OCTOBER 2007

Right Ho, Lobby

By Israel Shamir

The inhabitants of a stately house are embroiled in an interminable quarrel; engagement rings are returned and the cook sends in his resignation. In this hour of bloody mess, smart valet Jeeves (played by Stephen Fry in the BBC series) finds the disputants a common enemy. United by their common animosity towards this empty-headed Bertie Wooster, the lovers tread the matrimonial aisle, and the servants proclaim their renewed loyalty to their masters. Peace is restored. This ruse, applied in Right Ho, Jeeves, a pleasantry by P.G. Wodehouse, was recently employed with great success by the nefarious force often described as the Zionist Lobby.

In a letter addressed to the Times’ Editor, yesterday’s adversaries are united, as were the lovers in the Wodehouse novel. [See the full list at the bottom]

• There is a Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, enemy of apartheid and friend of Palestine. Last week, the Jewish community caused on the Minnesota University of St Thomas to ban him.
• And a flamboyant Zionist, “Mr Lobby”, Bernard-Henri Lévy, the hairy heir to a slave owners’ fortune. He usually bashes Blacks and Palestinians in his frequent TV appearances. When his Negrophobe friend Alain Finkelkraut was sued for his too-explicit racist talk, Levy defended him.
• There is Mairead Maguire, the brave Irish fighter for Palestine, who befriended our prisoner-of-conscience Mordecai Vanunu.
• And Russian arch-Zionist Elena Bonner, a passionately anti-Muslim, anti-Communist, neo-liberal Reaganite. She fought against the “Evil Empire” for the rights of Russian Jews to immigrate to Israel and take over the homes of Palestinian refugees.
• There is the great Nobel-Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, who spoke so passionately against the Iraq war.
• And Zbigniew Brzezinski, the man who gave you the Afghani war with its millions of refugees – and boasted of it.[1] Anti-Communist to a boot and a hater of Russia, he provoked the Soviet intervention of 1980 and guided Osama bin Laden's participation.
• Our brave actress, Vanessa Redgrave, who fought and suffered from the Lobby's attacks,
• And leading French Zionist Andre Glucksmann, member of the anti-Communist liberal left, who supported the Chechen separatists and the war.
• There are even both an enemy of Pinochet, Ariel Dorfman and Pinochet’s admirer Vladimir Bukovsky.

What united them all, the good, the bad and the ugly? An anonymous NGO that came into being just yesterday called RAW in WAR. Its proclaimed purpose is to “recognise women who are defending human rights in zones of war and conflict”. This is a worthy purpose; one would expect Rachel Corrie, the brave American woman from Seattle, murdered by Israelis, should be the first to be recognized as such. Rachel Corrie defended a Palestinian home; she stood in front of it, believing that a man at the levers of the Caterpillar bulldozer sent to destroy it would stop at seeing her. But the beast did not stop: he drove on, smashed her body, and he was later exculpated by the Israeli court, while the US Jewish Lobby banned the play based on her story with the words “the antisemite's got what she deserved”.

So, Rachel Corrie? Not on your Nellie. The Zionist part of the Times’ list would never make such an error. The person the brand-new NGO is created to commemorate is the late Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. She was killed a year ago by persons unknown, and the Zionist neo-Cons are doing all they can to implicate the too-independent Russian authorities in the murder. Her name, together with the name of Polonium-killed ex-spy Litvinenko, became a battle-cry for the neo-liberal anti-Putin forces. The name of Litvinenko’s widow also embellishes the list of illustrious signatories, just so you don't miss the hint. There is also Daniel Pearl’s widow, to create an association between the fight against Muslim terrorists and the Warsaw Ghetto fighter Marek Edelman, for the anti-Nazi angle.

The forces behind the campaign are exceedingly powerful: otherwise, a totally unknown Bulgarian researcher Mariana Katzarova, the official chairperson of the NGO, would not be able to connect to so many lords and ladies, archbishops and barons, Nobel laureates, writers and VIPs to create this tour-de-force of a list. These forces have to be stronger than Berezovsky and Nevzlin, the two exiled oligarchs who were doing the spin about Litvinenko and Politkovskaya in their private vendetta against Putin. The events in memory of Politkovskaya were organised by the New World Order destabilisation shock troops, a.k.a. National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, a US government-funded organisation “set up to legally continue the CIA’s prohibited activities of support to selected political parties abroad [1]”. Clearly the new NGO’s aim is to put pressure on the Russian president who adamantly refuses to give a green light to Israeli and American bombing of Iran, who supplies Syria with its air defence systems and who put a halt to the oligarchs' asset-stripping of Russia.

