Eideard

The Israeli government has ordered adverts that urge Israelis in the US to return home to be pulled amid outcry from the American Jewish community.

The ads suggest expats could lose touch with their Israeli identity because of assimilation into the US. Funded by an Israeli government agency, the campaign was criticised by US Jewish organisations. The ads were posted on the agency’s website and ran on Hebrew-language US satellite channels. The campaign, which featured billboards in some US cities, has three Hebrew-language video ads…

Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic, a current affairs magazine, wrote earlier this week: “I don’t think I have ever seen a demonstration of Israeli contempt for American Jews as obvious as these ads.”

On Friday, Goldberg published a statement from the Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren. “The Ministry of Immigrant Absorption’s campaign clearly did not take into account American Jewish sensibilities, and we regret any offence it caused,” the statement said.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu, once made aware of the campaign, ordered the videos immediately removed from YouTube, and he ordered that the billboards be removed as well.”

If you believe that Bibi didn’t know these adverts were in the works, I have a copy of the Brooklyn Bridge to sell you that crosses the Dead Sea.

A letter from the Jewish Federations of North America to the Israeli Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, which funded the ads, called the campaign’s “messages that American Jews do not understand Israel deeply insulting and simply outrageous”…

The government of Israel believes they and only they have the ability to order the course of human events in the Middle East – and Jews everywhere in the world must accept their leadership and ideology. Which ain’t about to happen; but, that’s how True Believers in pretty much any theocracy function.

“Don’t eat the knishes!”
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

French President Nicolas Sarkozy branded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a liar” in a private conversation with President Barack Obama that was accidentally broadcast to journalists during last week’s G20 summit in Cannes.

“I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar,” Sarkozy told Obama, unaware that the microphones in their meeting room had been switched on, enabling reporters in a separate location to listen in to a simultaneous translation.

“You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you,” Obama replied, according to the French interpreter…

The conversation was not initially reported by the small group of journalists who overheard it because it was considered private and off-the-record. But the comments have since emerged on French websites and can be confirmed by Reuters…

Obama and Netanyahu have had a rocky relationship as U.S. efforts to broker a Middle East peace deal have foundered, with the U.S. president openly criticizing Jewish settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories.

It was unclear why exactly Sarkozy had criticized Netanyahu. However, European diplomats have largely blamed Israel for the breakdown in peace talks and have expressed anger over Netanyahu’s approval of large-scale settlement building.

During their bilateral meeting on November 3, on the sidelines of the Cannes summit, Obama criticized Sarkozy’s surprise decision to vote in favor of a Palestinian request for membership of the U.N. cultural heritage agency UNESCO…

The October 31 UNESCO vote marked a success for the Palestinians in their broader thrust for recognition as a sovereign state in the U.N. system — a unilateral initiative fiercely opposed by Israel and the United States.

Don’t let democracy, sovereignty, history get in the way of the relationship between a global imperial power and a regional hitman. Power, greed, are still the signal deciders in American foreign power. Choosing to work closely with a liar like Netanyahu is not a new choice.

No more hugs from Bibi

The former head of Israel’s spy service has launched an unprecedented attack on the country’s current government, describing it as “irresponsible and reckless”, and has praised Arab attempts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

Meir Dagan stepped down as the head of Mossad six months ago but has gone on the offensive in a series of briefings with journalists and public appearances because he feels that Israel’s security is being mismanaged by Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and Ehud Barak, the defence minister.

One newspaper quotes him as saying that he, as head of Mossad, Yuval Diskin, the head of Sin Bet – the internal security agency, and Gabi Ashkenazi, the head of the army, could prevent Netanyahu and Barak from making mistakes but all three have left their positions and have been replaced by men chosen by the current government.

“I decided to speak because when I was in office, Diskin, Ashkenazi and I could block any dangerous adventure. Now I am afraid that there is no one to stop Bibi [Netanyahu] and Barak,” said Dagan…

In his latest comments, he said that if Israel attacks Iran, it will find itself at the centre of a regional war that would endanger the state’s existence. Dagan’s intervention is dangerous for Netanyahu because it comes from the right wing of Israeli opinion rather than the left, where the prime minister would expect criticism…

Ben Caspit of the Maariv newspaper wrote: “He is one of the most rightwing militant people ever born here … who ate Arabs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When this man says that the leadership has no vision and is irresponsible, we should stop sleeping soundly at night.”

When the political course of a nation becomes wholly grounded in hatred and bigotry, imperial greed for lebensraum, it is time for conservatives to join the broader population and speak out against criminal politicians in charge.

It’s also years overdue.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has sternly rebuked the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in an unusually fractious telephone call, according to media reports…

The Israeli prime minister telephoned Merkel on Monday to say he was disappointed that Germany had voted for a UN security council resolution condemning settlements that was vetoed by the US.

According to a German official quoted by Haaretz, Merkel was furious. “How dare you?” she said. “You are the one who has disappointed us. You haven’t made a single step to advance peace…”

The quoted comments reflect growing impatience in Europe with the impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian talks and a belief that Israel is stalling or impeding progress. With the exception of the US last Friday’s resolution was backed by all the security council members including Britain, Germany and France.

Despite the resolution being carefully worded to reflect American policy on settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the US wielded its veto for the first time under Barack Obama’s presidency…

Netanyahu told Merkel that he was planning a new initiative to be disclosed in the next few weeks. “I intend to make a new speech about the peace process in the next two to three weeks,” he was quoted as saying.

