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Archive for category Zionist Paranoia

America, Russia and NATO look for New Frontiers of Influence by Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.

America, Russia and NATO look for New Frontiers of Influence

Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.

 

Why the Lessons of History are Ignored

America, Russia and NATO’s Geneva diplomatic talks ended in failure without any formal course of action to avoid military confrontation on Ukraine’s border.  Other vital issues include how to treat each other in a futuristic imaginary encounter of common interests. The global community is watching the prelude to a staged drama of unwarranted warfare with profligacy, malevolence and unknown miseries of unthinkable multitudes.  All the superpowers – the stage actors of the 21st century have fictitious monsters equipped with innovative sophistry and captivating eloquence to talk about peace, security, human rights, global order and justice. They are master of deception playing on the passion of entrenched and exhausted mankind as if they could stop the emerging pains, horrors and devastations of warmongering to ensure a return to normalization of human affairs. To an inner human analytical eye encompassing proactive sense of global peace and harmony, it does not appear rational to articulate fears and misleading intentions to safeguard human peace and dignity while all the actions speak of a different language of obsessed assertions based on their own despotic national interests. There appears to be mythical contradictions in their claims of superiority and perhaps politically looking for an escape from the obsessed invincibility of superpowers. They claim peace but talk about threats of wars – how to rationalize the irony of human wickedness and inherent deception. Was the same stage drama not enacted during the First and 2nd World Wars killings millions and millions of people across this Planet Earth? 

Human progress and future-making are jeopardized when lessons of history are deliberately misinterpreted and ignored by the paranoid, vengeful and suspicious leaders.  If war is the only avenue to seek peace, we are on the wrong side of history and thinking of our future. It took several centuries to Europeans to understand the false shadows of apprehension of peace and harmony and to come to terms with nation-building, some resemblance of democracy, human equality of rights and unity for future-making via the EU. A reasoned perspective would illustrate that Russia after breakdown of the former USSR is not the same inheriting entity of Communist authoritarian ideology, leadership, institutions, political thought, policies and practices within the working systems of global order. There are visible progressive movements for political change, open communications, elections, institutional developments and global interactions and seeking reunion with the global order, UNO, world institutions, friendly relationships with adversaries and balanced socio-economic ties with others.  To enlarge the scope of reason and understanding, Russia needs formidable change as it appears to be forging on different national strategic interests; its position on Ukraine is not the same as eluded by most NATO members. Ukraine and Russia have common geography and history just like Britain, France and Germany have.  Would it not be a matter of extreme political-strategic sensitivity if other perceived enemies would dare to come close to military confrontations in Western Europe?  It is logical that true friends of humanity will not act blindly to cause wild uproars and evil-mongering against the people anywhere on this planet.

Is NATO relevant to the 21st Century Emerging Conflicts

The focal issue seems to be the prospective membership of Ukraine to the community of NATO in Western Europe. America and Russia and other EU members enjoin conflicting views on this issue. Ukraine claims its freedom to join any international organizations for its betterment, peace and security. Russia and America should not be concerned except that they want to draw certain strategic gains out of this chaotic perceived tragedy of futuristic warfare. After the dreadful consequences of the Two World Wars, NATO was formed by the Europeans to maintain peace and security and avoid futuristic unwarranted national wars within the European hemisphere. Its formation and scope is limited to nationalistic conventional warfare in the European theatre. One wonders, what wars did NATO fight to protect its ideals and strategic priorities after the 1945 WW?  What NATO had to do with Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya?  Were these accidental engagements or simply an extension of planned mischievous catastrophic instances of tyranny against the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere who never posed any threat to NATO, America or to any Western European nations? American and European leaders pushed soldiers to fight unwanted draconian wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and other parts of the Middle East. Millions of innocent Afghans, Iraqi and Libyan civilians and Western troops were killed during the US-led NATO wars in these regions. Could any American-European leaders explain why every day approximately 18-25 US war veterans commit suicides?  (“Why Do Soldiers Commit Suicide and Global Warlords.” Uncommon Thought Journal, USA). 

