When America Almost Nuked Egypt

After Israel attacked its Arab enemies during the 6 day war in June 1967, it then proceeded to attack its ally: The United States, in the form of the U.S.S. Liberty, a surveillance vessel, which was monitoring the ongoing war.

The United States assumed that Egypt had conducted the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty, and launched an aircraft loaded with an atomic bomb, with instruction to drop the atomic bomb on Cairo, Egypt.

Later, the U.S. was made aware that the attack on the Liberty was conducted by Israel. It then recalled the aircraft back to its carrier.

Dead In The Water

How Israel Committed The Cold Blooded Murder Of US Sailors.

June 8, 1967: USS Liberty attacked by Israel in international waters

During the Six-Day War, 06 08, Israel attacked and nearly sank the USS Liberty belonging to its closest ally, the USA. Thirty-four American servicemen were killed in the two-hour assault by Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats.

BBC Four Investigative Report: Broadcast Saturday 17 May 2003

Israel claimed that the whole affair had been a tragic accident based on mistaken identification of the ship. The American government accepted the explanation.

For more than 30 years many people have disbelieved the official explanation but have been unable to rebut it convincingly. Now, Dead in the Water uses startling new evidence to reveal the truth behind the seemingly inexplicable attack. The film combines dramatic reconstruction of the events, with new access to former officers in the US and Israeli armed forces and intelligence services who have decided to give their own version of events.

Interviews include President Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, former head of the Israeli navy Admiral Shlomo Errell and members of the USS Liberty crew.

Israeli Theft Of U.S. Weapons-Grade Nuclear Material Declassified

On March 18, 2014 ISCAP, the highest declassification authority in the U.S., released 84 pages (PDF) of formerly secret information about investigations into the illegal diversion of weapons-grade nuclear material from a Pennsylvania plant into the clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons program.  Files now available to the public from IRmep’s ISCAP process include:

4/2/1968 Letter from the Director of the CIA alerting the Attorney General (PDF) about a huge loss of material fromPennsylvania’s Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC). “It is critical for us to establish whether or not the Israelis now have the capability for fabricating nuclear weapons which might be employed in the Near East.”

03/09/1972 FBI memorandum (PDF) “On the basis of the foregoing it must be assumed for the purpose of U.S. national security that diversion of special nuclear materials to Israel by Dr. [Zalman] Shapiro and his [NUMEC] associates is a distinct possibility.”

07/28/1977 Notes of a briefing from CIA’s Associate Deputy Director for Operations Theodore Shackley to the Carter administration National Security Council  (PDF) “I also asked Shackley to get us a rundown on the political aspects—e.g. when were the President and Congressional officials briefed on the Israeli weapons program, on the NUMEC connection, and what were their reactions.  In December, Carter was briefed on the NUMEC problem as President-elect by Bush in Georgia…I do not think the President has plausible deniability.  The CIA case is persuasive…”

08/02/1977 Memo to Carter from Zbigniew Brzezinski ”So far as we know however, (and we have made serious effort to discover it) there is nothing to indicate active CIA participation in the alleged theft…There is a tremendous amount of interest in this issue in Congress…We face tough sledding in the next few weeks in trying to keep attention focused on ERDA’s technical [overall U.S. nuclear material loss] arguments..on the FBI investigations, and away from the CIA’s information.”

All released CIA evidence and former Tel Aviv Station Chief John Hadden suggest the severely undercapitalized NUMEC was “an Israeli [smuggling] operation from the beginning.” Multiple health-related lawsuits have been filed targeting companies that later assumed NUMEC ownership. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers currently estimates its toxic cleanup of NUMEC will cost$500 million.  No damage claims have yet been filed against the Israeli government.

IRmep is a Washington-DC based nonprofit researching U.S. Middle East policy formulation.

The Victory That Wrecked Israel

By Taki Theodoracopulos 

William Buckley writes this week in his syndicated column about the ghosts of Vietnam watching us in Iraq. They sure are. Everyone in Europe seems to be writing about the 1967 Six-Day War, where Israel wiped out the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian armies in six quick days of mayhem.

Only a brave few, on the other hand, have mentioned the U.S.S. Liberty, the American spy ship that was rocketed and strafed by the Israelis while it was in neutral waters, with great loss of American lives. 

LBJ quashed all inquiries following the unprovoked attack, and the Israeli lobby took care of the rest. 

...Israel had been rumored to be about to attack the Arabs by early spring 1967.

A landmine had killed three Israeli soldiers and a retaliatory strike against Jordan saw a school, a hospital, a post office, a library and more than one hundred houses blown up.

Moshe Dayan headed the hawks who wanted a pre-emptive strike against Nasser. He had his way when, on June 5, Israeli fighter jets launched a strike which caught the Egyptian air force on the ground, effectively destroying it. Exploiting its dominance of the skies, Israel won its greatest victory.

One thing is for sure: The Arabs, there was never the slightest chance that they would have attacked Israel. 

Nasser had closed the Straits of Tiran in an act of folly and brinkmanship, but he was as likely to attack the Jewish state as Saddam Hussein was ready to launch his WMDs on New York city.

This was 40 long years ago. The Pyrrhic consequences of the occupation of Arab lands are obvious.

There are now thousands of illegal settlements, there is terrorism and intensification of Palestinian nationalism, and an ever-deepening hatred between Jews and Palestinians. Only distrust prevails.

A quarter of a million Israelis are squatting on Palestinian land, while terrible privations have been imposed on the local population.

Was any of this worth it? Personally, I do not think so.

The occupation has changed the Jewish character for the worse, and has made Israel and its principal backer, the United States, the two most hated countries in the world.

As the saying goes, no one has ever cried more bitter tears than the one who had their prayers answered.

Tell Israel U.S. Will Attack Israeli Jets If They Try To Attack Iran

The national security adviser for former President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, gave an interview to The Daily Beast in which he suggested President Obama should make it clear to Israel that if they attempt to attack Iran's nuclear weapons sites the U.S. Air Force will stop them.

"We are not exactly impotent little babies," ... "They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? … We have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a 'Liberty' in reverse." [Brzezinski said]

The USS Liberty was a U.S. Navy technical research ship that the Israeli Air Force mistakenly attacked during the Six Day War in 1967.

