By Ted Belman
From now on comments on every post must relate to the content of the post.
Comments that don’t relate to the post must go here.
Any person who contravenes this demand will be put on moderation. Also their offending comment will be trashed.
The reason for this demand is so that people who want to read comments which pertain to the post, don’t have to wade through the chatter.
Everyone will be happier.
Peloni
But discussion must lead to conclusions. We do not as we inch towards nuclear war there must be conclusions. Nobody has rights to be a “bad actor” in such a situation. We cannot afford to waste time.
@Felix
Too bad. Israpundit is not an echochamber. All views are tolerated here except those which are put forward using ad hominem attacks. So there will be no banning to suit your request.
@Felix Care to elaborate or is flowery name-calling the best you can manage?
@Michael
The polls are fake news. Bibi represents the will of the people, and his opposition are tied at the hip, ankle and head to the Americans and the Arabs, which will not advantage them in any coming election, which we should not be deluded into believing will come anytime soon.
This is good news.
Zorn
What would are you living in?
To put it mildly you are a foolish person
Quote
Absolutely brilliant. My hats off. Talk about thinking outside the box. Israel attacked within Iran from inside Iran with drones, perhaps using proxies? – while claiming credit – in such a way as to make Iran cast doubt on the cause, Iran that would normally blame Israel for the common cold, as the saying goes, if it could. ?
To the three editors
1. No matter what I write Troll Zorn follows that is trolls
And distorts my meaning
I want this looked at
2. I want conclusive policy on EU and section c adopted
3. I want people who support NATO etc on Ukraine and Russia barred totally from site
https://youtu.be/K7Z5vkoN0OI?si=dQIrFg4JnHK-gAIx
Absolutely brilliant. My hats off. Talk about thinking outside the box. Israel attacked within Iran from inside Iran with drones, perhaps using proxies? – while claiming credit – in such a way as to make Iran cast doubt on the cause, Iran that would normally blame Israel for the common cold, as the saying goes, if it could. 😀
See, this is why Israel needs Bibi at the helm and America needs Trump. Pulling rabbits out of hats is their métier.
https://youtu.be/FN-gSY2XvlU?si=TkhO6JZt_Su3zH5x
“Israel’s AG Asks Why Imprisoned Terrorists Do Not Get Fruit” (Not satire)
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/terrorism-news/israels-ag-asks-why-imprisoned-terrorists-do-not-get-fruit/2024/04/18/
@Adam I always chuckle when i read denunciations of MSM. In New York, it’s understood to refer to the Manhattan School of Music not Main Stream Media. 😀 Though I noticed at one point, a lot of people changed it to legacy media. Is that why, you suppose? In George Orwell’s, “1984” Newspeak consists of abbreviations and acronyms. I’ve been acware (accutely aware 😀 ) of that for a long time.
Eretz Israel
As an aside
RAWSALERTS
Well, for him to just be coming to this conclusion does not give me much confidence in the intelligence of the American Intelligence. Once again, what does the ‘I’ stand for? Oh, right, psychopathic incompetence.
@Adam
I have always seen my propensity to use such abbreviations without defining them to be rather poor form. I do however do so quite often without noticing it. If you catch me doing so again, you should of course feel free to call my attention to it. It is quite unintended, but bad habits are hard to correct, especially very old and often practiced bad habits.
CNN Alex Marquardt
@peloni. Thank you for explaining to me the meaning of >MIC.” I grew up in the 1960s a different era when abbreviations were not used as often as they are now to reference organizations and agencies. Although even then they were used sometimes. The main US laLabor federation was nearly always alled the AFL-CIO, for example. The Atomic Energy Commician, then a controversial agency because it supervised testing of nuclear weapons, was somtimes referred to as the “AEC” still, there weren;t nearly as many abreviations in common use as there are today.
Evergreen Intel
Faytuks News
“Multiple explosions reported in Iran following strikes on Israel”
“The semi-official Iranian Fars News Agency reported explosions near the city of Isfahan in central Iran. The state-run Iranian news agency Press TV also reported explosions in Isfahan but noted the reasons were still unknown.”
