Speaking today in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) Mossad Chief Mair Dagan warned that Israel is no longer an “asset” to the United States and is increasingly becoming a burden.
Dagan said that the US bellicosity of the 1990s was more conducive to Israel’s ability to rely on American threats to back up their positions, and that President Obama’s election “has been viewed as weakness and influences Israel’s difficulty in diplomatic maneuvers.”
Dagan also discussed the attack on a Gaza aid ship, saying that the army had initially considered simply sabotaging the ship and leaving it stranded in international waters, but decided against it over fear of a “humanitarian crisis.” Instead Israeli commandos boarded the ship guns a-blazing, and killed at least 19 aid workers.
Though the international community has reacted with understandable outrage at the massacre of the aid workers, Israel seems to be concerned primarily with the Obama Administration’s response, which so far has been a non-response.
Though inside Israel the killings have been mostly praised as a great military victory over “brutal” aid workers, international outcry seems to be lingering, and President Obama will likely be under pressure to address the massacre at some point.
mossad will assasinate dagan for speaking the truth.
Or Mossad is shooting a poisened arrow at Netanyahu.
The Buddhists came up with "accidental suicide" for Diem.
Suppose that works with someone like Netanyahu?
Does Netanyahu have any allergies?
Like is he allergic to peanut better or something like that?
Is that why he considers Jimmy Carter an anti-Semite?
Okay,here is one of those great rhetorical hypotheticals out of Gorgias or, say, along the lines of what Petronius satirizes:
(1) You are an American private for profit Health Insurance CEO.
(2) You company is given a choice: to insure Karzai or(aut) Netanyahu.
(3) In twenty slides or less, compose a Power Point presentation to be shown to your Board of Directors, defending your choice of insuring the one or the other.
The Zionist state has always been a burden to its supporting beast of burden. The beast is now dimly aware that it is being exploited.
"Though the international community has reacted with understandable outrage at the massacre of the aid workers, Israel seems to be concerned primarily with the Obama Administration’s response, which so far has been a non-response."
That is the essence of what one defines as "Meta-Spectacular" manipulation.
The definition is one step beyond Guy Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle", which must be mastered thoroughly as one of the most brilliant works of its kind.
If one has gone a step beyond it is only by standing on Debord's shoulders.
The Israelis, and especially Netanyahu–it must be pointed out–are masters of the tactic, which most of the other simplistic producers of the Spectacle fear but do not really understand.
The Biden incident in Israel was another prime example.
The antidote?
It unfolds elsewhere.
Mastering it or not, Debord's Society of the Spectacle can grow on you: http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/index.htm . Same translation is also in print.
Israel has never been an asset to the United States. It has always been an albatross around America's neck. Harry Truman took 2 million in cold cash, in suitcase to recognize Israel. That 2 million won him the 1948 election. The Israeli's have been buying american politicians ever since. Only now they use our laudered foreign aid money to do it. At least in 1948 they had to come up with their own money. The story I just told is one that John Kennedy told Gore Vidal.
How brillant that after how many decades and the Mossad is able to arrive at this conclusion!
After the billions of dollars of taxpayer money funneled to Israel, the wars, the massacres, the cowardly stances taken by the US at the UN to cover for any flight of fantasy, land grab or attack, remember the USS Liberty, and surprise, surprise Israel is not the little darling everyone wants to bounce on his knees.
Yes, Israel has become a state that only a neocon or the nut-wing rapturists would want as an ally.
It's hard to tell much from an image in the media but the photograph does have hints that Dagan is no follower of the Reverend Hagee.
It's just a guess but Netanyahu, now beating the "Bible" about Jerusalem, maybe in big trouble.
We can always hope so but his neocon cronies will do everything in their power to help him.
and and and Sept 11 2001 attacks
Absolutely, George..
"John Charles Hagee (born April 12, 1940) is an American founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, a non-denominational charismatic church with more than 19,000 active members. John Hagee is the chief executive officer (CEO) at his non-profit corporation, Global Evangelism Television (GETV).
Hagee is the President and CEO of John Hagee Ministries, which telecasts his national radio and television ministry carried in the United States on 160 TV stations, 50 radio stations, and eight networks, including The Inspiration Network (INSP), Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), and Inspiration Now TV. The ministries can be seen and heard weekly in 99 million homes. John Hagee Ministries is in Canada on the Miracle Channel and CTS and can be seen in Africa, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and in most Third World nations.