Ten Explosive U.S. Government Secrets About Israel

Absent Greater Transparency, Americans Should Assume The Worst

By Grant F. SmithOctober 24, 2013 "Information Clearing House - "IRmep" - - In 1968 Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms wrote urgently to Attorney General Ramsey Clark and President Lyndon B. Johnson that some highly enriched uranium fueling Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor was stolen from America.  LBJ reportedly uttered, "Don't tell anyone else, even [Secretary of State] Dean Rusk and [Defense Secretary] Robert McNamara."  The FBI immediately launched a deep investigation into the inexplicably heavy losses at the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation NUMEC in Pennsylvania and the highly suspicious activities and Israeli connections of the Americans running it.  The CIA was tasked to find out what was going on in Israel, and compiled thousands of documents about the incident. (PDF) Although CIA officials in a position to know unofficially went on record claiming a diversion had occurred, for decades the CIA has thwarted declassification and release of the LBJ memos.  On October 18, 2013 the only appeals panel with the power to overrule the CIA—the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel ISCAP—sent notification that Americans are not yet ready to know the contents of the memos (ISCAP decisionPDF). This denial of public release of decades-old secrets concerning U.S.-Israel relations is far from unique.  Although the Obama administration promised unprecedented transparency, it has emasculated the public's ability to give informed consent on a wide range of key foreign policy issues. A review of ten particularly toxic U.S. secrets about Israel suggests stakeholders should start assuming the worst but most logical explanation.

In 2006 former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously told reporters at an Iraq war briefing "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."  Bush administration secrecy and Rumsfeld's pithy quotes failed to quell gradual public awareness that the ill-fated invasion was launched on purposely fabricated pretexts.  And yet the Iraq debacle could have been avoided if Americans had been better informed over time how government truly functions through greater access to the fourth category leftunmentioned by Rumsfeld:  "unknown knowns." 

"Unknown knowns" are the paradigm-shifting bits of information known only by a select few ingovernment but kept from their fellow American citizens because they would reveal indefensible,secret policies and institution-level corruption that favor a special interest.  By locking "unknown knowns" under heavy guard in document archives, covering them in secrecy classification stamps and making an example out of whistleblowers who release them without authorization, busy bureaucratswith the highest security clearances maintain a vast  and growing trove of "unknown knowns."  Historians and watchdog organizations are continually thwarted in their mandate to contextualize and educate the public about relevant past events that could deeply inform the governed—and ultimately improve governance.  Senator Carl Schurz said, "My country right or wrong, if right, to be kept right, and if wrong, to be set right." "Unknown knowns" obliterate the public's ability to execute the latter two-thirds of thatsage advice. 

Even the passage of time does not guarantee "unknown knowns" ever become "known knowns."   Under current government records preservation guidelines—particularly for information that researchers are not actively seeking to declassify—some "unknown knowns" quietly become "unknown unknowns" as they decay, are physically destroyed, erased or "lost." Many knowledgeable former officials take their secrets to the grave. As a product of the ill-gotten power and influence of the Israel lobby, the pile of "unknown knowns" about U.S.-Israel policy is particularly large. Curious Americans who rightfully question official narratives about the U.S.-Israel "special relationship" have often requested"unknown knowns" under the Freedom of Information Act.  Former government insiders who know firsthand about explosive secrets oftenseek their public release to alert others using the Mandatory Declassification Review, even requesting documents by name, subject, location, author and date.  After such "unknown knowns" (like the LBJ memos) are unsuccessfully sought for decades by multiple researchers, well-warranted suspicions arise about the reasons behind the impermeable government wall of refusal.  The following ten US-Israel policy "unknown knowns" suggest the Israel lobby's ongoing corrupt power is the only possible explanation for why they are still secret.

1. Henry Morgenthau Jr's Israel policy is the stuff of legend in accounts about the birth of Israel. Some researchers claim that FDR's former Treasury Secretary was present at the original 1945 meeting of American Zionists with Jewish Agency executive director David Ben-Gurion to set up the massive Haganah smuggling network to steal,illegally buy and smuggle surplus WWII arms from the U.S. to Jewish fighters in Palestine.  (report PDF)  This was the first major broadly organized Israel lobby challenge to U.S. sovereignty.  It successfully overrode American policy enshrined in neutrality and arms export laws.  Others claim Morgenthau was also instrumental in theillicit financing Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons program in direct opposition to policy set by American presidents. 

The FBI's dusty 10,000 page file on Morgenthau, numbered 105-HQ-188123 (the 105 code signifies "foreign counterintelligence") including intercepts to Morgenthau from Israel, could finally clear up many of these allegations, especially when compared to current research.  Although the FBI—after a process that began in 2010—in September 2013 claims it has fully declassified the Morgenthau file, censors have blanked out nearly every page with a paint-roller of black ink (sample PDF).  How do high officials with strong ties to Israel and its lobby who are politically appointed to the U.S. Treasury Department flout U.S. laws with their own foreign-coordinated foreign policy movements?  The FBI and Justice Department do not believe Americans are quite yet ready to know.

2. Eisenhower and the Lavon Affair.  In 1954, the Israeli government launched its "Operation Susannah" false flag terrorist attack on U.S. facilities in Egypt.  Israel's operatives were quickly arrested when bombs exploded prematurely.  The operation's utter failure resulted in a political crisis known as the Lavon Affair.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower, periodically swarmed by American Zionist Council lobbyists urging him to send money and arms to Israel, must have learned some very hard lessons about U.S.-Israel relations from the incident.  Yet the Eisenhower presidential archive—which is not subject to FOIA—has never released anything revelatory about the administration's reaction to the attempted false flag attack.  A narrow request for such files yielded only a single non-specific declassified opinion that the commander-in-chief believed the Israelis were "fanatics." (National Security Council PDF) Yet the false flag operation's objective, attacking to keep U.S. troops stationed in the Suez Canal Zone to respond to "Egyptian militants," seemed entirely rational to Israel, and possibly to some of its U.S. supporters who struggled for years afterwards to minimize the importance of the affair.  Today Eisenhower library archivists claim that huge quantities of Eisenhower's papers are still "unprocessed," but may hold some private reflections or lessons learned. 