“It’s not clear what the immediate targets were if the strikes happened and if Israel is behind them, but Isfahan is home to Iranian nuclear facilities and sites.”
– The HIll
OSINTdefender 1 hr ago
I have done over many years considerable reseach on this period (all of it unpublished) I am convinced there was absolutely no distance whatsever between the views of the British agents mentioned in this article and the most senior officials Foreign Ofice in Westminster. Evidence for this are the “titanic ” explosions of expletive-laced rage whenever Zionists or Zionist leaders were mentioned. A Labor “back-bencher: whose name eludes my fading memory (come to think of it I believe his last name was Cross) who had grequent meetings with Bevin to discuss a variety of internal Labor policy issues wrote extensively about his conversations with Bevin in his memoirs in which he documented Bevin’s “anti_Zionist” and sometimes antisemitic outbursts.
Another piece of evidence that Westminster views about a future Jewish state in “Palesine” were identical to the views of the Foreign Office in Westminster can be found in the behavior of Harold Beeley, a member of the British delegation to the UN General Assembly when the partition resolution was being debated in 1947-1948. Beeley had private conversations with the “Jewish Agency” representive, who became the Israel represntative after the May 15 1948 declaration of indpendence, in chich he told him that as the British withdrew, they would ensure that Arabs were left in control of all of all of Galilee, all of the Negev, and the south coast of Palestine all the way from Rafah to Jaffa. The Jews, according to this informal, unannounced British scheme, would be left only with a narrow stript between Tel Aviv and Haifa. This informal, unpublished British plan would have left Israel with a territory the size of Rhode Island. Beeley’s threats, however, failed to persuage the Jewish representative to drop their support for the partition resolution.
Beeley was appointed directly by the foreign office, not by the Brit’s representives in the Middle East.
@Sebastien
Thank you for the review of Zamir’s book. It is very expensive, but pursuing such specialty books had been a life-long favorite excursion of mine up to a few years ago. What may surprise many about Zamir’s book is that while the book is listed to be about 500 pages, the text is only about 170 pages long, and the balance is comprised of the various documents referenced in the book which the reader can refer to simultaneously. The focus of the book is truly set between England and France, but as the review you posted indicates, there were many other players involved in that cover tug a war, including the Jews of Palestine, the Arabs of the Levant and surrounding areas, and the US and Russia.
Relatedly, Zamir wrote another book on the issue of the Levant back in the late ’80’s. I haven’t read this work, but I believe it parallels his later work which was written some 30yrs later.
The other source I referenced is actually very specific to the Israeli war of Independence. It is called
‘Bid’ for Altalena: France’s Covert Action in the 1948 War in Palestine
It is freely available online at the link provided, and it provides a fascinating perspective to the covert war between the French and the British. It is about 20 pages long with an additional ~20 pages of associated sources published at the end.
I highly recommend this article. It is very revealing to many aspects of how the Altalena affair, which was actually the failing first act of Operation Bid, came to be played out, most ironically due to a lack of clarity on behalf of French Intelligence regarding the relationships between the Irgun and the Jewish Agency. It also discusses the role in which the French played in aiding the Jews in navigating the political minefield at the UN, or at least I believe that this was the article in which Zamir disclosed these facts. Zamir has written extensively on various topics, so you can do a literature search and find many of his writings which cover the topics of Faisal, the Levant, MI6, the Lebanese Civil War, the rise of Intelligence agencies around the world, and the covert war between England and France which includes the article linked above. I haven’t read all of them, but I have read a good many, and none of them have proven to be disappointing. In any event, I think you will not be surprised to learn that the Bid for the Altalena affair is my favorite of Zamir’s writings which I have read.
“head of interrogations in Hamas’s internal security in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun was killed in an airstrike this week.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-kills-top-hamas-intel-officer-in-gaza-airstrike-wraps-up-beit-hanoun-raid/
@Peloni Article about one of Zamir’s books you recommended on Jstor. You can sign in with your library ID. The book is hundreds of dollars. What was the other, again?