Hagee is the founder and National Chairman of the Christian-Zionist organization Christians United for Israel, incorporated on February 7, 2006. He has incurred controversy for his religious beliefs and comments regarding Nazism, Catholicism, Islam, homosexuality, Jews, and Hurricane Katrina.However, on April 25, 2008, Hagee backed away from his comments regarding Hurricane Katrina by saying, "But ultimately neither I nor any other person can know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina. I should not have suggested otherwise."
[wikipedia]
Has the Reverend Hagee by any chance pontificated about the "mind of God" on recent events in the Mediterranean or in the Gulf of Mexico for that matter?
Ah yes, San Antonio, hard behind the Wall Against Mexico built by Boeing under the direction of Bush's Neo-Con Homeland Security Chertoff, who also contracted out to an Israeli security firm to build an electronic battlefield behind a portion of it.
The Israelis, you see, have a lot of experience building walls to isolate, separate, and contain.
Wonder how many Israeli contractors are involved in the new plan to build a wall around Baghdad?
Is Erik Prince's Evangelical Blackwater/Xe still trying to get contracts for its military contractors as Border Patrol agents?
Or will the whole business of domestic security be subcontracted out to Amway or Artistry Cosmetics?
Such a small world after all.
Jason, where are you getting 19 killed? Now even Free Gaza is declaring only 9 deaths. I agree with all else, but I fear losing credibility.
An incredibly biased article. Non biased journelists do not use phrases such as "Instead commandos boarded the ship guns a-blazing, and killed at least 19 aid workers".
In additiion, 9 protestors were killed, not 19. Commandos borded the ship brandishing paintball guns, under orders not to use the 9mm glock pistols. They only opened fire when it wass clear that it was a life or death situation. Please do not challenge this, there is a lot of video proof.
Lol – there's nothing to challenge. There's video evidence.
Israel murdered innocent people. In international waters. That's called 'piracy'.
Please,go get yourself a life.
ps "….commandos boarded the ship guns a-blazing, and killed at least 19 aid workers".
Other than the numbers which hadn't been confirmed at that point, that is exactly what happened. Reporting the truth is what journalists are supposed to do.
You'd rather they lie when it comes to Israel.
Not good Guy….
I hate to tell you that you have been exposed to too much biased reporting…
"borded guns ablazing" is not what happened. the commandos borded the ship without shooting, using only paintball guns. they met an angry mob with knives, bats, slingshots, chairs, chains and metal clubs. The "peace activists" lynched soldiers and managed to disarm one, and started shooting at soldiers with his pistol. Only then did the soldiers get permission from thier dispatcher to use live fire.
Everything i said is supported by video, and there are Israeli commandos in hospital with gunshot wounds.
Pirates with paintball rifles–what a gas.
And 9mm is such an effete caliber, so gentile, so NAZI, mostly useful against intimidated civilians and your own mutinous troops.
Like the Luger, a real gentleman's round.
Are you suggesting that the israeli troops shot themselves in some kind of a sick media stunt?
I dont understand you sarcastic comment, please explain.
And btw the handguns used were glock 9mm
Please explain you comment, i didnt understand.
btw, 9mm is used by most law enforcment agencies around the world, including the FBI
Guy, he writes for Antiwar.com. The bias is clear, and it's IN THE NAME OF THE FREAKING WEBSITE. Why should he pretend to be indifferent to wanton slaughter?
If a "community organizer" doesn't get it that "brutal aid workers" is a lie, then he's hopeless. I don't know why someone would bring in paintball guns, and then switch to live ammunition. That means that between brandishing a toy weapon and producing the real one, you could get killed, especially if you are suspicious of the motives of the people on the ship.
It means the Israeli rules of engagement are amateurish at best and that they are thus responsible for the deaths. They provoked any violence that happened, and then they got to go live.
Did they act this way on all the ships?
Or was there a hit list for the Turkish one?
Well, sure–consider the plausible deniability of firing a tear gas canister point blank into the face of a young, unarmed American art student and blinding her in one eye.
It is the luck of the draw, and very humanitarian, that she is not killed.
Actually, the pattern is all a bit like Clinton and Reno at Waco, isn't it?
". I don't know why someone would bring in paintball guns, and then switch to live ammunition. That means that between brandishing a toy weapon and producing the real one, you could get killed, especially if you are suspicious of the motives of the people on the ship."
What do you think, Guy? Tell me you believe the commandos who boarded a boat filled with dangerous 'al-queda and Hamas terrorists' were initially using paint guns. Go on- I dare you to…
Oh, they were. There are videos showing them. Also there is audio recorded BY THE SHIP PASSANGERS, in which the soldiers keep saying to each other in hebrew: "dont shoot", until one says "theyre attacking, requesting permission to use live fire". The reply he gets is "Negative". Only a few minutes later they recieved permission to shoot, when there lives are in danger
Polanski's Pirates is actually a great flick.