3. Israeli theft of nuclear material from NUMEC.  In 2013, the CIA continues to resist release of thousands of files about the NUMEC diversion by referring to CIA Deputy Director for Operations John H. Stein's secret decision in 1979 (2013 FOIA denial PDF).  Stein claimed that release of even a few of CIA's closely-held files—especially if they were compared with Science Advisor of the Interior Commission Henry Meyer's blunt allegations (PDF) to Congressman Morris Udall in 1979 that NUMEC was an Israeli smuggling front—was impossible "because of the need to have a coordinated Executive Branch position and our desire to protect a sensitive and valuable liaison equity."  In plain English, that appears to mean Americans stillcannot have official CIA confirmation of the uranium theft because the U.S. president would have to drop the ongoing nonsense of "strategic ambiguity" and forego intelligence Israel is funneling to America.

4. FBI files of Israeli (but not Russian) spies Russia's dashing red-headed spy, Anna Chapman, was arrested in 2010 and sent packing back Russia.  Any interested American can now watch Chapman's moves in surveillance videos and read the FBI counterintelligence files.  Not so with most of Israel's top spies who targeted American economic, nuclear and national defense infrastructure. America is still crawling with Israeli spies (our "constant companion" according to intelligence expert Jeff Stein).  The 2010 revelations of nuclear equipment smuggling from Telogy (prohibited export smuggling PDF) in California and Stewart Nozette's 1998-2008 Israel Aerospace Industries-funded penetrations of classified U.S. information storehouses around Washington reveal that while Israeli spying has never stopped, secret prosecution strategies now emphasize quietly rolling up Israelioperations via industry regulators, fines and penalties or isolating and entrapping American spies on lesser charges but steering around their Israeli handlers. 

Unlike its treatment of information requests about Russian spies, the FBI and Justice Department have denied every individual FOIA request for the files of major Israeli spies.  Access to Rafael Eitan's many harmful exploits against U.S. targets are banned from release unless Eitan personally waives his privacy rights (FOIA denial).  The FBI claimed it can no longer find files about deceased nuclear espionage mastermind Avraham Hermoni, even though his name appears across many previously released NUMEC files  (FOIA denial PDF).  Flooding fromHurricane Sandy is the excuse the FBI gives for not being able to find files on spy-for-Israel Ben Ami-Kadish (Flood FOIA denial PDF).  One might argue it is merely a series of unfortunate events that keeps Israeli spy files out of public hands, except that the Justice Department hasnow issued a blanket ban on declassifying any files about the FBI's decades-long counterintelligence tango with Israel's Mossad. (Justice Department blanket denial PDF).

The results of the Justice Department's kid-glove approach to Israel propagates into mandatory counterintelligence reports to Congress.  Although Israel unambiguously ranked as a top economic and national defense intelligence threat in past assessments of agencies like the Office of National Counterintelligence Executive, because criminal prosecution strategies toward Israel (through not Iran, Russia or China) have been undermined from within, Israel has disappeared from the most current reports.

5. Jonathan J. Pollard's most heinous crime. Israel's only American spy ever to do serious time in jail—despite the best efforts of his many American and Israeli supporters to spring him—once confidently claimed before he was convicted that "...it was the established policy of the Department of Justice not to prosecute U.S. citizens for espionage activities on behalf of Israel."  Many believe it was only Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger's classified briefing to sentencing Judge Aubry Robinson that made Pollard the near sole exception to that curious rule.

Some Pentagon insiders and national security reporters believe Pollard's sentence was so harsh because Israel used stolen U.S. intelligence as "trade goods" with the Soviet Union to increase Russian émigrés to Israel.   As Pollard's sentence draws to a close, few know exactly what Weinberger told Robinson that caused him to deliver a life sentence.  The recent partial releases of a CIA damage assessment and a DIA videoabout Pollard shed little light. 

In 2010, the Department of Defense disclaimed all ownership of the still-classified "Weinberger declaration" passing the FOIA ball to the Justice Department's Criminal Division (FOIA transfer PDF).   In a novel approach, the Executive Office of US Attorneys now claims that it cannot find its own copy but that FOIA does not require EOUSA FOIA officers to travel two blocks to the DC District Court to retrieve a sealed copy of the memorandum for review (FOIA denial PDF) or even ask DOD for a copy.  The National Archives and Records Administration Office of Government Information Services OGIS agrees that there is no "duty for agencies to retrieve records that are not physically present in their own files." Although the 2008 case of Ben-Ami Kadish proves the Pollard espionage ring was much larger than was publicly disclosed in the late 1980s, the FBI has also not allowed release of its Jonathan Pollard investigation files (FOIA denial PDF) for overdue public review of how the investigation might have—like many others—been short-circuited by the Department of Justice because it involved Israel.

6. Wiretap of AIPAC pushing for a US war on Iran. When AIPAC executives Keith Weissman and Steven J. Rosen dialed up Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler in 2004, they were determined to leverage purloined classified U.S. national defense information into a story that Iran was engaged in "total war" against the US in Iraq. FBI special agents played audio intercepts of their pitch to AIPAC's legal counsel and AIPAC promptly fired the pair to distance itself from activities it had long supported.  Rosen and Weisman were later indicted under the Espionage Act, although the case was later quashed under an intense Israel lobby pressure campaign shortly after President Obama entered office.

What exactly did AIPAC's two officials tell the Washington Post in its unrelenting drive to gin up a U.S. war with Iran?  A decade later, the U.S. Department of Justice doesn't believe the American public is entitled to hear a tape long ago played to AIPAC's lawyer Nathan Lewin, even as AIPAC continues to agitate for more wars. (MDR denial PDF)

 

7. Niger uranium forgery underwriters. Although Ike may or may not have worried much about the implications of Operation Susannah, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee certainly did.  A secret memo touched off years of Senate and Justice Department investigations into Israel lobbying over fears that American operatives might engage in other overseas clandestine provocations aimed at duping the U.S. into ill-advised conflicts that would benefit Israel (the short memo references the Lavon affair twice). The Iraq war proves those fears were well-founded.

Many have long suspected that the Niger uranium forgeries, fake documents the Bush administration trumpeted to falsely accuse Iraq of buying uranium from Africa for nuclear weapons, were chartered by American neoconservatives in order to provide a pretext  they desperately needed for war.  Perhaps the FBI's investigation into the matter definitively proves it.  However, despite years of requests for the 1,000 pages of that investigation, the FBI after initially duly proceeding with a FOIA, has now suddenly clammed up. (Niger uranium denial PDF)

8. Israel lobbyists embedded in the Treasury and Justice Departments. Israel lobbying organizations have been very effective at embedding their operatives in key positions across the Federal government, such as Stuart Levey in the Treasury Department's economic warfare unit, or former AIPAC director Tom Dine as a contractor at the floundering US government-funded Arabic-language broadcaster Alhurra. It used to be possible to get a phone directory or conduct a comprehensive audit of which key political appointees (and the people they brought in) were running critical divisions of federal agencies by obtaining detailed Office of Personnel Management and other public records.  Not anymore.  (FOIA response PDF) Leveraging heightened post-911 sensitivities, the US Treasury Department now claims the same protections against disclosure formerly enjoyed only by intelligence agency employees.

