The FBI paints an ugly picture

[rahma]

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Eric_Margolis/2004/09/05/616439.html

The story is potentially a huge scandal and may indicate a furious power struggle between neocon supporters of Israel's far right Likud Party, who dominated the Pentagon and National Security Council, and the CIA and the state department.

The current controversy raises the question of whether neocon attempts to blame the disaster they created in Iraq on the CIA, to blame 9/11 on the FBI's faulty intelligence, along with three decades of spying investigations squelched for political reasons, could have caused the security agencies to go after what a CIA veteran terms "Washington's fifth column."

 

[BobbieDog]

The growing scandal over the U.S. possibly being misled into a war by neocons and various supporters of Israel is proving a field day for anti-Semites, as this writer long warned it would.

Many feel these neocon ideologues arrogated to themselves the right to decide what was good for Israel and the Jewish people, even though many American Jews opposed war against Iraq.

In my view, what the neocon ideologues and their media allies have done is to inflame anti-Semitism, encourage anti-U.S. terrorism, and destabilize the entire Mideast.

None of this is anything but far from proved. It shows a form of thinking we ought to be doing. It shows why we ought to be doing it.

To protect the interests of one, we must protect the interests of all: and to do that, it may well be that traditional values of truth and justice, despite all recent misrepresentations to the contrary; are what serve us all best.

It does however remain the case, that with all such stories, we can have so little substantive data: that we are, unfortunately, often in the position of making judgement, only on the basis of prejudice with which we begin.

 

[rahma]

Those evil Israel supporters! They start all sorts of problems!
Puhlease.

Zionist and proud of it

So it would be ok if the results of this investigation showed that Israel spied on the US and sought to manipulate members of the US government?

 

[rahma]

Are you digging for reasons to discredit Israel?
To make them seem worse than the Arab Terrorists that attacked us?

A bit touchy are we? Am I not allowed to discuss an article published in a major north american paper? I mearly posted a story I found interesting about an ongoing FBI investigation about the influence Israel has over certain members of the US government.

No mention of the Palestinian situation, no mention of terrorism. This is about Israel and it's mucking about in the US government.

 

[seebs]

Are you digging for reasons to discredit Israel?
To make them seem worse than the Arab Terrorists that attacked us?

I don't think that's the point at all.

However... It may be appropriate to wonder whether the nation of Israel always acts in ways we should be comfortable with. If they're spying on the U. S., well, that does sort of put a crimp in our "friendly" and "allied" relationship with them. They shouldn't be spying on us.

Likewise, the notion that people might have manipulated the US into a war which is having some fairly undesirable effects is a very serious one, and I don't think it should be casually dismissed.

Would this make Israel "as bad as" the terrorists? No. But it would make them clearly fall short of our normal standards for "allies", and that would be a good reminder to talk to them about our expectations of how our allies deal with us.

 

[rahma]

I have not said anything on this thread that was not objective. I am mearly concerned that another country is mucking around in my government and influencing my government officials. You are the one who brought up this as anti zionism and trying to paint Israel as horrible.

They MIGHT be doing something illegal and wrong. Are we not allowed to talk about that?

 

[BobbieDog]

I can respect your approach here because you are looking at things from a balanced viewpoint instead of tossing out a bone for people and baiting them with statements that paint only one side of the story.

This is why I responded in likeness toward the OP. We could sit and point fingers all day but for us to get anywhere, an objective viewpoint is necessary.

So, is that what you think the FBI is doing? For this article, as I read it, was about an ongoing FBI investigation.

Are you here suggesting that the FBI has an anti-Israeli agenda: is only concerned with painting in the Palestinian side of the story; is just trying to bait people, and who would you suggest that might be; and is merely pointing fingers; and is constitutionally and unusually subjective?

I have a deep respect for your own stance with Israel, and I mean that genuinely: for although we might disagree about Zionism; I do not think we differ in our admiration for Israel as a home for its people, nor in our admiration for the Jewish people, and the Judaic faith.

But equally, I have respect for what Rahma presents and represents: and I also have a growing love for what is true in Islam, just as I have always had the deepest of identifications with what the Jewish people have brought into the human project.

None of this changes who and what I am: I am, and always have been, simply a Jesus geek.