But your tastes may run closer to Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, with a fey Depp, the special effects, the skeleton crew, and so forth.
Crew–Goddamnit, speaking of the the CREWS!
The embarrassing lies of Israel and their supporters are symptomatic of the immoral ideology they support. That the lies are getting so ridiculous and stupid is symptomatic of the free ride they get in the press.
what lies?
I read today 10 confirmed killed, up 1 from yesterday, but cannot confirm.
Obama should but will not assist human rights community on the event. His best response would be to send US war ships to guide the current flotilla to its Gaza port, but he does not have the courage for it, and is preoccupied with an oil spill and other frantic domestic matters.
These are the kinds of events that distinguish great and small leaders. I believe Obama was destined to fail any "greatness" test from the start, and was recruited by money and other insidious powers for that reason. We need a John Kennedy today, with the judgment and courage to change his views once the evidence of need becomes clear. Obama has never evinced this capacity; rather the opposite, to run from a good and necessary fight, this time with the Israel government. Kenendy was warrior. Obama is not. We will need new and capable warriors to get the US out of its current major problems, one of which is sychophantic Israeli policy.
What is wrong with Israeli policy? that they blockade gaza? I think thats completly understandable, considering that before the blockade gaza was firing 70 rockets a day into Israel. Yesterday they even shot rockets into Israel… I dont suppose that made news here.
And Israel provides gaza with aid, and even offered to transfer the aid from the ships by land
The operation was sloppy and a botch. Why didn't the Commandos just confine everyone below decks and use poison gas?
Throw the bodies overboard while still fresh, then repaint and reregister the shipsand boats, sail them to Dubai, and sell the whole lot, ships and cargo together.
It might even have covered the costs.
Geezus H.Christ, the Somali pirates are strictly poor fishermen dispossessed of their traditional fishing grounds by the Capitalists and Globalists, and these illiterate peasants make a better job of a hijacking and often have it pay big time.
The Chicago Outfit had a great scam going a few years back.
They had their own railroad siding where they would repaint railroad cars in the name of their front operation.
Then they just sat back and collected rental fees.
Elegant.
They had one of the biggest RR operations in the US at one time.
Why doesn't the IDF do the same with Gaza relief flotillas?
Selling the passengers into slavery in Saudi Arabia is probably too risky. Some of the prison contractors in the US Bible Belt might buy them though, at least the darkies.
What happened to discussing the legitamacy of the Israeli flotilla raid?
Either your debating skills are very poor, or you truly have nothing relevant to say.
No lawyer I know or respect would conclude the blockade of Gaza by anyone – Israel, Hamas if they have forces involved somewhere on the seas – is legal. That is concern #1. So called legal blockades exist in time of declared war only. Others are always illegal.
Of course no power in the mid east plays by the rules of war, which is arguably 1 serious set of reasons why there will never be mid east peace. It is always right by might, as was the 5-31-10 Israel attack in international waters, with no provocation whatsoever.
Any poet or human rights scholar worth his or her salt must see this event as simply barbarous. So far the majority of world opinion agrees it was. The public has got it right; not always the case.
No provocation? The ship was told to go to ashdod, and that the goods would be transfered by land. Do you seriously propose that Israel should have let 6 ships into gaza without checking thier contents?
Just a few months ago Israel borded a ship in international watars headed for lebanon, and found 300 tonnes of weapons. Is that illegal, brutal action from big bad Israel?
Give me an example of a country which would let large deliveries go to a terrorist region right under its nose, without checking the contents. Israel tried to do so peacfuly, but when thay refused, Israel had no choise but to intercept
"Come, now, march," interrupted he; and I never heard a voice so cruel, and cold, and ugly as that blind man's. It cowed me more than the pain, and I began to obey him at once, walking straight in at the door and towards the parlour, where our sick old buccaneer was sitting, dazed with rum. The blind man clung close to me, holding me in one iron fist and leaning almost more of his weight on me than I could carry. "Lead me straight up to him, and when I'm in view, cry out, 'Here's a friend for you, Bill.' If you don't, I'll do this," and with that he gave me a twitch that I thought would have made me faint. Between this and that, I was so utterly terrified of the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of the captain, and as I opened the parlour door, cried out the words he had ordered in a trembling voice.
The poor captain raised his eyes, and at one look the rum went out of him and left him staring sober. The expression of his face was not so much of terror as of mortal sickness. He made a movement to rise, but I do not believe he had enough force left in his body.