“Meir Zamir
The Secret Anglo-French War in the Middle East: Intelligence
and Decolonization, 1940–1948
(New York: Routledge, 2015), 485 pp.
ISBN: 978-1-138-78781-0
In an extraordinary piece of thorough and especially intriguing research,
Meir Zamir tells the story of the covert war between the British and French
intelligence services in the Levant of the 1940s. The work of intelligence
agencies always arouses unusual curiosity because of their clandestine modus
operandi.
Previous scholarship has already shown that British policy in the Levant
during World War II operated on two contradictory levels: one from Whitehall
that sought cooperation with Free France, and the other from its represen-
tatives in the Levant, where Britain’s minister in Beirut, Edward Spears, and
British intelligence conspired against the French at every turn, seeking their
complete ouster from the region. The question that was never quite answered
definitively was whether the French, headed by General De Gaulle, were right
in suspecting that this was calculated duplicity, or was it a case of Britain’s
Middle Eastern diplomatic representatives and intelligence operatives essen-
tially disobeying instructions from London by embarking on a policy of their
own design. According to Zamir, these “agents in the field” were often acting
“without the knowledge or sanction of their government” (xii).
A similar question arises in reference to British policy toward the Zionists
who, like the French, suspected British duplicity. Zamir, citing findings in
the French archives, reveals that British agents did in fact inflame the Arab-
Jewish confrontation in 1947–48 by actually provoking the Arab invasion of
Israel, although this was not official policy emanating from London.
Zamir’s great discovery was a treasure trove of hundreds of Syrian and
British documents (including top secret reports of the covert activities of
84 bustan: the middle east book review
British agents) that were obtained by French intelligence, translated into
French, and deposited in the papers of French prime minister George Bidault.
The book is therefore divided into two parts. The first is the story of the
covert war between Britain and France, and the second is a compilation of
some 400 mainly Syrian (translated into English) and some British docu-
ments from the above collection for the future use of scholars and teachers.
The British “agents in the field,” a small but influential group of Arabists
(Spears was an exception, not being an Arabist), included some illustrious fig-
ures who had already risen to prominence during World War I, such as Lord
Killearn, Brigadier Iltyd Clayton, and Sir Walter Smart in Cairo; Sir Kinahan
Cornwallis and Colonel Stephen Longrigg in Baghdad; Lieutenant Colonel
Walter Stirling in Damascus; and Alec Kirkbride in Amman. These were all
men who lived in the past. They were locked in an imperial mindset and
remained committed to the survival of the British Empire, even after World
War II, when Britain under the Labor Party was no longer truly interested or
fit for the task. They all firmly believed that World War II provided the oppor-
tunity to correct the mistakes that had been made by Lloyd George’s cabinet
during World War I, in making unwarranted concessions to the French in the
Levant and to the Zionists in Palestine.
They were, therefore, determined to oust France from Syria and Lebanon
“as a first step towards establishing, under Britain’s tutelage, a loyal
Hashemite Greater Syrian monarchy comprising Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan
and Palestine, united in federal or confederal ties with Iraq” (9–10). Their
machinations, however, were completely detached from postwar realities and
ended in dismal failure. Rising Arab Nationalism, Britain’s postwar exhaus-
tion and decline, the emergence of the two new anti-Imperialist superpow-
ers, the United States and the Soviet Union, all combined to leave “the Arab
lobby” or the “Camel Corps” as they were known in the Foreign Office, “build-
ing castles in the air” (128). France’s eviction did not mean British hegemony
but only the hastened termination of “Britain’s moment” in the Middle East.
In the postwar reality, like the British, though much weakened as a great
power, the French could also play the intelligence game. “The evidence of
Britain’s scheming to eject France from the Levant reinforced [French] deter-
mination to take revenge” (110). The French fought back to great effect and
were very successful in undermining the schemes of “the Arabists” with
machinations of their own. At times they collaborated with the Zionists, who
shared the French concerns about “the Arabists” working against them and
their cause, or with the Russians, who were just as keen as the French to defeat
British designs in the Middle East. Thus, a rather odd situation evolved. While
Book Reviews 85
the British and the French cooperated in Europe against the Soviet Union,
France and the Soviets collaborated against the British in the Middle East,
“where the long-standing Anglo-French rivalry continued, albeit mostly in
the dark” (149).
