of anti-semitism involved now against Israel

2. The general weakness of the Israeli Governmental and ambassadorial response to this type of anti-semitism

[begin analysis here]

REUTERS REPORTS ON THE GOLDSTONE REPORT JUST RELEASED TODAY

“The mission concluded that actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly in some respects crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defence Force,”

U.N. investigator Richard Goldstone told reporters.

In response, Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva issued a statement that criticized Goldstone’s mission and explained why Israel did not cooperate with it.

Goldstone, a noted South African jurist, recommended that the U.N. Security Council call on Israel to fully investigate possible crimes committed by its forces. His report made clear that Palestinian authorities should do the same regarding crimes committed by Palestinian fighters.

The probes should be “independent and in conformity with international standards” and establish a committee of human rights experts to monitor any such proceedings in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

If either Israel or the Palestinians fail to do so, then the 15-nation council should refer the situation in Gaza to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the report said.

Goldstone said Israeli efforts to investigate allegations of war crimes by its soldiers had so far been “pusillanimous.”

We all know how biased the UN is. I recently posted The Goldstone show-trial by Melanie Phillips . She makes a very strong case that not only the Commission Members were biased but that the mandate was also.

The degree of objectivity on this Commission can be gauged from the mandate it was given by the UNHRC, which announced it was dispatching an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Council, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission. 

So this ‘objective’ inquiry had been told before it was even established that the guilty party in Gaza was Israel, designated by the UN as the ‘occupying power’; that it was guilty of ‘aggression’ and ‘violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law’; and that the Palestinians of Gaza were the victims of this Israeli aggression.

Israel, of course, no longer occupies Gaza. Nor was it guilty of aggression: it was instead defending itself against the aggression of Hamas who had fired some 6000 rockets at Israeli citizens. Nor did it commit any violations of international law and human rights: it was Hamas who did so repeatedly — not just against Israel but also the Arab inhabitants of Gaza who were used as human shields and mass hostages – and then made false accusations against Israel of committing such violations, falsehoods promulgated as true by the UN.

But the aggression and human rights violations committed by Hamas – the cause of the conflict – weren’t even to be considered by this objective, fact-finding Commission. Having been set up on the premise that Israel was guilty, it was directed to gather evidence to support the conclusion that had already been reached. As the Queen in Alice might have said, ‘verdict first, evidence afterwards’. Unless Goldstone has torn up the terms of his mandate, his Commission will possess all the objectivity of the show-trials of Stalin.

Nevertheless this matter is a huge problem for Israel and isn’t going to go away. Do not be tempted to think perhaps there is something to it or to think that at least they also charged the “Palestinians” with similar things. The latter is immaterial and the former is without foundation.

Findings are made up of two things.

First the Commission Members must ascertain the facts. That’s not easy to do when the judges are biased and the witnessed are more than biased. They are usually liars. We have seen far too many Arab “witnesses” who weren’t even witnesses, lying through their teeth. I would name Jenin, al Qana, and al Dura as prime examples. A proper court of law has all kinds of rules of evidence to help the court get to the truth. I dare say that this investigation didn’t come close to to doing so, nor could it given its makeup.

Secondly there is a matter of law and with any law, lawyers can differ, even dramatically, particularly when few cases have been decided from which guidance may be attained.

Prior to the war, I wrote Bomb Gaza before invading. The legal opinions set out therein are entirely at variance with the interpretation of the law used by the Commission Members.

The Assault on Israel’s Right to Self-Defense was described by Abraham Bell in his article on International Law and Gaza. Dr. Avi Bell is a member of the Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University, Visiting Professor at Fordham University Law School, and Director of the International Law Forum at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He clearly advised that Israel has the right of self defense and described the law as it pertains.

But I was left with some nagging questions. What do the principles and rules he set out mean in practice. I wanted to know if Israel had no choice but to invade or whether it could just use artillery and bombs, even unintelligent inexpensive bombs. I fully understood that the restriction on certain supplies entering Gaza was legal and so were targeted killings though our “international friends” disagree.

I asked Bruce Tucker Smith, JD, LL.M. (International Law), Lt Col USAFR (ret), the Co-author “Seventh Psalm”.

Here is his considered opinion.

Criticism leveled at Israel for her response to terrorist attacks by Hamas in the Gaza says more about those who criticize Israel than it does about the legality of the reprisals. 

Can Israel respond to Hamas’ attacks? In what strength? By what means? These questions are traditionally answered in the salons of international legal debate, by an examination of the status of the combatants.

We therefore ask: What is Gaza? What is Hamas? Answer these questions honestly, and there is little room for discussion or debate about the legality or legitimacy of Israel’s military responses to date…or her options in the future. Answer these questions honestly and you will have taken a long step toward resolving the endless criticism of Israel’s military response to the endless stream of rockets cascading into Israel from the west. (In fact, more than 5000 since Israel ceased her occupation of the Gaza.)

Gaza is not a formally-defined, internationally-recognized state. It is, at best, a protectorate or a territory…but certainly it does NOT enjoy the status of international “statehood” that would entitle such an entity to claim sovereignty over her national borders and the land within.

Hamas, of course, is the Islamic Resistance Movement, which became active in the early stages of the intafada. It operates primarily in the Gaza (and also in Judea and Samaria). Its stated goal: the eradication of the Israeli people and the establishment of an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel. Hamas, of course, has the outright backing of Iran in its genocidal efforts to murder Israelis.