"Now, Bill, sit where you are," said the beggar. "If I can't see, I can hear a finger stirring. Business is business. Hold out your left hand. Boy, take his left hand by the wrist and bring it near to my right."
We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him pass something from the hollow of the hand that held his stick into the palm of the captain's, which closed upon it instantly.
"And now that's done," said the blind man; and at the words he suddenly left hold of me, and with incredible accuracy and nimbleness, skipped out of the parlour and into the road, where, as I still stood motionless, I could hear his stick go tap-tap-tapping into the distance.
It was some time before either I or the captain seemed to gather our senses, but at length, and about at the same moment, I released his wrist, which I was still holding, and he drew in his hand and looked sharply into the palm.
"Ten o'clock!" he cried. "Six hours. We'll do them yet," and he sprang to his feet.
Even as he did so, he reeled, put his hand to his throat, stood swaying for a moment, and then, with a peculiar sound, fell from his whole height face foremost to the floor.
R. L. Stevenson
So where do Biden and Petreus go wrong?
Its time for AIPAC and ADL to ask Dagan to let up on Israel.
Many argue that pro-Israel interests own the US press. it is hard not to think so given the whitewash all US wars and now the 5-31-10 attack by Israel are getting here.
I have never supported a war with any nation before, but many new views emerging on 9-11 and now Gaza indicate considerable argument for a US war with Israel. Of course Congress will never support it since Congress depends on pro-Israel funding and related corporate funding for election. Thus the case for a current state of de facto fascism in our federal government today. Left historians have argued for decades that a new US revolution is probably necessary for reform required to end US and Israel imperialism today.
I am 53 years old and have studied war and peace seriously for about 35 years. I am an international lawyer. The war-peace policy maelstrom facing youth worldwide from these facts and events is daunting. Unless America harkens back to its constitutional rule of law roots very soon, there will be little left of good American culture to defend. Kennedy's blockade of Cuba has been judged illegal but perhaps necessary by law scholars today. Surely Israel will at least take this position regardless of rightful criticism of its 5-31-10 attack. To me the resulting primary issue is now whether the world will mount a rightful response, and pass necessary laws to support any existing laws that may be lacking today to make a rightful response – ie saving Palestinian lives
Okay, let's take up the matter of the passenger lists.
Israel clearly had agents provocateurs among the passengers.
Now they are all held hostage in Israel.
Okay, now they have to return them all.
Problem.
So do the IDF provocateurs wind up among the fatality count–just suddenly disappeared?
Or do they provide bodies, which can be identified?
This is really a puzzle for one of Kinky Firedman's detective stories.
Spose you could have a few of them defect after the great medical care they got–or falling love with an Israeli nurse or something like that.
The Israelis really need higher quality scripters.
Some of their legends these days wouldn't sell heating oil to Laplanders.
"Israel becoming a burden to U.S.",,,,
Becoming? What a monstrous understatement. Israel has ALWAYS been a huge burden to America.
What Moses a Jew?
Was Napoleon a Frenchman?
Was Stalin Russian?
Was Churchill British?
"Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday complained to Turkey over a new television drama airing there that depicts Israel Defense Forces soldiers as brutal murderers.
Lieberman instructed staff at the Foreign Ministry to protest in the face of their Turkish counterparts. He stressed that airing this type of show reflects a grave level of incitement against Israel – and with government approval.
The show, called Ayrilik, features a love story that develops between the lead characters during Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media reports."
Haaretz June 2, 2010.
No wonder the spooks are pissed.
Consider just one small slaughterhouse of World War One–from February to December 1916 one quarter of a million Germans and Frenchmen died, and three quarters of a million were wounded at Verdun, a very small place, each side under a leadership that told them the other side were demons who must be exterminated.
Even more pertinent, the few lucky ones died quickly after arriving at the front, but most of them spent weeks and months living worse than rats in the trenches.
Weren't these bravos slavish cowards to their overlords, as is the message in Kubrick's brilliant Paths of Glory.
Imagine, on the other hand, each side one day throwing down their arms at the same time and marching forward to a quick, easy suicide at the hands of the enemy, then suddenly finding out that the enemy too had laid down their arms.
After a party to end all parties the warmongers and arms dealers, the politicians and the patriots, the psychopathic killers that rule by fear of death and terror imposed not only on the "enemy" but on their own people, are guillotined at every street corner in a now sane and civilized world.
But, you will object, guillotining is not Gandhiesque.
True enough, but no one is perfect, and awakened peasants are the first to admit.
EAC
It is time the international community demands to put the murdering pirates on trial along with those that gave the orders to murder unarmed people in international water.