“The Arabists” ultimately failed to achieve their strategic objective of
British hegemony. But they did play a crucial role in evicting the French from
Syria and Lebanon, even though this was not British policy. They “manipu-
lated the Cabinet in London and implemented their own polices, which devi-
ated from the official position,” by providing biased assessments and keeping
the decision-makers in London in the dark (167). The “people in the field”
with their covert political action and clandestine diplomacy were instrumen-
tal in engineering the political crises, in Lebanon in November 1943 and in
Syria in May–June 1945, that deliberately provoked the French into taking
extreme action to save what was left of their position in the Levant. Spears,
in particular, had become an expert in manipulating Churchill with tenden-
tious reporting that served to reinforce the prime minister’s resentment of
De Gaulle (79).
The French decisions to resort to force against the Lebanese government
in 1943 and the Syrian parliament in 1945 drove the British government into
a head-on collision with the French, which in turn poisoned relations and
precluded the understanding with the French that Churchill and Eden, and
subsequently Atlee and Bevin actually preferred. Thus “the Arabists” had
their way by manipulating His Majesty’s government into adopting measures
that defeated its own policy objectives, in the service of the Arabists’ out-
dated hegemonic designs, which came to naught in the end.
The British Arabists in the region “conducted their own policy in contra-
diction of Churchill’s and Eden’s positions and used covert tactics to pres-
sure them to revise their views,” and to “force their government to revise
its Middle East policy” (26). They were generally ill-disposed toward Britain’s
new Labor government after the war. Under Bevin, the Arabists “not only
stepped up attempts to implement their own polices in the region but also
deliberately undermined those of their Foreign Secretary” (27) creating a sit-
uation in which Bevin was “unable to impose his will on his secret services”
(134).
In December 1943 Churchill had warned Spears against taking his
Francophobia too far. The prime minister told Spears that “what peo-
ple might learn to do against the French in the Levant might be turned to
account against [the British] later. The [British] should discourage the throw-
ing of stones since [they] had greenhouses of [their] own—acres and acres
86 bustan: the middle east book review
of them.”1 Once the French would be forced out of the Levant, the British
would be left on their own to face local resistance. Their situation would only
become much more difficult to sustain. Churchill and many others in the for-
eign policy establishment had warned all along against the folly of the anti-
French stand of the Arabists, who were ignoring Britain’s interests in friendly
post-war France, failing to realize that “British support of pan-Arabism and
the Arab League could backfire.” It was these more sound minds, and not the
“Camel Corps,” that proved to be right. Britain “was to pay a heavy price for
evicting France from the Levant” (50–51).
Though most of the intrigue of the Arabists was directed against the
French, another major target were the Zionists in Palestine. They wished to
see the Zionists defeated to pave the way for their Arab unity plans, which
did not envision the creation of an independent Jewish state in Palestine. The
French, on the other hand, feared that an “Arab victory in Palestine would
strengthen the Arab League’s influence and jeopardize France’s position in
North Africa” (149). De Gaulle believed that the “Jews in Palestine [were] the
only ones capable of chasing the British out of the Middle East” (153). Not
surprisingly, therefore, “the most effective anti-British weapon used by the
French secret services [after the war] was their clandestine collaboration
with the Jewish Agency” (111).
The French passed on to the Jewish Agency information on the plans of
“the Arabists,” led by Brigadier Clayton, to partition Palestine between the
neighboring Arab states and to encourage the Arabs to “join forces to pre-
vent a Jewish state” (164). French and Zionist sources from late 1947 and
early 1948 point to Clayton’s “key role in instigating the Arab-Jewish conflict
in 1948” (172), which was “intentionally inflamed to further Britain’s strate-
gic goals in the Middle East” (169).
Zamir’s book tells a fascinating story and is an important, very well
researched and equally well written contribution to the field of modern
Middle Eastern history, both in terms of its historical revelations and in
terms of the unique documentation that it provides for the use of scholars
in the future.