Since the 1940s, the U.S. Department of Justice has earned a reputation as a place where Israel lobby criminal investigations go to die.  Justice is also where an AIPAC official like Neil Shercan while away a few years on pet projects at taxpayer expense before moving on to more lucrative outside work.  DOJ also routinely denies files about its past official decisions not to pursue criminal cases on the basis that doing so could jeopardize privacy, ongoing investigations, or factors underlying its coveted "prosecutorial discretion" (e.g. charging the disenfranchised but not powerful insiders for wrongdoing). Like Treasury, it is now almost impossible to survey and produce an organization chart of the Israel lobby's political appointees embedded at high and mid-level Justice Department posts or the biographies of the staff  and contractors they bring in with them. 

9. Unclassified IDA report about US charities funding the Israeli nuclear weapons program. Sensitive reports need not be classified for the government to hang on to them indefinitely.  In 1987 the Institute for Defense Analyses delivered an unclassified report to the Department of Defense titled "Critical Technology Issues in Israel."  The study implicates the Israeli Weizmann Institute for Science and Technology in nuclear weapons research, raising deep questions about the group's U.S. tax-exempt charitable fundraising and U.S. commitment to enforce the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Department of Defense withheld the IDA report from release on the basis of FOIA exemptions covering trade secrets and "intra-agency communications protected by the deliberative process privilege," among others. (FOIA denial PDF)

10. Justification for NSA funneling raw intelligence on Americans to Israel. If former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has taught Americans anything, it is that "unknown knowns" are usually even worse than many might have first imagined.  Some careful observers knew about massive NSA surveillance, while others alerted the public about the danger of "backdoor" U.S. intelligence flows to Israel.  But who ever suspected the NSA was shipping wholesale raw intercepts gathered on Americans to Israel under a secret deal struck in 2009?  No government that wholly denies such relevant information can claim legitimacy via consent of the governed.   There can be little doubt why these ten files are kept closed: it serves the Israel lobby.  The means by which this closure is sustained is also no secret.  The millions of dollars that line politician's pockets, promote media pundits and quietly spirit political appointees into key gatekeeper positions maintain closed files and prevent informed public debate.  

Because of this, Americans should proceed assuming the worst conceivable, most logical explanation for any given U.S.-Israel "unknown known" is correct—until proven otherwise.  Under this guideline, it is prudent to believe that LBJ—properly warned by his intelligence services and advisors that Israel was stealing the most precious military material on earth from America—was simply too marinated in Israel lobby campaign cash to faithfully uphold his oath of office. It is similarly reasonable to believe the Justice Department and FBI won't release Israeli spy files because Americans would finally understand that, despite massive ongoing harm to America, political appointees in the Justice Department thwart warranted prosecutions.  DOJ finds it much easier to stay "on message" through a long line of lobby-approved but mostly bogus "Islamic terrorism cases" (many made via sketchy undercover informants goading members of targeted minority communities into "terror" plots). According to its own records, every time it tried to uphold the law in the 1940s the DOJ suddenly found itself internally and externally swarmed by Israel lobbyists with inexhaustible financial war chests and legal experts working to quash warranted prosecutions in secret coordination with Israel.  The DOJ now likely believes it can never win against Israel lobby generated media and political agitation when it moves to prosecute, and has now simply given up.

It is logical to assume that Israel was found selling out America to the Soviets in Pollard's case, since little else explains the unusually harsh impact of Weinberger's secret memo.  It is similarly likely that the FBI's AIPAC wiretaps would, if released today, accurately reveal Rosen and Weissman to be what they actually were—unregistered foreign agents operating on behalf of and in ongoing contact with the Israeli government rather than legitimate domestic lobbyists.  It is similarly more productive to assume that at least one neoconservative operative with strong ties to the involved entities in Italy—such as Michael Ledeen—served as barker to the Italian sideshow that disseminated forged documents.  

According to documents released by Edward Snowden, the transfer of raw NSA intercepts on American citizens to Israel was authorized under a secret doctrine that "the survival of the state of Israel is a paramount goal of US Middle East policy."  This "prime directive" was probably a secret because it is a blank check obligating American blood and treasure to a cause American citizens never approved via advise and consent.  But why did the Obama administration—even as it dismissed espionage charges against AIPAC staff in 2009—so deeply betray American privacy?  Under "unknown known" doctrine, most would assume that like LBJ before him, Obama sold out America because his Israel lobby handlers secretly demanded and paid for it on behalf of a foreign country.  What other goodies Obama doled out to Israel in exchange for help gaining the highest office remain to emerge.

The official process for obtaining official public disclosure of "unknown knowns"—the Freedom of Information Act—does not function when the stakes in disclosure are high and Israeli interests are involved.  Agencies (and ISCAP) correctly perceive government credibility is at stake when there is real openness, and that bona fide transparency would positively impact how government behaves.  Visibly corrupt federal government officials and institutions are counting on continued secrecy to accumulate illegitimate power by undermining public accountability.

Abba Ebans Great 1967 War Fraud

Even After 40 Years, Abba Eban’s Great Fraud Defines The Official Version Of The 1967 War

By Greg Felton

Some people make history; some people invent it. Abba Eban falls into the latter category. As Israel’s foreign minister at the time of the 1967 War, Eban delivered a speech to the Security Council that must rank as the most erudite, sophisticated fraud ever heard by the world body.

He did nothing less than invent for our consumption the twin myths of Egyptian aggression and Israeli self-defence, all the while intoning the requisite verities of peace and international law.

Eban stood history on its head and the non-Arab world was only too willing to embrace his dissembling and deceit.

Eban was an easy man to like, respect and believe, because he was cultured and thoroughly Western. He was one of us. Born Aubrey Solomon Meir, in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1915 Eban was educated in Britain and spent much of his adult life in politics. Among his numerous accomplishments are:

• Israel’s first permanent delegate to the United Nations (1949-1959);

• Ambassador to the United States (1950-1959); and

• Israeli foreign minister (1966-1974).