How would one rationalize the role and actions of NATO in a global theater of strategic interests?  The history of NATO and its plans and ideological motives are equally distorted and disfigured on the global screen of reason, honesty and accountability. Russia overtook eastern parts of Ukraine – Crimea by forces aligned to Russian speaking masses and trying to integrate those territories into the Russian federation.  This issue has been discussed between Russian President Putin, former German Chancellor Merkel and French President Macron on several occasions. Could America, Russia and Europeans not talk again for a peaceful resolution of this and other related problems? 

 

Looking for Hope of Peace Beyond the Lens of Geopolitics

Scott Ritter (is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD): “What War with Russia Look Like”  (Global Research: 01/11/2022): explains the irony of current affairs:

If the U.S. tries to build up NATO forces on Russia’s western frontiers in the aftermath of any Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia will then present Europe with a fait accompli in the form of what would now be known as the “Ukrainian model.” In short, Russia will guarantee that the Ukrainian treatment will be applied to the Baltics, Poland, and even Finland, should it be foolish enough to pursue NATO membership. Russia won’t wait until the U.S. has had time to accumulate sufficient military power, either. Russia will simply destroy the offending party through the combination of an air campaign designed to degrade the economic function of the targeted nation, and a ground campaign designed to annihilate the ability to wage war. Russia does not need to occupy the territory of NATO for any lengthy period—just enough to destroy whatever military power has been accumulated by NATO near its borders.

Is NATO being managed by those people who lived in the distant past and perhaps post WW2 historic culture is still alive and flourishing? Is there any glimpse of hope for change and new reasoned relationships between America, Russia and West European people? The future of violence and nationalistic resentment looks embedded into the distorted strategic necessities of the current affairs, be it the argument of Russia or American-led NATO and or the EU on its own. NATO is run by the wrong people, glued to wrong thinking and doing the wrong things without any rational sense of time, people’s interest and history. Craig Murray (“NATO-an idea Whose Time has Gone.”: AntiWar.com), a former British diplomat and Rector of the University of Dundee, UK, foresees the body as obsolete to emerging strategic thinking  and needs of the Western alliance:

It is also the case that the situation in countries where NATO has been most active in killing people, including Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan, has deteriorated. It has deteriorated politically, economically, militarily and socially. The notion that NATO member states could bomb the world into good was only ever believed by crazed and fanatical people like Tony Blair and Jim Murphy of the Henry Jackson Society. It really should not have needed empirical investigation to prove it was wrong, but it has been tried, and has been proved wrong….NATO’s attempt to be global arbiter and enforcer has been disastrous at all levels. Its plan to redeem itself by bombing the Caliphate in Iraq and Syria is a further sign of madness. Except of course that it will guarantee some blowback against Western targets, and that will “justify” further bombings, and yet more profit for the arms manufacturers. On that level, it is very clever and cynical. NATO provides power to the elite and money to the wealthy.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and is author The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.Provocations Have A History Of Escalating Into War: Can War Be Avoided and the Planet Saved?” Information Clearing House: (8/31/2018), strikes a proactive caution to all Western policy makers:

The Zionist neoconservatives who rule in Washington are capable of the same mistake that Napoleon and Hitler made. They believe in “the end of history,” that the Soviet collapse means history has chosen America as the model for the future. Their hubris actually exceeds that of Napoleon and Hitler. When confronted with such deluded and ideological force, does turning the other cheek work or does it encourage more provocation.

 

 The fear of losing complete control over the narrative is frightening for the pro-Israel lobby [John Minchillo/AP] The fear of losing complete control over the narrative is frightening for the pro-Israel lobby [John Minchillo/AP]

 

Every beginning has its end. America needs Navigational Change after January 6, 2021 Trump’s Revolutionary attack on democracy and the Constitution, and so does Russia and NATO in their search for peaceful transition to sustainable future-making. We, the People of global community live on one floating Planet Earth, and we must be conscious – who we are, how connected we are in human solidarity and where are we heading to in our imagination of the present and future. It is awful and a tragedy of human conscience to be speaking of military conflicts and territorial gains when mankind urgently needs an effective cure for the Covid-19 pandemic. George Floyd cries continues to be heard all over the globe: “I can’t’ breathe.”  We are One People, One Humanity ignorance, natural disasters, and man-made fatalities know not any borders, flags and nationalities but surge like wildfire as being witnessed in the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. Again political absolutism heightens animosity and hatred rather than human understanding and cooperation for a precious cause of saving human lives on Earth. To save life of one human being is to safeguard the whole of humanity. We are all born equal One Humanity: – the Divine Message of Al-Qur’an clarifies the truth:

“Proclaim in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created,                                                                                                                    Created man (human being) out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood,                                                                                                   Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful, He Who taught (the use of) the Pen,                                                                                    Taught man (human being) that which he knew not.”

Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Lambert Academic Publications, Germany, 12/2019.

 

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Undiminished Scars of 1971 Tragedy Part-3 by Brig.Gen(Retd) Asif Haroon Raja

Undiminished Scars of 1971 Tragedy

Part-3

 

“Refusal to learn from history is not unique to a particular ruler: It is a general failing of governments and people”. George Hegel

 

Asif Haroon Raja

 

UN Resolutions vetoed by USSR

After 4 Dec, all the resolutions moved in the UNSC were vetoed by the Soviet Union. On 8 Dec, Bhutto as Vice PM had been sent to New York to find a diplomatic solution to the East Pakistan (EP) crisis by arranging a ceasefire. He took a circuitous route and reached there in 3 days. He chose a leisurely course and took things lightly when EP was falling. On 14th December Poland presented a draft resolution that obviously had the backing of the USSR. It called for the transfer of power to the elected representatives, followed by a ceasefire, withdrawal of forces and later evacuation of Pakistani forces.

On 15 Dec, Bhutto made an emotional speech that was hardly relevant and then rejected the Polish resolution in a theatrical fashion, tore his notes and walked out of the meeting in a huff. Lt Gen Jacob stated later on that passage of the Polish resolution would have been disastrous for India and that it was Bhutto who saved the day for India. (Lt Gen Joseph Jacob, Surrender at Dacca, p 146).

Dying Moments

Indian Eastern Command intercepted the flurry of confusing signals transmitted between GHQ and Dacca from Dec 7 onwards and directed Commander Communication Zone, Maj Gen Nagra on 15 Dec to race for Dacca and pull a fast one on Gen Niazi that the game was over. All the major Indian formations were behind the rivers. Not a single Pakistani formations/units fighting the war had capitulated.  

Nature had given Gen Niazi a chance to stand up to the threat and enter his name in the golden Islamic history as a real tiger. He chose to give up under the plea of saving the lives of thousands of soldiers. Maj Gen Tajammul Hussain, my Brigade Commander on the Hilli front, who had given me a smashing war report, wrote is his book, “The Story of My Struggle, 1991, p 159, “Niazi was basically not a coward but he was made a coward by the cowards around him”.

No results could be achieved by the counter offensive launched on the western front where a ceasefire came into place.

“No General can vindicate his loss claiming that he was compelled against his better judgment to execute an order that led to the defeat”. Field Marshal Von Manstein

East Pakistan

 

 

 

     

The Aftermath

 

Biharis Abandoned

 

After the surrender, 35000 Pak Army all ranks and non-combatants serving in units and HQs, 13000 EPCAF and Police personnel and 48000 non-Bengali civilians including their families were taken into safe custody of the Indian Army and later shifted to already established PoW camps in India. The Biharis were left to fend for themselves. Gen AA K Niazi and his negotiating team didn’t insist on including them in the repatriation list. They were left at the mercy of marauding Mukti, Qadri, Mujib and several other Bahinis who massacred them brutally and raped their women. The occupying Indian Army made no effort to stop the bloodshed since they were busy in looting, in carnival pleasures and nocturnal merrymaking. Hundreds of mass graves were dug to dump their bodies. The dried wells were filled with their dead bodies. Brutalities of the MBs were lumped on Pak Army.

 

10% Bengalis wanted independence

 

According to Professor G.W Choudhury, a Bengali member of Yahya’s cabinet and a fellow of Columbia University writes in his book, (The Last Days of United Pakistan, Oxford University Press, p. 167), ‘The vast majority of the Bengali Muslims were not prepared to see Pakistan dismembered and their homeland become again a target of domination by the ‘Bhadralok (elite) from Calcutta. They were interested in having genuine regional autonomy. In fact, their basic demand was for the improvement of their economic lot. Mujib captured their imagination because he promised them a ‘golden Bengal’ if they would only vote for his six points —‘

 

Propaganda War

 

The bizarre figures of 3 million Bengalis killed and 300,000 women raped by Pak Army in 9 months were dispelled by several western and Bengali authors including Sharmila Bose in her book ‘Dead Reckoning. She said that during her ground investigations, despite her best efforts she couldn’t get any evidence that soldiers of Pak Army had targeted Bengali women and children. In her view the highly exaggerated figures were given to arouse the sentiments of the public. She also negated the story of mass killings of students in Dacca University saying her probe revealed that all schools, colleges and university were closed and no one was living in the university hostel except for AL militants who had stacked big dumps of arms and ammunition and used to impart military training to the students.  