The only thing Netanyahu is interested in advancing is more rightwing politics in Israel. If he must stretch himself to vent more hot air and lies into the diplomatic ether – so be it. He has plenty of practice.

And he knows he can count on the United States Congress and the White House to back whatever crap lies he utters.

The Haredi Vuvuzela

Israeli police broke up a scam carried out by ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups who faked ID cards for fictitious students in order to receive millions of extra dollars from the state.

Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police arrested six people after they found more than 1,000 fake ID cards during a raid on three ultra-Orthodox educational institutions in Jerusalem.

The fraud lasted more than a year, Rosenfeld said, and cost the government “tens of millions of shekels.”

Israel provides stipends for students who study at full-time Jewish seminaries, or Yeshivas, a policy in place for years, but one that has been facing increased opposition from the country’s secular majority.

Consecutive government coalitions receive support of ultra-religious parties just like old-fashioned ward-heelers who in turn get a payoff from the government treasury.

Certainly looks like it works well. For votes, I mean. Not honesty or education.

Israeli “democracy” in action
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

In a move likely to fuel tensions with its minority Arab population, Israel moved a step closer to passing a law that would require new citizens of the country to declare their loyalty to a “Jewish state.”

In a statement released Wednesday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his support for adding language to Israel’s citizenship and entry law that would declare a new citizen’s allegiance to “a Jewish and democratic state.”

“The State of Israel is the national state of the Jewish people. This principle guides government policy, both foreign and domestic, and is a foundation of Israeli law,” Netanyahu declared in the statement…

Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Ask your friendly neighborhood teabagger how they feel about enforcing a mandatory Christian United States? They’d probably offer the usual Judeo-Christian folderol. It gets to sound more inclusive.

Arab Knesset member Ahmed Tibi from the Ra’am-Ta’al party criticized the move, saying that ” the values of Jewish and Democratic cannot be in the same definition because democracy is the equality of all the citizens. But an ethnic definition as Jewish is the preference of the Jew over that of the Arab and therefore it fixates an inferior status to 20 percent of the population…”

In an updated statement, Netanyahu said “Israel is a democratic state that gives full civil equality to all its citizens. We uphold this in our foreign and domestic policy, and in the peace negotiations.”

Which is another lie.

None of the populations under the thumb of Israeli occupation are allowed to vote in anything other than a strictly local election. They have no voice in the larger political entity ruling their lives.

UPDATE: The Israeli cabinet adopted the bill.

Not even officers from Israeli security service Shin Bet can escape the scourge of lost [and stolen] luggage it seems.

A bag belonging to agents travelling with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was mistakenly put on a flight from New York to Los Angeles, not to Washington. Alarmingly the bag contained four 9mm Glock handguns, which are now missing…

The Israeli officers were accompanying Mr Netanyahu to Washington for White House talks with President Barack Obama.

NBC News reported that the handguns had, in accordance with security procedures at New York’s John F Kennedy airport, been placed inside checked luggage. The luggage was then supposed to be put on a connecting flight to Washington however, American Airlines workers at the airport instead sent it right across the country to LAX in Los Angeles.

By the time the luggage was located and recovered, the guns had disappeared, and are presumed to have been stolen.

Hey, life in the fast lane – in 21st Century America.

Demonstration in East Jerusalem against Natanyahu’s latest land grab
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has withdrawn from a nuclear security summit in Washington next week, fearing Muslim delegates will demand Israel give up its assumed atomic arsenal.

If the diplomats attending had more than the accepted modicum of integrity, they all would censure Israel.

Netanyahu, who plans to send a deputy and two senior advisers to the April 12-13 conference instead, canceled “after learning that some countries including Egypt and Turkey plan to say Israel must sign the NPT,” an Israeli official said.

By staying outside the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Israel has not had to forswear nuclear arms nor admit international inspectors to its Dimona reactor, which experts believe has produced plutonium for between 80 and 200 warheads…

The Foreign Ministry in Ankara confirmed that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who has sharply escalated criticism of Israel since last year’s Gaza war, would demand at the summit that it disarm as part of a nuclear-free Middle East…

“Israel has nuclear weapons but doesn’t belong to the NPT. Does that mean that those who don’t sign the NPT are in a privileged position..?”

Israel says its nuclear secrecy helps ward off enemies while avoiding the kind of provocations that can trigger arms races…

What a crock! There never has been an arms race which didn’t result in one faction feeding off another.

Israel was the first nation in the whole of the Middle East to commit to nuclear arms. They have continued to stockpile atomic weapons with the tacit approval of the White House and Congress every step of the way.

Daylife/Getty Images

US congressional leaders and the most powerful pro-Israel lobby group in the US are attempting to forestall a significant shift in the White House’s Middle East policy.

The move comes amid growing signs that the US president, Barack Obama, intends to press for urgent efforts to be made towards the creation of a Palestinian state.

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is visiting Washington later this month amid growing expectations that Obama is preparing to take a tougher line over Israel’s reluctance to actively seek a two-state solution to its conflict with the Palestinians…

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) this week sent hundreds of lobbyists to urge members of Congress to sign a letter to Obama. The letter, written by two House of Representatives leaders, calls for Israel to be allowed to set the pace of negotiations.

The lobbying came despite critics saying Netanyahu has consistently failed to commit himself to the creation of a Palestinian state.

The letter calls for the maintenance of the status quo…It says the US “must be both a trusted mediator and devoted friend of Israel”.

The last part has been the minimum description for generations. The Israeli government hasn’t had to concern itself with democracy, veracity or honesty in decades of dealing with either the American people or any other nations in the region.

It’s time to throw away the rubber-stamp.