I get genuinely hurt when your deep love for Israel, leads you to be cruel towards much that I value.

 

[Dale]

Rahma in OP, quote:
<< neocon supporters of Israel's far right Likud Party >>
*
The use of terms like "far right" has been questioned. Have you ever heard of anyone talk about the "near right" or the "middle right"? It seems that "far" is just a flavoring particle intended to make the folks you are describing seem more extreme.
*
I'm not a neocon. Basically the neocons are militarists. But is it fair to say that neocons specifically support the Likud Party? It seems to me to be more accurate to say that they support Israel, but I am not aware that they narrow their support to any particular party.
*
Does the Likud party deserve to be pegged as extreme right? Israel certainly has more extreme parties. Menachem Begin was Likud and he negotiated the landmark deal with Egypt that resulted in the return of the Sinai. Jewish settlers were forcibly removed to make that deal possible.
*
Incidentally, Israel is not really governed by the Likud party, it is governed by a complex coalition.

 

[BobbieDog]

There is a synergy between neocon and radical Zionist perspectives.
Both are radical extremes in their respective cultures of origon.
Both intend a conservatism in regard to all coming to be constrained within their partisan perspectives.
Under any lexicon I know, that makes the qualifier "right wing", deserved and appropriate.
Neither neocon or Zionist equates to America or Israel, American or Jewish respectively: but each has become so frighteningly dominant, in their setting of origin; that any alliance, and immoral conivance between them, has dreadful import.
If upheld by investigation, this is crime against humanity, of the highest order: and those found so quilty should face sanction of the utmost severity.

 

[Dale]

BobbieDog in post #12:
<< Neither neocon or Zionist equates to America or Israel, American or Jewish respectively: but each has become so frighteningly dominant, in their setting of origin; that any alliance, and immoral conivance between them, has dreadful import. >>
*
Is Zionist dominant in Israel? The question is not as simple as you may think. The State of Israel was founded by the Israeli Labor Party, which is not religious and not Zionist. The Labor Party ruled for many years, and was in power during the 1967 war when Israel took the territories they've been arguing about ever since. When Israel took the Temple Mount, it was turned over to a Moslem body for administration. Would Zionists have done that? The same arrangement is in effect today.
*
While the Likud Party is arguably Zionist, it is not one of the religious parties. The actual religious parties tend to have no opinion on many matters of state, including national defense. The ultra-orthodox are actually exempt from military service, so Israel is defended by secularists.
*
I don't see how you can say that religious Zionists are dominant in Israel.

 

[BobbieDog]

I don't see how you can say that religious Zionists are dominant in Israel.

I apply the designation as Zionist, more to do with what I see as an emerging Israeli intransigence: where I associate that with what is often called the "Iron Wall" strategy; and draw some of my thinking from a book of the same name by Avi Schlaim (sp).
I think this intransigence and strategy does have religious dimension and roots: but it no doubt can stand somewhat independant from either of these.
I am frustrated by what I see as a current Israeli failure to offer anything that would allow for resolution.
I just yearn for a young Jewish and Palestinian cohort of politicians, who throw everything to do with Sharon and Arrafat into some dustbin of history.

 

[gop_ryan]

Ok with some people it always has to be a vast right wing conspiracy involving the Zionists and the Christian Right NeoCons. Now come up with a viewpoint explaining this. Oh I forgot, there is no rationality behind your claims.

 

[BobbieDog]

Ok with some people it always has to be a vast right wing conspiracy involving the Zionists and the Christian Right NeoCons. Now come up with a viewpoint explaining this. Oh I forgot, there is no rationality behind your claims.

The ground is quite simple: the Jewish faith and Christianity, share Abrahamic beginnings. The architecture to the ontology is almost the same in each: they use the same basic kit; it's just different falvours of icecream, from the one parlour. Zionism and NeoCon thinking are similar corners of radicalism of their respective phenomenologies. What is then fateful, is that the existentialities of those subscribing as Zionists or Necons, is then so fucntionally similar: that a perspectival synergy has led to a shared operational platform; which manifests as current American policy in support of Israel. So, it is all very simple.
I don't think it requires conspiracy theory: rather more of joining up the dots of what is already in public domain; more like looking out the window and seeing rain, or your kid fighting with the bairn from next door.