 

R.J. Rummel in his book ‘Death by Government’, writes about the atrocities committed by militant Bengalis against on-Bengalis: “In the whole of EP, non-Bengalis were attacked and were subjected to torture and ethnic cleansing. Thousands of Muslim families were wholly eliminated; women were raped and their breasts were cut with specially carved knives. The children of the victim women were also not spared. Thousands of surviving children had to live a torturous life. In Chittagong, Khulna, and Jessore, dead bodies of 20,000 Biharis were discovered. A cautions guess gives a figure of 2.50 lacs non-Bengalis killed at the hands of MB”.  

 

Between 1972 and 1974, Indian military and civil writers with the assistance provided by the Indian government published 270 books on the 1971 War and this trend continued over the years. The purpose was to justify Indian military’s intervention into EP, hide their crimes against humanity and build a narrative to prove that the myths of slaughter of 3 million Bengalis and rapes of 300,000 Bengali women by the Pak Army were true, and that the numbers pitched against Indian Army were 93000. 

 

Sustained Indo, Russian, Western propaganda together with publication of large numbers of books by Indian, western and Bengali authors helped India in portraying the Pak Army soldiers as bloodthirsty monsters and rapists and in convincing the world that Gen Yahya Khan’s regime and Pak Army were responsible for the dismemberment of united Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh (BD).

 

Their false narrative gained authenticity since Pakistan first remained mum over the slaughter of Biharis and non-Bengalis in March 1971, fearing that disclosure of the news would result in a backlash in West Pakistan (WP). After the surrender, Pakistan again chose to remain tightlipped till the leakage of Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report in 2001. Our silence helped India to convert their lies into truth. Our muteness and absence of authentic information gave rise to speculation, fabrication and distortion of facts by vested interests.

 

Looting by Indian Army

 

Soon after the creation of BD, the Indian Army went on a looting spree like hungry parasites. They took away war munitions, heavy guns, army vehicles, private cars of West Pakistanis, household items including bathroom fittings, fridges, ceiling fans, TVs, radios, electronic items, factories machinery, food grains, jute, yarn, canned food etc. Trains and thousands of trucks were looted and it was estimated that the loot was valued $ 2.2 billion. (Martin Woolla cott. The Guardian, Jan 22, 1972). Others who wrote in detail about the plunder were Sunil Gangapadhyay in his novel Purbha Pashchin, Maj MA Jalil MB 9 Sector Comd in his book (Araksmita Swadhinata-e-Paradhinata), Maj Shawkat Ali, MB 5 Sector Comd, Zainal Abedin in his book Rape of Bangladesh, J.N. Dixit in his book Liberation of Bengal: Indo-Bangladesh Relations.   

 

In the truncated Pakistan, Lt Gen Gul Hassan and Air Marshal Rahim Khan forced Gen Yahya to resign and Bhutto sitting in New York was given a call to come and take over the reins of power. After taking over, Bhutto wore three hats of President, CMLA and Chief of Armed Forces. Yahya was interned and a probe under chief justice Hamoodur Rahman ordered the mandate of which was confined to the military debacle in EP, making the postmortem controversial. Mujib was released from jail on 8 Jan 1972 and sent to Dacca. Lt Gen Gul Hassan was appointed COAS but he and Air Marshal Rahim were sacked four months later on charges that they had Bonaparte tendencies. Superseded Lt Gen Tikka Khan replaced Gul. After fascist rule of Bhutto, he was ousted by Gen Ziaul Haq in a military coup in July 1977 and Bhutto was hanged to death on 4 April 1979. After General Zia’s death in a C-130 crash in Aug 1988, Benazir Bhutto was elected, but the ten-year democratic era saw power changing between the PPP and the PML-N under Nawaz Sharif four times. Gen Musharraf’s 9-year rule couldn’t upturn the economic fortunes of the country. Thereon, the 5-year each rule of PPP under Zardari and of PML-N under Nawaz dipped all the economic indicators of the country and exacerbated moral and social issues. So far the incumbent PTI regime has been unable to cure the diseases of Pakistan and the economy is declining and provincialism has gained ground.         