Compared to the brutal gangsterism of Begin, Sharon, Shamir, Olmert, and Netanyahu, Eban stands like a colossus of conspicuous decency. Unfortunately, the comparison is purely relative.


For all of his dovishness and diplomatic acumen Eban was still a zionist, and therefore an apologist for aggression and a spokesman for an outlaw state.

As the world marks the 40th anniversary of the 1967 War, Eban’s looking-glass reality is given new life as the zionist media dutifully reinforce the founding myths of the war. Even today, with the benefit of the Internet and hindsight, those who point out the errors of fact and tendentious arguments in Eban’s speech stand little chance of a fair hearing, if they get a hearing at all.

If Israel’s illegal Occupation of Palestine is to end, as it must, Eban’s speech must be subjected to honest analysis, because a polite liar is still a liar, and the fruit of this particular lie is the genocide of Palestine.

Eban’s speech runs more than 4,800 words and can be viewedhere: For brevity’s sake, I will focus on two key themes.

Israel’s existence was threatened. Abba Eban:

“Two days ago…an army, greater than any force ever assembled in history in Sinai, had massed against Israel’s southern frontier. Egypt had dismissed the United Nations forces which symbolized the international interest in the maintenance of peace in our region. Nasser had provocatively brought five infantry divisions and two armoured divisions up to our very gates; 80,000 men and 900 tanks were poised to move.

“…As time went on, there was no doubt that our margin of general security was becoming smaller and smaller. Thus, on the morning of 5 June, when Egyptian forces engaged us by air and land, bombarding the villages of Kissufim, Nahal-Oz and Ein Hashelosha we knew that our limit of safety had been reached, and perhaps passed. In accordance with its inherent right of self-defence as formulated in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, Israel responded defensively in full strength. Never in the history of nations has armed force been used in a more righteous or compelling cause.”

First, Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel Nasser did not “provocatively” bring five infantry divisions and two armoured divisions up to “[Israel’s] very gates.” Eban’s doom-and-gloom scenario is propaganda, as Israel’s generals and politicians later confessed, e.g.:

Mordechai Bentov, Cabinet Minister: 

“This story about the danger of extermination has been a complete invention and has been blown up a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territories.” (cited in Le Monde, June 3, 1972)

Menachem Begin, Leader Of Gahal Party: 
“In June 1967 we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.” (cited in New York Times, Aug. 21, 1982.)

Gen. Matityahu Peled: 

“To pretend that the Egyptian forces massed on our frontiers were in a position to threaten the existence of Israel constitutes an insult not only to the intelligence of anyone capable of analyzing this sort of situation, but above all an insult to the Zahal [Israeli army].” (cited in Ha’aretz, March 19, 1972.)

The second fallacy, related to the first, is the idea that Israel’s use of armed force was the most righteous and compelling in history.

Leaving aside the sanctimonious hyperbole, Eban makes no mention of Israel’s repeated border aggressions against Syria that precipitated the conflict, or that Egypt and Syria had signed a mutual defence pact the previous year.

Israel precipitated the 1967 War by staging border aggressions against Syria and seizing Syrian land in the demilitarized zone between the two countries.

From 1948 to 1967, Syria reported more than 1,000 armed clashes, and in a candid 1976 interview, Moshe Dayan admitted that Israel provoked 80 percent of them:

“We would send a tractor to plow some [disputed] area... and we knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn’t shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that’s how it was.... I made a mistake in allowing the conquest of the Golan Heights. As defense minister I should have stopped it because the Syrians were not threatening us at the time.”

Therefore, Nasser’s provocative [sic] build-up on the Sinai had nothing to do with Israel, per se, but with the need to come to Syria’s aid.

Moreover, and this point is never mentioned, Nasser had reluctantly sent 100,000 of his best troops to fight in Yemen’s civil war and was in no position to start hostilities.

Nasser did evict the UN peacekeeping force, and he did close the Red Sea port of Eilat, but these were marginal actions, as Israel well knew.

Nevertheless, Eban blew them out of proportion and repeatedly invoked Eilat as justification for invasion:

“There was in this wanton act a quality of malice. For surely the closing of the Strait of Tiran gave no benefit whatever to Egypt except the perverse joy of inflicting injury on others. It was an anarchic act, because it showed a total disregard for the law of nations…”

Israel’s “Right To Exist”Abba Eban: “The central point remains the need to secure an authentic intellectual recognition by our neighbours of Israel’s deep roots in the Middle Eastern reality. There is an intellectual tragedy in the failure of Arab leaders to come to grips, however reluctantly, with the depth and authenticity of Israel’s roots in the life, the history, the spiritual experience and the culture of the Middle East.… There are not two categories of States. The United Arab Republic, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon - not one of these has a single ounce or milligram of statehood which does not adhere in equal measures to Israel itself.”

Eban is reinforcing the Israel-as-victim myth, which is still heard to day as “picking on Israel.”

Of course, the Palestinians get no mention because at this time they are not even deemed to exist. 

Note also how Israel’s equivalence with other states is merely asserted, not proven. 

The reason is simple—Israel’s roots have no depth or authenticity—it is an artificial, un-Semitic, Western creation born of guilt, terrorism and blackmail. 

It has no place in the culture of the Middle East; it is a foreign body that is destroying the very culture of which Eban claims it is a part.

The real perversity of Eban’s speech is his genteel hypocrisy. He condemned Nasser for violating the law of nations, but says nothing of Israel’s transgressions against Palestine or Syria.

He spoke of the equality of sovereignty, but made no mention of Israel’s conditional admission to the UN or of its refusal to finalize its borders.

He spoke of peace, yet said nothing about Israel being responsible for breaking the peace.

Less than two weeks after he addressed the Security Council, Eban gave a more accurate account of Israel’s contempt for international law: “If the General Assembly were to vote by 121 votes to 1 in favor of ‘Israel’ returning to the armistice lines [pre June 1967 borders] ‘Israel’ would refuse to comply with the decision.” (New York Times, June 19, 1967.)

Eban seemed so reasonable, educated and Western that to disbelieve him was unthinkable.