Asher Susser, Tel Aviv University, susser@post.tau.ac.il
1. Records of conversations between Spears and Churchill (December 9, 1943), Spears
Papers, Box II, File VII, St. Antony’s College, Middle East Library, Oxford University,”
https://www-jstor-org.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/stable/10.5325/bustan.7.1.0083?seq=4
Just discovered a site where all of Ephraim Kishon’s books can be purchased. From the biography section:
“Ephraim Kishon was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1924 into a middle-class Jewish family. Born as Ferenc Hoffmann, Kishon graduated at a high school of metal sculpture and studied art history. He began publishing humorous essays and scripts for the theater in Hungary.
During World War II the Nazis imprisoned him in several concentration camps. In one camp, his chess talent helped him survive as the camp commandant was looking for an opponent. In another camp, the Germans lined up the inmates shooting every tenth person, passing him by. He later wrote in his book The Scapegoat, “They made a mistake—they left one satirist alive.” Kishon managed to escape while being transported to the Sobibor death camp in Poland, and hid the remainder of the war disguised as Stanko Andras, a Slovakian laborer.
?
After 1945 he changed his surname from Hoffmann to Kishont to disguise his Jewish heritage and returned to Hungary to study art and publish humorous plays. He immigrated to Israel in 1949 to escape the Communist regime, and an immigration officer gave him the name Ephraim Kishon.
?
In Israel, acquiring a mastery of Hebrew with remarkable speed, Kishon started a regular satirical column in the easy-Hebrew daily publication, HaOmer, just after two years in the country. From 1952, for over thirty years, he wrote the column “Chad Gadya” in the daily paper Ma’ariv. Devoted largely to political and social satire but including essays of pure humor, it became one of Israel’s most popular columns. His extraordinary inventiveness, both in the use of language and the creation of character, was applied also to the writing of innumerable skits for theatrical revues.
?
Collections of his humorous writings have appeared in Hebrew and in many translations. Among the English translations are Look back Mrs. Lot (1960), Noah’s Ark, Tourist Class (1962), The Seasick Whale (1965), and two books on the Six-Day War and its aftermath, So Sorry We Won (1967), and Woe to the Victors (1969). Two collections of his plays have also appeared in Hebrew: Shemo Holekh Lefanav (1953) and Ma´arkhonim (1959).
His works have been translated into thirty-eight languages, the majority of which were sold in German speaking countries—over fifty million books. Kishon rejected the idea of universal guilt for the Holocaust and had many fans in Germany. Kishon said “It gives me great satisfaction to see the grandchildren of my executioners queuing up to buy my books.” Friedrich Torberg was his key translator to German, until he died in 1979; thereafter Kishon himself wrote in German. Ultimately, he wrote over fifty books.
His first marriage was in 1946 to Eva (Chawa) Klamer. In 1959, he married his second wife Sara (née Lipovitz), who died in 2002. In 2003, he married Dr. Lisa Witasek. Mr. Kishon died on January 29th, 2005. He has three children: Raphael, Amir and Renana.
AWARDS:
Filmography Prizes and Awards
?
1963
1964
1964
1964
1965
1966
1966
1969
1969
1971
1971
1971
1971
1972
1972
1972
1972
?Literature Awards
?
1953
1958
1964
1998
2002
Since
2001
Sallah Shabati
Three Israeli Kinor David Israeli Prizes for Film Script, Best Actress and Best Actor
Nomination for the Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Foreign Film
Two Golden Gate Awards in the San Francisco International Film.