 

In Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujib carried out witch-hunting of Bihars and patriotic Bengalis favoring One-Pakistan, and sought trial of 195 WP officers in alleged war crimes. He could survive for a few years only and on Aug 15, 1975, he along with 22 other family members were killed in a military coup led by Maj Farooq and Maj Rashid. Khondkar Mushtaq after remaining in the president’s chair for two months was deposed in another coup on Nov 3, 1975 which brought Brig Khalid Musharraf to power. After 4 days, he was toppled in a military coup and Maj Gen Ziaur Rahman was chosen to lead the country. After ruling for six years, he was assassinated and Gen Hussain Ershad ruled the roost till he was defeated by Mrs. Khalida Zia in elections in 1991. In the 1997 elections, Sheikh Hasina Wajid won and ruled for the next five years. She sentenced 15 army officers to death in Nov 1998. After another stint of Khalida, Hasina again came to power in 2008. She is still in the chair and has made impressive socio-economic improvements.         

 

To be continued

 

The writer is Brig, war veteran, defence analyst, international columnist, author of five books, sixth book under publication, Chairman Thinkers Forum Pakistan, Director Measac Research Centre. [email protected]

  

 

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Should One Stand up for Western Values? By Kim Petersen

Should One Stand up for Western Values?

By Kim Petersen

November 04, 2021
What are western values? One often hears a representative of a western country praising its western values. In a 2017 statement Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau adumbrated Canadian values as “openness, compassion, equality, and inclusion.”

Given the psychological torture that Julian Assange has been subjected to over the years at the hands of western nations like the Britain, the United States, Sweden, and the silent host of western states and their media, one wonders where the compassion is. At the heart of the case against Assange is an antipathy to openness, as evidenced by the vituperation directed at Assange for publishing the truth; WikiLeaks has a perfect record of publication. And by promoting the right to know, Assange sought to include the public.

Given the historical trajectory of the West, how might purportedly virtuous western values have arisen? Enlightened Europeans set sail for distant shores, claimed the inhabited lands as their own, derided the locals as savages, enslaved them, raped the women, chopped off body parts, spread disease, murdered multitudes, robbed the resources, destroyed the cultures, among a host of atrocities. Despotic monarchism, Nazism, fascism, and capitalism would be spawned by Europeans.

 

 

 

 

 

Are Westerners more enlightened today?

The United Nations General Assembly 72nd session in December 2017, seems an apt barometer of current western values. The UNGA’s resolution 72/157, called for concrete action for the total elimination of racism globally.

The resolution was resumed as 75/237, still entitled as “A global call for concrete action for the elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and the comprehensive implementation of and follow-up to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.” It was adopted by the General Assembly on 31 December 2020.

Of the total votes cast, 106 were in favor, 14 were against, and there were 44 abstentions.

The votes on Resolution 75/237 are very revealing of western values. Consider that among the 14 nay votes were a bevy of western countries:

Australia
Canada
Czech Republic
Democratic Republic of Congo
France
Germany
Guyana
Israel
Nauru
Marshall Islands
Netherlands
Slovenia
United Kingdom
United States

The US explained its nay vote as being based on the “unfair and unacceptable singling out of Israel.”

In his book, Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians, the Jewish anarchist professor Noam Chomsky made crystal clear the Israeli racism toward Arabs: “Contempt for the Arab population is deeply rooted in Zionist thought.” Chomsky also alluded to western permissiveness toward Israeli racism: “Anti-Arab racism is … so widespread as to be unnoticeable; it is perhaps the only remaining form of racism to be regarded as legitimate.” [1]

The US is a country established through genocide and dispossession of the Indigenous peoples, and it set up an apartheid reservation system for those Indigenous peoples that survived. From this vantage point, it seems no wonder that Israel escaped criticism by the US since the US lacks a moral basis from which to castigate Israel. The same holds true for Canada, a country that still practices apartheid with its Indian Act and reserve system. Canada also steadfastly supports Israeli apartheid.