Now, we must do more than think about it—we must recognize Eban as an artful liar, and engender public discussion about the real cause of the 1967 War.
---------------------

The Host and The Parasite— How Israel's Fifth Column Consumed America is a detailed study of Israel’s use of the U.S. economy, government and military to terrorize the Muslim world and destroy the American republic. 

The second edition is available from Createspace on Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Host-Parasite-Israels-Consumed-America/dp/1450590349/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1307824828&sr=1-1

US Belongs To Israel

By Dr. Kevin Barrett,

They still call it the US Supreme Court. But like Congress, the White House, the media, organized crime, and big banking, the Supreme Court is just another Israeli-occupied Bantustan.

Absolute Jewish-Zionist domination of American political life was confirmed last Friday, when the Supreme Court quashed the appeal of the Holy Land Five. The Five now face life imprisonment for trying to feed children starved by the Israeli genocide of Palestine.

None of the imprisoned humanitarian heroes was ever charged with complicity in any act of violence. Their crime was feeding starving children, no more and no less.

The prosecutors claimed that Hamas, the biggest charitable organization and since 2006 the democratically-elected government of Gaza, was involved in feeding the starving children. Therefore, anybody who tries to feed the starving children of Gaza is a “terrorist.”

But how could anyone feed starving children anywhere without at least the tacit assistance of the government of the place the starving children lived, and the charities on the ground there?

The prosecutors, to prove that “Hamas-linked charities” in Gaza were involved in feeding the children, brought in “anonymous Israeli intelligence sources” to “testify.” Since when was anonymous testimony allowed in US courtrooms?! Much less by agents of a hostile foreign power that has repeatedly attacked the United States – a foreign power whose intelligence service lives and dies by the motto, “By way of deception thou shalt do war.”

A more blatant act of complete subservience to Israel, a more direct statement that the American government no longer exists, could hardly be imagined.

And now the Israeli is sending Americans a message: “Don’t f@!* with our genocide!”

Via: "Poor Richards"

The Separate Security Interests Of The U.S. and Israel

"AIPAC is the most powerful supporter of Israel in the United States.  With more than 100,000 members and 300 paid staffers, its ability to harness the power of the U.S. government was demonstrated in June 2012 by a letter it drafted, which was signed by 44 of the 60 U.S. senators.  It urged Obama "to reevaluate the utility of further talks at this time and instead focus on significantly increasing the pressure on the Iranian government through sanctions and making clear that a credible military option exists."...Without further negotiations and with the most extreme sanctions already in place, what does the future hold for the relationships between the United States, Israel and Iran?"

William John Cox writes in "Media Monitors Network",

A balanced analysis of the security interests of the United States vis-a-vis Israel requires a careful review of their security interests and the history of their interaction.

That review demonstrates that Israel will always put its interest before any other nation, including the United States, if its leadership believes Israel's existence is at risk.

One should not expect anything different, given the experience of the Jewish people in Europe during World War II; however, that experience does not give Israel the right to dictate the foreign policy of United States, whose interest may diverge from Israel when all risks are evaluated.

The people of the United States, and those who make international policy on their behalf, must be mindful that the interests of the two countries have not always coincided.

Several examples from the history of the past 60 years are instructive.

Baghdad and Egypt Bombings: Following independence, the Israeli government encouraged the immigration of Jews from other countries to quickly increase its population.  This was known as making Aliyah (Hebrew: ascent).

In 1948, more than 140,000 Jews lived in Iraq, making up one-sixth of Baghdad's population.  These were the descendants of the Jews who chose to remain in 536 B.C., when the Tribes of Israel were freed from their captivity by the Persian king Cyrus the Great.

Israeli Zionists encouraged the Iraqi-Jewish population to leave Iraq; however, the Iraqi government declared Zionism to be a capital offense, required registration, a renouncing of citizenship and a forfeiture of property to leave.  Many Iraqi-Jews were able to escape through Iran to Israel; however, many were afraid or unwilling to disturb the status quo.

Commencing in March 1950, a series of bombings occurred in Baghdad at the American Cultural Center and Library, the U.S. legation's information office, and other locations where Jews gathered.  The Jewish population was seized with panic, and ultimately all but a few thousand left the country.

The Mossad denied it was involved in the bombings; however, the acts served to sour American-Iraqi relations and the rapid emigration of the population did in fact take place.  The British embassy in Baghdad concluded that the bombings were done by Zionists, and a former CIA senior officer wrote that they were done by Zionists to "portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews."

The Mossad also recruited a group of Zionist Egyptian Jews in 1954 to plant bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and other American targets in Cairo and Alexandria.  The Mossad intended to blame the Muslim Brotherhood for the attacks; however, the plot failed and the conspirators were arrested and convicted.

The conspiracy was code named "Operation Susannah," and the failed attempt became known as the "Lavon Affair" after Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon, who was forced to resign as a result.  After denying complicity for 50 years, the surviving agents were provided with a certificate of appreciation by Israeli President Moshe Katzav in 2005.

All of these acts of terrorism were denied by Israel, and historians are divided as to responsibility; however, the adage Cui bono (Latin: to whose benefit?) often correctly identifies the party that had the most to gain or the least to lose.

Suez Crisis:  In 1956, acting in conspiracy with England and France, Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula without warning.  The purpose of the invasion was for England and France to regain control of the Suez Canal, which had been nationalized, and to remove President Gamal Abdel Nasser from power in Egypt.

Israel considered Nasser to be a genocidal maniac, who was intent upon exterminating the Israeli people.  Israel also viewed with alarm the large amounts of Soviet weapons being accumulated by Egypt and Nasser's denial of Israeli shipping through the Suez Canal.

France and England began to bomb Cairo and northern Egypt, and Israel seized the Gaza Strip and large portions of the Sinai.  English and French commandos attacked Port Said and Port Fouad at the Canal entrance; however, Nasser effectively blocked it to all shipping by sinking 40 ships that were in transit when the invasion started.

Failing to obtain a Security Council resolution due to vetoes by France and England, the United Nations General Assembly acted under the 1950 "United for Peace" resolution to recommend appropriate steps to end the fighting.

The General Assembly resolution was proposed by the United States.  President Eisenhower believed that U.S. support of the invasion would cause a backlash in the Middle East, which would allow the USSR greater influence in the region.

President Eisenhower received Congressional authorization to use military force to stop aggression in the Middle East, if requested by any nation (The Eisenhower Doctrine).  He also supported economic sanctions against Israel, including all private support, until it withdrew from Egyptian territory.