Festival for Best Script and Best Acting
Two Golden Globe Awards by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for Outstanding Foreign Film and Best Acting
All Americans Press – American Distributor’s First Prize for Best Foreign Direction
Viennale, Festival of Gaiety – 1966 Prize
Blaumilch Canal (The Big Dig)
Nomination for the Golden Globe award 1969 by the Hollywood
Foreign Press Association for Best Foreign Language Film
XI Semana International De Cine En Color, Barcelona “The Lady With The Umbrella” Prize for Outstanding Foreign Picture
Monte Carlo Festival International De Televion: Mention Speciale De La Critique International
The Policeman
Kinor David Israeli Prize for Best Actor1971 – XIII Semana International De Cine En Color, Barcelona “The Lady With
The Umbrella” Prize for Outstanding Foreign Picture
Nomination for the Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film
The Golden Globe Award by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for Best Foreign Language Film
Cine Del Duca Award by Monte Carlo International Film Festival For Television for Best Production
Gold Medal Special Jury Award by the Atlanta International Film Festival
Israeli Nordau Prize for Literature
the Israeli Sokolov Prize for Journalism
the Israeli Kinor David Prize
the Bialik Prize for literature
Israel Prize for his lifetime achievement and special contribution to society and the State of Israel.
Since 2001 Mr. Kishon was nominated for the Literary Nobel Prize.Herzl Prize, Jabotinsky Prize,The French Ordre de St. Fortunat award,The Noble Prize of Humor in Paris,The German Wider den tierschen Ernst award and the highest award for literary achievement of Germany Bundesverdienstkreuz I. Class, of Austria State Prize, I. ClassThe Order of Merit State Prize of Hungary”
https://en.ephraimkishon.com/bio
“How the Left turned on the Jews” British Jewish historian
https://youtu.be/WzBrRd88ZAo?si=pFD-3GaZfTbpqkYg
“Herzog: World must work ‘decisively and defiantly’ against Iran
“It’s clear the Israelis are making a decision to act. We hope they do so in a way that does as little to escalate this as possible,” said visiting British FM David Cameron.”
https://www.jns.org/cameron-to-arrive-in-israel-amid-iran-tensions/
Please forgive my cynicism but who is this “World” guy? Is he any relation to David Steinberg’s “Coast?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9EVEM3_5Rs
@Adam
MIC=Military Industrial Complex
Sorry. It is a bad habit from my school days which I carry with me still to use abbreviations with which I assume others are familiar.
2peloni–what is the MIC? This is a genuine, not a rhetorical question.
I completely agree.
I hope I’m just being paranoid but if they decide that the engine room fire on one of the American ships sent to construct the pier was not an accident, could this become a pretext to start compiling lists of Jews in the navy and setting up secret “Jew rooms” where Jews are not allowed? Moreover, if it was deliberately set, could it be a false flag incident probably not even caused by anybody who is Jewish just to set us up like the Reichstag Fire did the Communists?
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-797632
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you. – Joseph Heller, “Catch 22” (famous line from famous satirical novel about U.S. army in WWII pub. Oct. 10, 1961 that I – and “everyone else” but I can’t take that for granted anymore, i met a guy who never heard of Marlon Brando or “”Mutiny on the Bounty” – read when I was a kid so bear with me if I appear to be “teaching grandma to suck eggs” as the saying goes.)
“The term was coined by Joseph Heller, who used it in his 1961 novel Catch-22. Catch-22s often result from rules, regulations, or procedures that an individual is subject to, but has no control over, because to fight the rule is to accept it.”
Catch-22 (logic) Wikipedia
Heller was born on May 1, 1923, in Coney Island in Brooklyn, son of poor Jewish parents, Lena and Isaac Donald Heller, from Russia.” – Joseph Heller/Wikipedia
Anyway, the central point I was making here was that the aid was compensation for the withdrawal from Sinai which secured American hegemony in the region but cost Israel a great deal financially – oil, tourism – , strategic depth and in the eviction of hundreds of Jewish families. And with no cost of living increase. I agree with Eidelberg – writing at the time.
https://afsi.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/SadatsStrategy_Eidelberg1.pdf
Siegel-Liebowitz article excerpt once again: “Formal U.S. military aid to Israel, as opposed to loans and cash-on-delivery arms sales, started in 1979, when the Carter administration offered it as a carrot to get Israel to agree to withdraw from all of Sinai as part of a peace deal with Egypt. The same deal provided a comparable sum of U.S. military aid and arms to Egypt, for many years the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign military financing after Israel. Notably, the aid to Egypt was given despite the country’s displaying no capacity to deploy military force outside its own borders—the goal being to achieve a rough form of U.S.-brokered parity between the two recent foes.”