Several other western or western-aligned countries abstained, among them: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Monaco, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea (South), Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine. These countries refused to take a stand on the anti-racism resolution.

What about the other countries that supported the resolution? In particular, how did the countries subjected to disinformation, persistent criticism, sanctions, and provocative military maneuvers from countries crowing and preening about their western values vote? China, Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North), Iran, Iraq, Russia, and Syria all voted in favor of the anti-racism resolution.

Which countries’ values best represent those embraced by people of conscience?

Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be emailed at: kimohp@gmail. Twitter: @kimpetersen.

ENDNOTE

  1. Colleague B.J. Sabri and I explored in a 12-part series what Israeli racism is: “Defining Israeli Zionist Racism,” Dissident Voice, read parts 1234567891011, and 12.

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Good Riddance. Sheldon Adelson Dead at 87 By Moon Of Alabama

Good Riddance. Sheldon Adelson Dead at 87

By Moon Of Alabama

January 14, 2021

Sheldon Adelson, the casino oligarch who has financed far right causes as well as the political careers of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahoo, has died. In 2013 Adelson had called for nuking Tehran (vid).

Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson dies

The casino magnate donated massive sums to Republican candidates and various causes.

Good Riddance.

Unfortunately his money will continue to flow to the far right as his Israeli wife is the one who is now running the show.

In other news B’Tselem, the topmost Israeli human rights organization, finally describes both Israel and its control of the Palestinian territories as a single apartheid regime:

B’Tselem rejects the perception of Israel as a democracy (inside the Green Line) that simultaneously upholds a temporary military occupation (beyond it). B’Tselem reached the conclusion that the bar for defining the Israeli regime as an apartheid regime has been met after considering the accumulation of policies and laws that Israel devised to entrench its control over Palestinians.

Nothing really new there but it makes it official. 
With B’Tselem finally speaking out it is much easier to refute those who falsely denounce the much justified condemnation of Zionism and Israel as anti-semitic.
This comes at a time when Israel is scheming to derail the incoming Biden administration’s plan to return to the nuclear deal with Iran:

Israel Wants to Derail Biden’s Plan to Rejoin Iran Nuclear Deal

David Wainer,Ivan Levingston

Israel is already plotting how to derail one of Joe Biden’s signature foreign-policy promises.

Israel will start by sending a stream of envoys on visits to Washington, the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss private deliberations. It’s stated publicly that it doesn’t want the U.S. to abandon sanctions on the Islamic Republic without a new deal, and that a tougher stance should be taken toward its nuclear project, ballistic missile program and regional proxy forces.That strategy runs against the Biden team’s willingness to re-enter the deal, then negotiate an expansion of its terms. It’s conditioned on Iran’s returning to compliance with the accord, whose limits it breached after President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018.

Israel also has a higher-risk card up its sleeve: the potential to upend diplomatic efforts through covert operations against Iran.

Netanyahu has been open about his intention to thwart renewed U.S. participation. In a rare public split, he rebuked his envoy to Germany for supporting Berlin’s push to expand the deal.

“There should be no return to the Iran nuclear agreement of 2015 — a deal which is flawed to its foundations,” Netanyahu said.

With Biden being an arch-Zionist and with a team of Zionist Jews leading the State Department the chances of a fast return to the deal can be regarded as slim.

Reference

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Joe Biden should end the US pretence over Israel’s ‘secret’ nuclear weapons by Dr.Desmond Tutu

Joe Biden should end the US pretence over Israel’s ‘secret’ nuclear weapons

Dr.

The cover-up has to stop – and with it, the huge sums in aid for a country with oppressive policies towards Palestinians

  • Desmond Tutu is a Nobel peace laureate and a former archbishop of Cape Town

Benjamin Netanyahu has ‘a sense of power and impunity’. Photograph: Reuters

Thu 31 Dec 2020 11.00 EST

Every recent US administration has performed a perverse ritual as it has come into office. All have agreed to undermine US law by signing secret letters stipulating they will not acknowledge something everyone knows: that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal.

Part of the reason for this is to stop people focusing on Israel’s capacity to turn dozens of cities to dust. This failure to face up to the threat posed by Israel’s horrific arsenal gives its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a sense of power and impunity, allowing Israel to dictate terms to others.