I do not intend to besmirch memory of the murdered journalist, and it is not necessary to do so in order to defend Putin. Anna Politkovskaya presented no danger to his regime, being quite unknown to general public. She could have run afoul of some persons in Chechnya insurgency or counter-insurgency. Police investigation of her murder is still going on. Some ten Chechens and a rogue security forces colonel are in a Moscow jail, implicated in the murder, and the Russian Attorney General recently declared that the murder mystery is almost unravelled. Politkovskaya’s son expressed his full confidence in police efforts. He believes that the actual murderers and their patrons will be found soon. Many Russian observers believe the murder was ordered by persons desiring to undermine Russian society and to frame Putin. I also expressed this view. This technique would recall that used in Lebanon, where anti-Syrian activists were reportedly killed by pro-Israeli gunmen in order to create a backlash.

The Russian government and people condemned the assassination of Politkovskaya; the police are investigating and the family is satisfied with the progress. What else is needed? But the neo-Cons are not satisfied with this simple truth: they try to use her dead body to undermine the Putin regime. Unwillingly, her name has become a taunt. And the letter to the Times marches to the neo-Con beat.

Nobody can fault the signatories of the letter to the Times for what they wrote. They wrote very carefully: “We call on the Russian Government to bring to justice, in full conformity with international standards, both those who killed Anna Politkovskaya and those who have ordered her murder.” It is impossible to refuse to sign such a letter: don’t we all wish for such a conclusion? And yet it is impossible to sign: do we want to push Putin into surrendering to Bush’s wishes? What is the purpose of this letter? It is to show that the Zionists can mobilise even dedicated anti-Zionists and anti-war activists against Russia. Do we really want that?

This reminds me of the Wallenberg case. Raul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat in the Nazi Germany and Hungary, saved many Jews by providing them with Swedish passports and visas. In 1945 he was arrested by Soviet security in Budapest as a spy, and died in jail in 1947. But he was not allowed to rest in peace: the Zionists invented a fairy tale that he survived and is kept in a secret jail somewhere in Russia. They turned his name into a taunt. Until the collapse of the USSR, they made thousands of rallies – from Washington to Wellington - demanding the “release of Wallenberg”. Many well-meaning westerners participated in these demonstrations, thereby contributing to the demise of the USSR, ushering in the present unipolar world of Judeo-American hegemony. Only after 1991 the Zionists let off abusing Wallenberg’s name, for his death in 1947 could no longer be denied.

It is not that the Zionists cared about Swedish diplomats who saved Jews and were murdered after the war. Another Swedish diplomat in Germany, who saved many Jews, was Count Folke Bernadotte. Bernadotte was sent as the UN representative to Palestine in 1948 exactly for this reason: because he saved many Jews and had enormous sympathy for Jewish refugees. But he witnessed the mass expulsions, and he demanded that the Palestinian refugees be allowed to return home to their villages. A man who later became Israeli Prime Minister assassinated him. And that was it. The name of Wallenberg is given to streets and squares in many cities around the world; the name of Bernadotte is forgotten. This is the power of Jewish Lobby: they can decide whose name will be known and whose name will be forgotten, who will be blessed and who will be cursed.

No miracle: they possess most powerful multitasking machine of mass media and public relations. The USSR did not obey their orders -- the Soviet media was under the state control, so it had to be destroyed. They used their plethora of human rights organisations and humanitarian causes to this end. M-me Bonner and others of her ilk demanded the right of return for the Russian Jews, while denying the same right to the Palestinians. Hardly the same: the Palestinians were actually expelled from their homes, while we Russian Jews were to “return after two thousand years”. There were thousands of rallies all over the globe, and well-meaning westerners – maybe you? – participated in demanding this right for Jews and singing Let My People Go. But there were no rallies demanding the right of return for the Palestinians. If there were, they remained unreported, and the participants were blacklisted.