What Hamas is NOT, is a recognized armed force operating under the aegis of a duly-elected state; it is not a signatory to any of the Geneva Conventions; it is not a member of either the United Nations or the Security Council; it does NOT campaign openly under a national flag and it’s operatives don’t wear recognized badges of nationality or military rank. In the legal parlance of the “Law of War,” Hamas, as an entity, is not a recognized “combatant” and, hence, not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. The latter cannot be strongly enough emphasized: Hamas, and the people who support or conceal its efforts, are entitled to NO special protections under any aspect of the Law Of War, of which the Geneva Conventions are but a part.

By contrast, those nations, armies or entities who DO ascribe to and respect the Geneva Conventions; who DO campaign under a national flag and chain-of-command ARE entitled to the special protections of the Conventions!

As the Olmert government has repeatedly said, Israel will not negotiate with entities that do not recognize the legitimate demands of the international community, as voiced through the United States, European Union, the United Nations and Russia! Hence, Israel’s use of force against Hamas.

The United Nations Charter, Article 51, clearly and plainly provides Israel with the necessary legal armor to pursue and rout Hamas. “Nothing in the present Charter,” Article 51 reads, “ Shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”

Other than a few weak-worded Resolutions, the Security Council has failed to take action to protect Israel’s safety and sovereignty—hence, she is free to act as she will militarily! And, in my opinion, she is free of many of the traditional limitations on the use of military force – at least where Hamas is concerned.

“rule of proportionality”

The oft-misunderstood “rule of proportionality” is usually cited, wrongly, by the left in critique of Israel’s operations against Hamas in Gaza.

One must recognize that the “rule” is, in fact, no rule at all. It is not clearly defined in any statute or treaty. Rather, it can best be described as the resulting synthesis of “customary international law” which is derived from a reading of the ancient Hague Conventions (written in an era when warfare was defined as set-piece battles, conducted by brightly-clad armies amassed on the sunlit fields of Europe) and the 1949 Geneva Conventions which, in part, proscribe armed reprisals against civilians. Sadly, the “rule” is frequently bent or twisted to meet the ends of the particular sophistry at hand.

In its simplest application, the “rule” generally means that an army cannot inflict collateral damage upon an enemy combatant (or the surrounding civilian populace) in excess of the legitimate military advantage conferred upon the attacking army. In other words, a nation’s military response must be necessary and proportional to the injury suffered.

“Legal scholars” frequently say, “If someone punched you in the nose, you don’t burn their house down.” To be sure, those are seductive words, rationally attractive, and intellectually inviting…but utter hokum in the face of reality. Taken to its logical absurdity, such a definition of the “rule” would prevent an army from EVER amassing superior firepower against an enemy, lest that army be accused of a disproportionate use of force! The fact is, wars are won when one side utilizes a disproportionate amount of force to defeat an enemy …otherwise, the Third Reich would still sit in power with the Allied armies resting somewhere near the Seine River.

The “rule” is often manipulated in the court of public opinion, particularly in the era of “asymmetrical warfare,” the current buzz-term which describes the conflict between western nations who possess large standing armies and billion-dollar gadgetry and terrorist groups who employ simple, terroristic, and patently illegal means of waging armed conflict.

The world’s (leftist) academic “elite” and media sympathetic to Islamic fundamentalism almost always focus on Israels’ response to terrorism! No doubt, leftist apologists are motivated by some misplaced, misguided sense of “unfairness” that a well-organized, well-trained and well-equipped IDF would pursue and kill Hamas terrorists who intentionally clad themselves in civilian attire and hide their operations in schools, hospitals and Mosques.

The simple fact is that the “rule” of proportionality” shrinks to near inapplicability when Hamas uses civilians as shields or when it purposely attacks the innocent—the central most effective tools in the terrorist’s arsenal.

“Collateral damage”

Another common misstatement in the public discourse surrounds the killing of civilians. Of course, NO one would countenance murder and nothing in this essay should be construed as a brusque dismissal of civilian deaths …but a distinction in the Law of War regarding civilian deaths is frequently and intentionally ignored. The Law of War proscribes the INTENTIONAL targeting of civilians, not the inadvertent and unfortunate loss of civilian life in an armed conflict. Yet, whenever inadvertent civilian deaths DO occur in the Gaza or in the West Bank or in Baghdad, the left immediately and uniformly decries those deaths as “war crimes” – which they most certainly are not!

Such is the nature of public debate, particularly in the wake of 9/11.

In short…Israel’s defense forces are entitled to use whatever means is at her disposal to search out and destroy terrorist operatives. In sum: Israel is free to employ ALL munitions, tactics, equipment and personnel in her arsenal to defend herself against the outlaw Hamas terrorist organization. Short of the intentional targeting and murder of truly uninvolved and innocent civilians, Israel can (and should) operate as freely as she desires to protect her territorial sovereignty and the lives of her citizens.

So, it is not international law that Israel is concerned about. The Government of Israel is more concerned about the cries of the international community than the cries of its children and mothers. It is more concerned with the lives of Arabs than the lives of its own citizens including its soldiers.

Israel has the right to bomb Gaza and use artillery. Its about time they did.

If Israel invades instead, with the loss of many of its own soldiers, I submit it would be guilty of a war crime against its own people. At a minimum Israel would be guilty of criminal negligence if it sent the IDF soldiers to their deaths rather than to bomb.

It is morally repugnant to sacrifice your own soldiers to save the lives of your enemies. Forget about world opinion.

Bell and Smith are both very clear on the law. Rest assured that the Commission Members were not applying their understanding of the law but rather a self serving interpretation chosen to ensure Israel’s guilt.