Don't forget the Butcher. He deserves dishonorable mention. On Nov 10, 6:51 pm, MJ <[email protected]> wrote: > Netanyahu: Intellectual Father of the ‘War on Terror’byThomas Harrington, > November 10, 2010 > Writing last week onAntiwar.comthe redoubtable Phil Giraldi said:“The Israel > connection is significant because Israel has long been at the heart of > America’s foreign policy woes. America’s misguided war on terror is in fact a > complete adoption of Israeli security paradigms without any regard for the > actual threats that confront the U.S., making Israel’s many enemies also the > foes of Washington. The Israeli Lobby might not have singlehandedly brought > about the disastrous Iraq war, but it certainly was a major factor in the > push to invade, taking its cues from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.”Reading > Giraldi’s article I thought back, as I have intermittently through the years, > to a late night in 1995 when, after a long day’s work, I sat down to watch > theCharlie Rose Showin the hopes of getting smarter. Back then, I had not yet > realized just how bought-and-paid-for Charlie is (Bloomberg, Sumner Redstone, > and a long et cetera of media magnates underwrite his program) and thus > incapable of considering ideas that challenge in any substantial way the > notion that the U.S. and Israel are anything but positive factors on the > world stage. > In my mind’s eye, I remembered seeing that night’s guest, Benjamin Netanyahu, > talk about a book he had written in which he argued for the need of the > “West” to engage in a “War on Terror.” I also remember quite clearly > chortling out loud at the stupidity and chutzpah of the proposition. > Well, I recently went back through the online archives of the program and > found theinterview. And sure enough, it was exactly as I had remembered it. > There was Netanyahu pushing the “War on Terror” as a concept, some six years > before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001! > I don’t know about you, but I was truly amazed at the alacrity with which the > concept of the “War on Terror,” and with it, the thousand some-odd page > PATRIOT Act was rolled out in the wake of the attacks on the Twin Towers. > There was no way, I thought then, and I think now, that this stuff was not > sitting there in fairly finished form on the shelves of some very high-level > White House offices. > It seems Netanyahu or people very close to him might very well have placed it > there. > Netanyahu’s father, Benzion Netanyahu, still alive at 102, is one of the > major standard-bearers of Revisionist Zionism, an explicitly expansionist, > militaristic, and anti-Arab form of Israeli nationalism founded by Ze’ev > Jabotinsky in the early part of the 20th century. Given its attraction to > energetic action and expansionism, it is not surprising that the movement > should have been attracted to Fascism during the Thirties. Indeed, an > important member of Revisionist Zionism’s Palestine-based guerrilla arm, Abba > Ahimeir, a great fan of Mussolini, also expressed admiration for Hitler, > saying in 1932, “Were it not for Hitler’s anti-Semitism, we would not oppose > his ideology. Hitler saved Germany.” > After the Second World War, the Revisionists formed guerrilla gangs aimed at > terrorizing both the British and the Palestinian natives out of what they saw > as their land. Among the members of these cells were Menachem Begin, Yitzhak > Shamir, Dalck Feith (Douglas Feith’s father), and Benjamin Emanuel (Rahm > Emanuel’s father). > Emanuel’s father, living comfortably in retirement in Chicago, was > responsible, according to some sources, for terrorist attacks on buses full > of Arabs and of British soldiers in the 1945-48 period. Feith’s father was > similarly involved in campaigns to induce terror among non-Jewish residents > of Palestine prior to his emigration to the U.S. in 1942. > This gives us some context in which to interpretBenjamin Emanuel’s remarkson > the accession of his son to the role of White House chief of staff: > “Obviously, he’ll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? > What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to be mopping floors at the White House.” > After Israeli independence in 1948, the internal politics of the country were > dominated by the Labor Party, which believed in the creation of > European-style social democracy and a relatively discreet > maltreatment/dispossession of Palestinians. In this context, the Revisionists > were considered to be nuts from the fringe, and as such, were largely cut out > of the structures of official power. I have been told by an Israeli academic > that this contributed to Netanyahu’s father, a scholar of the Spanish > Inquisition who had also been Jabotinsky’s personal secretary in New York > between 1935-1940, having difficulties in securing a regular academic > appointment in Eretz Israel. Hence, he shuttled back and forth several times > between that country and the U.S. This is the reason why Benjamin Netanyahu > speaks perfect American English; he spent much of his youth in the U.S. > This all changed in 1977 when Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir of the Likud > Party, a formation rooted deeply in the beliefs of Revisionist Zionism, got > elected to power in Israel. They did so, in no small measure, on the basis of > their ability to sell their expansionist form of nationalism to the country’s > new wave of immigrants, Sephardic Jews from Arab and/or Islamic countries > such as Morocco, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen, who tended to be of