They spoke of lack of human rights in the USSR, until the USSR went down, and all assets of the Soviet people were appropriated by the oligarchs. Then, in Yeltsin’s days, human rights were apparently well preserved. But when Putin returned some of these ill-gotten assets back to the people, the human rights (or their lack) came back into limelight.

One would be very naïve to accept the human rights mantra at face value. Yes, I am very sorry for Raul Wallenberg and for Anna Politkovskaya; but I am equally sorry for Folke Bernadotte and Rachel Corrie; and I would not sign a petition for the former unless it contains the names of the latter. Likewise, I regret that an old American Jew Klinghoffer was killed, but I would not demonstrate about it for thousands of old Palestinians were killed by Israelis before and after this event. Do not let our adversary to set an agenda with his righteous indignation, honeyed words and sophistic devices. Thank you, we shall set our agenda ourselves.

Otherwise, it is falling in a trap for well-intended people: they can be persuaded to speak and demonstrate against an injustice even if being invited by their adversary. And they speak against infringement of human rights in Cuba, Russia, Iran, Gaza, denying these besieged states even a psychological respite. Lay off, friends: let us first deal with the basic right to be alive, for this right is severely threatened by the US Air force. When this right is assured, we’ll deal with the rest.

Jeeves was right: one should remember the common adversary. The same thought was well formulated by Carl Schmitt: an enemy is the most important political asset; and he should be chosen as carefully as a friend. The real formidable power of the Jewish Lobby lies in its ability to unite people against its enemy, and to block others’ attempts to unite. This is actually its main political task. When we try to unite people against Zionists, the Jews activate their “guilt by association” weapon, and the weak-hearted run away, saying: we do not want to sign, or demonstrate together with such-and-such, because he is a right-winger, or a Muslim militant, or a Christian fundamentalist, or a Stalinist, or a Holocaust denier, or a nationalist, or a racialist, or a terrorist, or whatever. And our efforts fall apart.

Their demonization line proves they do not care about human rights or democracy: they are just using these terms for their own ends. They demonised Muammar Qaddafi or David Duke or Roger Garaudy or Russian Communists, but have found no fault with warmongers Bernard Kouchner, or Zbiegnew Brzezinski, or Ariel Sharon. We all know that Putin served in the KGB, but we do not hear often that the great liberal hope, the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni, emerged from the secret service.

When they want to unite people, there is no “guilt by association”. I may ask these wonderful (no irony!) people Mairead Maguire, or Desmond Tutu, or Harold Pinter: “How come you are not worried about putting your signatures next to those of the war criminal and warmonger Brzezinski, next to Zionist and Negrophobe Levy, next to arch-thief Havel who privatised half of Prague for his own benefit?” Probably they would not even understand me, because there is only one authority licensed to demonise and issue kosher certificates, and that is the Lobby.

Jews are aware of their ability to create the matrix of demonization, and they care little about it, as Neo did about the matrix in the film. Wasn’t the Borat movie plainly racist? You bet it was. However, this Cohen had just to say that he is a Jew, and this password avoided all further questions. A Jewish organisation could write without hesitation: “Sacramento's militantly anti-gay Slavic Christians are suspected of harboring the killer”. Is this a racist statement? You bet it is! If you doubt this, try writing “Sacramento's militantly anti-goy Jews are suspected of harboring the killer” and see what happens.

In the last German elections, Frau Merkel made quite a few racist statements, stopping short of suggesting the expulsion of the Turks living in Germany, but promising to block Turkey’s advent into the EU so no more Turks will come to Germany. She was allowed to say that and win, because she fully supported Israel and America, and therefore she was never attacked by the Lobby. As a result, Germany, a key member of anti-war coalition in 2003, is not that surely against the impending Iran war.

Beside its right-wing group of neo-Cons, the Lobby has its left-wing project. In the 1980s, the Zionist Lobby-managed left-liberal (anti)communists provided the left leg for imperialism, for the war against the nations, for American hegemony. They were active in the last decade of the USSR's existence, when the Zionists succeeded in getting together many good and worthy people, from Jacques Derrida to Italian Communist leadership, and made them sing in unison, cutting off the left’s natural support for Soviet Russia. Their contribution to the end of the socialist experiment in Russia was decisive. We no longer hear of them: these French and Italian liberal communist parties shrunk to pea size without Zionist support, for they were no longer needed. Imperialism now firmly stood on its right, neo-conservative foot. The letter to the Times is a first harbinger of a weather change: the Zionists have decided to bring their leftist play back to life. In France, they even present Levy as a symbol of the “Left’s return”. With such a Left, who needs the Right?

