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Then, will the 82nd Airborne be sent to fetch me if I continue to write and speak what I believe to be the truth on issues like these? What will I be risking if I keep hammering home little-known facts like the following, which seldom, if ever, find their way into the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM)?
--Israel itself helped to create Hamas in 1987 as a Muslim fundamentalist, divide-and-conquer counterweight to the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).--The bulk of Hamas's popular appeal -- like that enjoyed by Hezbollah in Lebanon -- stems not from the crude rockets fired toward Israel, but rather from the tangible help Hamas provides to oppressed Palestinians.
Is James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, now treading on thin ice? This is what Clapper included as a sort of afterthought at the end of his 34-page "Worldwide Threat Assessment" before the House Intelligence Committee on Feb. 10, 2011. (You guessed right; the FCM, for some reason, missed it):
"We see a growing proliferation of state and non-state actors providing medical assistance to reduce foreign disease threats to their own populations, garner influence with affected local populations, and project power regionally. ... In some cases, countries use health to overtly counter Western influence, presenting challenges to allies and our policy interests abroad over the long run."In last year's threat assessment, the Intelligence Community noted that extremists may take advantage of a government's inability to meet the health needs of its population, highlighting that HAMAS's and Hizballah's provision of health and social services in the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon helped to legitimize those organizations as a political force. This also has been the case with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt."
This, most assuredly, is not the Official Washington party line. Could the Director of National Intelligence himself be prosecuted by those who believe that any good word for those that Israel considers enemies -- like Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran -- is tantamount to "material support" for terrorism?
(I do hope readers were not shocked by the diabolically clever way these "terrorist" movements garner public support -- by providing life-saving medical care, for example.)
--It was on that public-service record (and also because of wide awareness of flagrant corruption in the PLO), that Hamas won a key parliamentary election in January 2006, defeating the PLO-affiliated Fatah party. While the election results were not disputed, they were not what the U.S., Israel and Europe wanted. So the U.S. and the EU cut off financial assistance to Gaza.--Confidential documents, corroborated by former U.S. officials, show that thereupon the White House had the CIA try in 2007, with the help of Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, to defeat Hamas in a bloody civil war. That, too, did not go as expected. Hamas won handily, leaving it stronger than ever. [See "The Gaza Bombshell" by David Rose, in Vanity Fair, April 2008, for the entire sad story.]
--Israel and Egypt then imposed an economic blockade on Gaza eventually reducing virtually all Gazans to a bare subsistence level, with 45 percent unemployment.
--From Dec. 27, 2008, to Jan. 18, 2009, while President George W. Bush was a lame duck, Israel launched an armed attack on Gaza, killing about 1,400 Gazans compared to an Israeli death toll of 13. Israel's stated aim was to stop rocket fire into Israel and block any arms deliveries to Gaza.
President-elect Barack Obama said nothing. His unconscionable silence at the slaughter should have told us at that early juncture that he, too, would feel so politically intimidated that he would mute any objections to Israeli behavior. Since then, he has retreated from even his mild objections to Israel's expanded settlements on Palestinian lands.
Guilt by Association
The United States is widely seen as responsible for Israel's aggressive behavior, which is hardly surprising. It is no secret that Israel enjoys financial assistance ($3 billion per year), military backing, and virtually unquestioned political support from Washington.
What is surprising, in the words of Salon.com commentator Glenn Greenwald, is "how our blind, endless enabling of Israeli actions fuels terrorism directed at the U.S.," and how it is taboo to point this out.
Take for example former CIA specialist on al-Qaeda, Michael Scheuer, who had the audacity to state on C-SPAN: "For anyone to say that our support for Israel doesn't hurt us in the Muslim world ... is to just defy reality."
The Likud Lobby got Scheuer fired from his job at the Jamestown Foundation think tank for his forthrightness, and the Israeli media condemned his C-SPAN remarks as "blatantly anti-Semitic." There can be a high price to pay for candor on this issue.
That is what those behind the noxious language in the NDAA seem to intend. Sens. Carl Levin and John McCain are said to be the driving force behind the new language. No one in the Senate or House has received more funding from donor institutions related to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) than Levin, a Michigan Democrat.
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