But one other effect of the US administration’s ostrich approach is that it avoids invoking the US’s own laws, which call for an end to taxpayer largesse for nuclear weapons proliferators.

Israel in fact is a multiple nuclear weapons proliferator. There is overwhelming evidence that it offered to sell the apartheid regime in South Africa nuclear weapons in the 1970s and even conducted a joint nuclear test. The US government tried to cover up these facts. Additionally, it has never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Yet the US and Israeli governments pushed for the invasion of Iraq based on lies about coming mushroom clouds. As Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu said: the nuclear weapons were not in Iraq – they are in Israel.

Amendments by former Senators Stuart Symington and John Glenn to the Foreign Assistance Act ban US economic and military assistance to nuclear proliferators and countries that acquire nuclear weapons. While president, Jimmy Carter invoked such provisions against India and Pakistan.

But no president has done so with regard to Israel. Quite the contrary. There has been an oral agreement since President Richard Nixon to accept Israel’s “nuclear ambiguity” – effectively to allow Israel the power that comes with nuclear weapons without the responsibility. And since President Bill Clinton, according to the New Yorker magazine, there have been these secret letters.

 

US presidents and politicians have refused to acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons even though the law offers an exemption that would allow the funding to continue if the president certified to Congress that aid to a proliferator would be a vital US interest.

Israel’s per capita gross domestic product is comparable with that of Britain. Nevertheless, US taxpayer funds to Israel exceed that to any other country. Adjusted for inflation, the publicly known amount over the years is now approaching $300bn.

This farce should end. The US government should uphold its laws and cut off funding to Israel because of its acquisition and proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The incoming Biden administration should forthrightly acknowledge Israel as a leading state sponsor of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and properly implement US law. Other governments – in particular South Africa’s – should insist on the rule of law and for meaningful disarmament, and immediately urge the US government in the strongest possible terms to act.

Apartheid was horrible in South Africa and it’s horrible when Israel practises its own form of apartheid against the Palestinians, with checkpoints and a system of oppressive policies. Indeed another US statute, the Leahy law, prohibits US military aid to governments that systematically violate human rights.

It’s quite possible that one of the reasons that Israel’s version of apartheid has outlived South Africa’s is that Israel has managed to maintain its oppressive system using not just the guns of soldiers, but also by keeping this nuclear gun pointed at the heads of millions. The solution for this is not for Palestinians and other Arabs to try to attain such weapons. The solution is peace, justice and disarmament.

South Africa learned that it could only have real peace and justice by having truth that would lead to reconciliation. But none of those will come unless truth is faced squarely – and there are few truths more critical to face than a nuclear weapons arsenal in the hands of an apartheid government.

Photographs –Courtesy

VANUNU’S PHOTOS OF DIMONA – 1985

Mordechai Vanunu brought his camera to work in late 1985, shortly before leaving his eight-year stint as a technician at Israel’s nuclear weapons factory at Dimona.

Acting on his conscience, he carefully took about 60 photos of the top-secret labs and unique production processes involved. When some of these photos were originally published in the London Sunday Times’ exposé, they confirmed his eyewitness testimony about the extent of Israel’s nuclear weapons program and revealed Israel to be one of the world’s top nuclear powers. To this day, the Israeli government refuses international inspection of Dimona and continues to deny the existence of its nuclear arsenal. [click here for more of Vanunu’s story: archive/story.html]

While their publication resulted in Vanunu being locked away for an 18-year prison sentence, his photographs of Israel’s nuclear weapons factory – a bold statement against nuclear secrecy and for the abolition of nuclear weapons – are here for all to see.

Click on the thumbnail views below to see the full-size photos in this selection.

1) Looking inside a glove box for tooling nuclear materials
2) Looking from outside into a glove box
3) Control panel
4) Control panel
5) Control panel for lithium 6 production
6) Control panel
7) Workshop
8) Looking inside a glove box at lathe for turning precision shaped pieces of plutonium or other components.
9) Laboratory model of nuclear weapons core
10) Looking inside a glove box at models of bomb components or containers for nuclear materials
11) Outside of glove box
12) Plutonium separation plant control room
13) Shielded viewing portal for observing nuclear reactions
14) Production model of nuclear weapons core
15) Production model of nuclear weapons core

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