Under threats to be ejected from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, England and France withdrew their troops within a week; however, Israel threatened to annex the portions of the Sinai Peninsula it had captured.  Succumbing to international pressure, Israel withdrew to its borders in 1957; however, there was no peace settlement with Egypt.

Attack on USS Liberty:  In 1967, following earlier reprisal raids into the Jordanian occupied West Bank, which were condemned by the United Nations, Israel launched a surprise air and armor invasion of the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip.  Fearing an Egyptian military buildup, the preemptive war by Israel lasted six days and resulted in the defeat of Egypt.

On June 8, 1967, the third day of the war, the USSLiberty, a United States spy ship, was on duty in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula monitoring the electronic communications of the warring parties.  The Liberty was attacked, without warning, by Israeli Air Force fighter planes and Israeli Navy torpedo boats.  Thirty-four Americans were killed, 170 were wounded and the ship was severely damaged.

Officially, both governments labeled the attack a mistake due to confusion about the ship's identity; however, all of the ship survivors and the U.S. Secretary of State at the time, Dean Rusk, have always maintained the attack was deliberate.  Israel subsequently paid compensation for the deaths, injuries and damage to the ship.

Secretary Rusk stated: “At the time of the attack, the USS Liberty was flying the American flag and its identification was clearly indicated in large white letters and numerals on its hull. … Experience demonstrates that both the flag and the identification number of the vessel were readily visible from the air…. Accordingly, there is every reason to believe that the USS Liberty was identified, or at least her nationality determined, by Israeli aircraft approximately one hour before the attack. … The subsequent attack by the torpedo boats, substantially after the vessel was or should have been identified by Israeli military forces, manifests the same reckless disregard for human life.”

Spying on the United States:  Israel is not included in the "Five Eyes," a designation that allows the U.S., Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand to share top secret information.  It is understood that the Five Eyes do not spy on each other.

Israel is a member of "Friends on Friends," which is supposed to mean that friends don't spy on their friends.  That supposition is not supported by the facts in the case of Israel, dating back to the beginning of the relationship.

Israel was able to jumpstart its nuclear program in the 1960s by establishing an undercover company in the United States to penetrate another company that provided weapons-grade uranium to the Department of Defense.  Israeli agents were able to misappropriate 200 pounds of high-grade uranium for its secret atomic bomb program.

After being denied access by the U.S. government, Israel secretly obtained high-speed krytron switches used to trigger nuclear explosions by going through another intermediary company in California.  Fifteen shipments of 800 krytrons were delivered to the Israeli Ministry of Defense between 1979 and 1984.  The owner of the company was indicted, and he and his wife fled to Israel.  They were captured in Spain in 2001, extradited to the U.S., where the owner pled guilty to violating the Arms Export Control Act.  He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, but was released after four years.

Commencing in 1984, Jonathan Pollard, who was born in the United States, began to serve as a spy for Israel while working for U.S. Naval Intelligence.  Pollard received $10,000 cash, a diamond ring and $1,500 a month for passing highly-classified intelligence to his Israeli controller, including nuclear targeting information for the Soviet Union and detailed information about the U.S. global electronic surveillance network.

Pollard's activities were discovered and reported by a coworker.  His wife and his Israeli controller fled to Israel.  Pollard was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1987.  Israel refused to turn over most of the documents that Pollard had stolen and treated the investigation with hostility.  It refused to allow the controller to be interviewed and promoted him to the command of an Air Force base.

Israel granted citizenship to Pollard in 1995 and has acknowledged that he spied for the country.  He was visited by Benjamin Netanyahu in prison in 2002.  Pollard's request for presidential clemency is presently being considered by the Obama administration.

Following Pollard's conviction, Israel swore to the U.S. that it would cease its espionage activities against the United States.  Since then, the spying has continued unabated, as has been the flow of U.S. assistance in the amount of $60 billion, mostly in military hardware.

Stewart Nozette, a former White House National Space Council planetary scientist, pled guilty to attempted espionage against the United States in 2011, after attempting to sell missile defense and nuclear secrets to an undercover FBI agent pretending to be a Mossad agent.  Nozette bragged that the material he had for sale had cost the United States between $200 million and $1 billion to develop."

Nozette later admitted he had already received $225,000 in "consulting fees" between 1998 and 2008 from (state-owned) Israel Aerospace Industries for obtaining and turning over secret "technical data."  Nozette was sentenced to 13 years in prison; however, the Israeli government and its company were shielded from the investigation.

An employee of the U.S. Department of Defense pled guilty in 2005 to passing classified documents to two officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).  In the plea negotiation, he stated he handed over classified information because he thought U.S. policy was not sufficiently pro-Israel.

The two AIPAC employees were indicted for illegally conspiring to gather and disclose classified national security information to Israel.  After almost five years of court proceedings, the case against the two was dismissed as a result of "graymail" in which the defense would require the disclosure of classified information and because of doubts the government would be able to prevail at trial.

A CIA report confirms that U.S. officials in Israel assume that all of their political conversations are monitored.  The report stated that in addition to political espionage, Israel targets "a considerable portion of their covert operations to obtaining scientific and technical intelligence."

Since 9-11, the U.S. National Security Agency sweeps up massive amounts of electronic communications within the United States, including email messages, Internet activity and telephone conversations.  The telecommunication companies Verizon and AT&T handle 90 percent of U.S. electronic communications.

Inasmuch as they are required by law to allow access to the government, these companies have formed business relationships with Israeli companies, such as Narius Inc. and Verint, to filter and organize the communications.  These connections provide Israeli with a real-time mirror of all such communications.

Verint is a subsidiary of Comverse Technology, which is an extension of the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade, which provides 50 percent of its research and development costs.  Both Comverse and Narius have close connections with Israeli intelligence agencies.  These connections allow Israel to have direct, or "trojan horse" access to most U.S. communications, and U.S. companies are too dependent upon the technology to deny access.

Today, the CIA considers Israel to be the primary counterintelligence threat to its operations in the Middle East.  In other words, U.S. secrets are more vulnerable to Israeli spying, than any other government in the area, including Iran.

In its annual report to Congress on "Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage,"  Israel shares top billing with China as maintaining "an active program to gather proprietary information in the United States."

A ranking of foreign intelligence agencies by the CIA during the Bush administration, placed Israel below Libya in its willingness to help the United States to fight terrorism.