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/end-american-aid-israel
@Peloni It disappeared again when I tried to take out the one block quote and put in quotes.
@Sebastien
The Siegal-Liebowitz article is very long, but an essential read. It provides a fully comprehensive description of the gains which could be had from an equitable relationship between two sovereing nations, even as those nations might remain tightly aligned, and even more so if they might not remain so tightly aligned.
Post disappeared.
“Formal U.S. military aid to Israel, as opposed to loans and cash-on-delivery arms sales, started in 1979, when the Carter administration offered it as a carrot to get Israel to agree to withdraw from all of Sinai as part of a peace deal with Egypt. The same deal provided a comparable sum of U.S. military aid and arms to Egypt, for many years the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign military financing after Israel. Notably, the aid to Egypt was given despite the country’s displaying no capacity to deploy military force outside its own borders—the goal being to achieve a rough form of U.S.-brokered parity between the two recent foes.”
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/end-american-aid-israel
@Laura
Yet who has heard the phrase, the China Lobby before in the popular press. In fact, Qatar, Saudis, and Iran all have far greater support coming from the US than has Israel, who is bent to the will of the Americans to the advantage of these other powers, yet where is the book titled after any of these significant lobbying groups, much less becoming a best selling book. When the Jewish state is viewed in a ‘special’ light or held up to a special ridicule or abuse, it should be recognized that these are fueled by antisemitic motives, and the selective qualification of and derision for the Israel lobbying efforts should very much be considered in this regard.
As to the reason why the US gives Israel the “aid”, I would argue that it is not relevant to the threats raised against Israel. Instead, I would argue that it is because it is not actually aid but an American payout to the American MIC which aids the US in capturing the control over Israel so that Israel might be bent to the will of the Americans, as I stated above. Also, the impressive employment of the US hardware by Israel, which is far more beneficial to the American MIC than the Ukrainian employment of these tools for instance, provides the US with a strong selling point for its international arms trade, as well as a real world battlefield where the kinks and flaws might be detected and and improved upon. Also, Israel makes its own improvements on the US hardware and provides the US with these improvements. Additionally, the US aid to Israel provides the US with an impressive influence in the region. As Ambassador Ettinger has stated, the ‘aid’ is a force multiplying benefit to the US, and the US is well aware of this benefit, which is now presently being threatened by weaponizing the supply of arms to Israel. The threats on the supply of arms which have been made by the US against Israel will likely finally bring Israel to a point of realization that the US aid to Israel will be interpreted in a much different light in the future. To which I would only add, “at long last”.
We give Israel more aid because Israel is more threatened. The most aggressive lobbyists are those advocating for china.
@Peloni & Laura I concur with your sentiments:
@Laura
This would be an understatement and comparing him to Greene is actually offensive.
Hopefully so.
Massey is the worst rep in the GOP, worse than MTG. This is the GOP’s version of the “squad”. I just hope they don’t wind up taking over the GOP the way the squad has in the democrat party. We need to rally around Speaker Johnson, hopefully a coup can be thwarted.
@Bear
For what it is worth, I think it should come as no surprise that I am a STRONG proponent for a Republic as was envisioned by the American founders, complete with a federal system in which the majority of power is actually reserved for local control, while only very specific and enumerated powers are ceded to a federal govt so as to prevent such tyranny as has been building in the US as the vision of the American founders have been betrayed to greater and greater extents over the past more than two centuries.
This being stated, I would not impose such a govt upon a people who are so inclined towards either a strong central govt nor one which supports a ruling despot. Such matters should in fact be left to the purview and inclinations of the people composing the relative nations. Indeed, it is the nation state, the collection of tribes intricately woven into a relative collective body while still capable of acting upon the influences of its relative individual factions of the tribal associations, which should determine its own form of governing body regardless of what I or others might see as being the best form of govt.