considerably > lower educational levels than the European Jews who had made up the bulk of > the country’s first and second generations of settlers. > Revisionist Zionism’s long walk in the desert was over. Indeed, since that > time, the Revisionists have steadily increased their domination over Israeli > political life to the point where the Labor Party, like the Democratic Party > in the U.S., spends much of its life cowering in front of the Likud Partyout > of fear of being called “unpatriotic” and “soft on terror.” > Key to the continued rise of Revisionist Zionism was the ability to organize > key elements of American Jewry around this new, hyper-martial view of the > Israeli reality. They did so by infiltrating AIPAC and by flooding the > think-tanks then being created to prop up the Reagan Revolution (e.g., the > Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute) with thinkers > amenable to their cause, and by founding think-tanks of their own (e.g., the > Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Hudson Institute, the Center > for Security Policy, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the > Middle East Media Research Institute) dedicated wholeheartedly to promoting a > pro-Likud approach to Mideast policy. > If you were a viewer of theMcNeil Lehrer Reportin the ’80s, you saw the first > fruits of this propaganda push in abundance when think-tank heroes, Reagan > appointees, and Likud sympathizers such as Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, > Elliot Abrams, and Paul Wolfowitz were paraded across our screens almost > nightly to ply their bellicose, Israel-centered view of the world to people > (PBS viewers) who like to think of themselves as America’s thinking elite. > All polite, articulate, and calmly spoken, they made “muscular foreign > policy” and the “show ‘em who’s boss” treatment of Arabs (and all of the > other ungrateful brown people of Earth, for that matter) seem the most > natural and sensible thing in the world. > During the Clinton years, these neocons largely retreated into the > think-tanks to plan their next assault on power, letting less overtly > bellicose pro-Israel types such as Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk (the U.S. > correlates of the Laborites Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres) manage Mideast > affairs for the Clinton administration. > The major concern of the Revisionist Zionists-cum-neocons at this point > became the Peace Treaty signed by Rabin and Arafat in late 1993. They > understood quite rightly that if it were allowed to go into full effect, it > would spell the end of the core Revisionist Zionist mission of having Israel > occupy all of the “historic lands” of Israel on both sides of the Jordan > River. > So the now well-installed members of the Washington media elite, in > coordination with their friend and intellectual first cousin Netanyahu – ever > mindful of fulfilling his father’s dreams– went to work on undermining > compliance with the treaty and portraying it in the U.S. media as a sellout > for Israeli interests. It was in this context that Netanyahu authored the > bookFighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International > Terrorists, which he is promoting in the Charlie Rose clip mentioned above. > In the interview, and even more so in the book, you will hear spelled out > most of the conceptual building blocks of what was later to become the U.S. > “War on Terror.” > A more synthetic rendering of the vision can be found in the“Clean Break” > paperwritten a year later (1996) as a policy blueprint for Netanyahu’s > incoming prime ministership by a team that included Feith, Perle, and the > husband and wife team of David (Heritage Foundation) and Meyrav (founder of > MEMRI and the author of a Ph.D. thesis on Revisionist Zionism) Wurmser, which > highlighted the need to engage in preemptive strikes against Iran and Syria, > the removal of Saddam Hussein from Iraq, and the abandonment of the > traditional “land for peace” framework for negotiations with the Palestinians. > Hmm. Sound familiar? It should. > This is exactly the plan rolled out within days of the attacks of 9/11, when > all of the people mentioned above, except for Meyrav Wurmser, plus > like-minded, pro-Likud figures such as Abe Shulsky, Eliot Cohen, and Dov > Zakheim had key positions in the Bush administration, having been inviteden > masseby Dick Cheney. > Does anyone else remember the visit to Washington of Netanyahu two weeks > after 9/11? He was greeted by official Washington as a hero and gave speeches > before Congress and elsewhere in which, barely hiding his glee, he advocated > the need to pursue the “War on Terror” and how, thankfully, the U.S. and > Israel were now all in this together. > Mission accomplished. The U.S. and Israel were now joined at the hip on the > basis of a lunatic paradigm, the “War on Terror” Netanyahu and his friends > developed as a way, first and foremost, of pursuing Revisionist Zionism’s > expansionist dreams. If you have any doubt, take a look at Netanyahuholding > court among West Bank settlers and mocking the U.S.just weeks before we > signed on to his “all for one and one for all” dream of endless war on people > who are rightly his enemies but not necessarily ours. > Future historians will marvel at these developments and wonder how the > world’s most powerful nation allowed it to happen without any serious public > debate or > reaction.http://original.antiwar.com/thomas-harrington/2010/11/09/netanyahu-intellectual-father/
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