Celebrating 9-11:  The most disturbing example of policy differences between the United States and Israel took place during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

There is a convincing body of circumstantial evidence that Israel was aware of the impending attacks and allowed them to go forth in order to achieve solidarity with the United States.

Shortly before the 9-11 attacks, then former, and present, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was secretly videotaped while making "candid" observations about United States' support of and world opinion about Israel's policies.  Speaking about the "war of terror," he says that Israel should hit the "Arabs": "Not just one hit, so many painful hits that the price will be too heavy to be borne."  A woman said, "but then the world will say, 'how come you're conquering again?'"  Netanyahu responds, "The world won't say a thing.  The world will say we're defending."  The woman asks if he is afraid of the world, and Netanyahu replies, "Especially today with America.  I know what America is.  America is something that can easily be moved.  Moved to the right correction....They won't get in our way."

During the same conversation, Netanyahu brags about having deceived President Clinton into believing he was supporting the Oslo accords, when in fact he boasts that he destroyed the Oslo process.

On the day of the attack, Netanyahu responded to the question about what the attacks portended for relations between the two countries, "It's very good....Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy (for Israel)."  He predicted it would "strengthen the bond between our two peoples...."

An Israeli Mossad surveillance team was present and excitedly videotaped the World Trade Center attacks while dancing in celebration.  An FBI report documents that "the Israelis are visibly happy on nearly all of the photographs" and "all of the males appeared to be jovial.  The[y] smiled, they hugged each other and they appeared to 'high five' one another."

Five of the cheering Israelis were arrested by East Rutherford, New Jersey police officers while driving a van that tested positive for the presence of explosives.

The Israeli owner of the moving company that owned the van fled the country for Israel.  The Mossad agents were held in custody for 71 days before being released and the investigation was closed.  One later appeared on Israeli television and stated their purpose there was to "document the event."

Current Crisis: In the current "crisis" regarding the enrichment of uranium by Iran, the Israeli government's position is that Iran should be prevented from even "mastering the technology of enrichment."  That "red line" was crossed six years ago by Iran and, even if destroyed, the technology cannot be unlearned.

The current "red line" drawn by the Israelis is a "zone of immunity" in which the Iranian program becomes nearly invulnerable to attack.  The bottom line is that Israel will not tolerate any refinement of nuclear materials at a location that is invulnerable to Israeli attack.

Israel believes that Iran is delaying negotiations until it has accumulated a sufficient quantity of highly-enriched uranium to quickly produce a bomb.

Since a single atomic blast could virtually destroy the entire nation of Israel, which occupies only 8,000 square miles, the one-sided threat of Israel's nuclear arsenal of 200 weapons would be greatly reduced, if not eliminated by the reality of "mutually assured destruction."

Just as Israel bombed the Iraqi reactor at Osirak in 1981 and the Syrian reactor at al-Kibar in 2007, it is prepared to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent the continuing enrichment of uranium by Iran.

The Obama administration believes there is still "time and space for diplomacy."  For Obama, the "red line" is  the "weaponization of nuclear material."  In other words, if Iran kicks out the UN inspectors and begins to enrich uranium beyond 20 percent, there would be clear evidence of an intent to create nuclear weapons.

The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapon design and weaponization work in 2003.  A more recent and unpublished Estimate has concluded that Iran's advancements in its gas centrifuge uranium enrichment program has improved its capacity to "restart" its weapons program and to quickly produce highly-enriched uranium.

 Ex-CIA chief Michael Hayden who supervised production of the 2007 Estimate states, "That estimate was based not on the absence of evidence that such work was ongoing but rather on evidence that it was not.  And despite some suspicious and troubling Iranian activity since then, the estimate has survived largely intact, under three subsequent heads of national intelligence and of the CIA."

Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to force President Obama to draw yet another "red line" defining exactly what it would take for him to take military action against Iran.  Obama is trying to avoid being bullied by Netanyahu.  At the same time Obama states that he does not "bluff" when he says "all options are on the table" and that "when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say."

Obama's Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta has stated that if the United States receives "intelligence that they're proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon, then we will take whatever steps are necessary to stop it."

Recently, the Obama administration has used several formal and informal channels to issue a series of warnings to Israel regarding its threats to go it alone in attacking Iran.  Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel stated, "The U.S. has done everything it could to reassure Israel and doesn't have anything more in its quiver, no other arrow to shoot to reassure them.  So, it thinks [when it hears talk of an Israeli strike on Iran], 'Here we go again.  There's nothing else we can do.  We'll learn to live with it.'"

More explicitly, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey recently stated that an Israeli attack on Iran would "clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran's nuclear program."  Specifically, he warned, "I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it."  He conceded the policy differences between the U.S. and Israel, "They are living with an existential concern that we are not living with."

In the first week of September, General Hayden shared with an Israeli newspaper his belief that Israel is incapable of successfully carrying out military action against Iran without U.S. support.  He stated: "I do not underestimate the Israeli talent, but geometry and physics tell us that Iran's nuclear program would pose a difficult challenge to any military....There is no absolute certainty that all targets are known."  Hayden believes that an Israeli strike "will only set the Iranians back some time and actually push them to do that which it is supposed to prevent, getting nuclear weapons."

There is little doubt that Israel would prefer to deal with a President Romney over the next four years.  Romney and Netanyahu are old friends, and Romney has stated that he would never agree to allow Iran to enrich uranium at any level.  He has called Israel "one of our fondest friends" and he called out President Obama for his "shabby treatment" of Israel.

Israel is not allowed to directly participate in U.S. electoral politics; however, its policies provide a powerful direction for the political activity of its supporters in the United States.  Israel's influence is demonstrated by a recent 30-second anti-Obama television advertisement by the Emergency Committee for Israel.  Misleadingly, the ad states that, "Iran has enough fuel for five nuclear bombs."

AIPAC is the most powerful supporter of Israel in the United States.  With more than 100,000 members and 300 paid staffers, its ability to harness the power of the U.S. government was demonstrated in June 2012 by a letter it drafted, which was signed by 44 of the 60 U.S. senators.  It urged Obama "to reevaluate the utility of further talks at this time and instead focus on significantly increasing the pressure on the Iranian government through sanctions and making clear that a credible military option exists."

Without further negotiations and with the most extreme sanctions already in place, what does the future hold for the relationships between the United States, Israel and Iran?