Hence, the imposition of the tenets of republicanism from a foreign power on a sovereign nation is as offensive to me as would be the imposition of the tenets of communism, as they are each the actions of foreign tyrants, even as the former might try to characterize themselves as champions of liberalism while ignoring the fact that their actions mimic the same insecurities and delusions which manifested in the need of the Communists to overthrow the world’s govts.
So while republicanism is what I deem to be the most acceptable form of govt, embarking upon a crusade to impose such views on another sovereign nation would be ranked among the greatest examples of tyranny which I could describe. Peoples of each nation have not only a right to choose their own destinies (and governing bodies), but an obligation to make that choice for themselves, at least in so far as those choices are extended beyond their own borders.
@Peloni what do you see as the best form of government and is such a government in existence anywhere in the world? Are you believer in a strong benevolent central ruler as the best form of government?
@Peloni I am going to stop this from my end as a useless discussion. You will believe what you do and in many cases or most cases I do not find a basis to have a meaningful discussion (world view issue). No offense or attack on you meant here, perhaps just pointing out the obvious.
I will answer one question no I do not believe the monarchy is kept in power by popularity. I also do not believe it is a puppet regime of the USA (though the USA has serious influence). I do not believe that Mudar Zahran is a power player now in Jordan nor will he be in the future and basing any hope on him to be a positive influence in the Middle-East is very misguided and futile.
@Felix one correction I back Israel to the hilt and no-one else to the hilt. That is where my loyalty is. USA sometimes does good and when people like Obama and Biden are in charge it does much harm to the USA and other countries, including Israel. It is okay if you do not agree with me. We generally do not agree you are a communist (Trotsky believer) and I am a Jew who is a Zionist who believes the Free Market System is the best but not perfect system combined with a Jeffersonian democracy.
Felix
The need to form such allies in Iran is indeed key to overthrowing the Mullahs. This is nothing new, nor is the need to organize a sense of cooperation among the dissidents who oppose the Mullahs who hold a significant part of the Iranian opposition. The problem, however, has always been that the elements of the Iranian opposition are too greatly opposed to eachother to gain a sense of solidarity to marshal their support as one force to overwhelm the Mullahs. So uprising after uprising fails to gain the widespread traction needed to end the tyranny in Iran. Hopefully this cycle of foolishness in Iran will come to an end someday soon, but until it does, the Mullahs will continue to extend their tyranny over the neighbors of Iran as well as its many disparate factions.
Also, the control over Jordan remains in the hands of foreigners who support a regime composed of foreign usurpers. The US financing which goes to Jordan is the not only the largest aid package in the world, but it is also currently the greatest aid package in all of history. Yet, the people for whom the aid is intended are left to live in squalor. This is not the intent of Americans, nor is it in their interest to continue to hold in place a regime which is both hostile to its people and the aims of the other US allies, and indeed the US as well. I look forward to the US choosing a leadership more representative of the people, which is aligned with the interests of the US in forming a Jordanian state which provides its people with the economic support and development as well as the educational and societal quiet which will make it a more useful partner to Israel and her Sunni allies. I don’t think that this is in any way an objective which should be shunned, but should be celebrated and supported by all who desire stabilizing the region. The Hashemites are, and have always been, a significant element in destabilizing the region, and the sell by date of this US maintained tyranny in the region has long been expired. It is time for them to go, one way or another.
@Bear
This is as irrelevant a fact as the population being anti-Hashemite. The Jordanian military is paid by the US govt, and they will support whomever the US instructs them to lend their support. Surely you do not believe that the Hashemites, who are nothing more than foreign usurpers installed by the British Colonial Office, have held their control over Jordan because of popular support. They are tyrants, they persecute their people and feed them the Islamist aligned rhetoric reinforcing the anti Jewish propaganda. Abdullah rules due only to the support of foreign masters, as did his father and his great grand father.
This is the weakness in what Peloni says and it is a fatal and bitter weakness
In the end you depend on America to put Mudar in power
If Israpundit goes down that road it has no more relevance
And moreover it becomes a distraction from the need to form allies in the Iran which will be decisive in overthrow of the brutal Islamist dictatorship.
So then, what Bear is saying on this is pretty irrelevant too since he backs America to the hilt.