The human rights idea could be good if these rights were universally applied. But these paragons of human rights usually stop where it is convenient for them. They are for minority rights, rights of gays and rights of bankers and rights of Jews, but they are against the rights of the majority, the right to live and to bring up children and to sustain one’s family, and the right to go to church or mosque unmolested. One of the darkest figures of world affairs is Bernard Kouchner, the new French Foreign Minister. A Zionist and a human rights activist, he supported all interventions based on human rights – the bombing of Serbia, the invasions of Somali and Iraq --you name it. He ruled over NATO-conquered Kosovo, and allowed his pet Albanian gangs to burn churches and expel the Serbs. Now he supports Bush's plans to attack Iran and Israel’s plans to strangulate Gaza. This is the face of a human rights paragon.

Nor has alleged socialist Kouchner any problem with serving under Sarkozy. Sarkozy ran for President under the banner of Le Pen. He took Le Pen’s slogans, Le Pen’s ideas and Le Pen’s voters, with one big exception: Le Pen was against the Judeo-American Empire. That is why, while Le Pen was demonised by the Lobby, Sarkozy was extolled. Now France is going to renege on the greatest achievement of Charles de Gaulle, his 1966 liberation of Francefrom the NATO yoke. Sarkozy and Kouchner are to return French troops under the US command, and to return American bases onto French soil in the greatest reversal of French foreign policy since Petain-Laval. The Sarkozy – Kouchner link gives the lie to the Left-Right dichotomy: leftists and rightists may be united in the support of Israel and the US, and they may just as easily be united in its rejection. This question – support or rejection – is, or should be the Friend or Foe signal on our radars.

This is a question of life and death: if we have a common Zionist enemy, we shall be at peace; if we have no common enemy, they will find us other enemies. Putin’s Russia, Ahmadinejad’s Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, Cuba and Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Burma can be turned into enemies. Until recently, the Arab states were united with Iran and Hamas in their rejection of Zionist schemes. But now, the Zionists have offered a different animosity: Sunni Arabs against Shia Persians. And it has worked: the Arab states have accepted their idea that Iran is the enemy; and that the Islam of the Hamas government is the enemy. As soon people forget that Zionism is the main enemy, they are started on the march to a war.

Equally, democracy is a good idea. But democracy of the word “demos”, people’s rule, not from the word “demo” like in “demo version”, in Victor Pelevin’s words. The democracy standard bearers gather around George Bush, they are ready to justify every aggression by the need to establish democracy; but they reject the right of Palestinians to elect Hamas, or the right of Venezuelans to elect Chavez, or the right of Cubans to elect Castro, or the right of Russians to elect Putin. NED, the National Endowment for Democracy, the CIA-financed subversive organisation (they organise various events in memory of Anna Politkovskaya) are actually the greatest enemies of democracy because their democracy is a tool of subjugation to the Judeo-American paradigm. What’s worse, in Russia and Burma, Cuba and Venezuela, the leaders become wary of democracy, and this is an unfortunate development.

Thus the distinction between Zionists and non-Zionists is the most important distinction -- the great divide between war and peace, life and death. Do not cross this line-- read the Friend or Foe signs. Do not support the enemy’s initiatives even if they appear to be of wonderful intention. Always remember the bottom line: what is the purpose of a petition, of a rally, of a letter? If we shall set the agenda, we can usher in peace; if we shall follow their agenda, we shall face war.

The signatures:

Mairead Maguire, Betty Williams, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Elena Bonner, Tatiana Yankelevich, President Vaclav Havel, Harold Pinter, The Hon Zbigniew Brzezinski, Vladimir Bukovsky, Andre Glucksmann, Gloria Steinem, Sergey Kovalyov, Terry Waite, Cbe, Susan Sarandon, Alexei Simonov, Gillian Slovo, Baroness Kennedy Of The Shaws, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Marek Edelman, Elisabeth Rehn, Mariane Pearl, Asma Jahangir, Sister Helen Prejean, Ariel Dorfman, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael Cunningham, Eve Ensler, John Sweeney, Jonathan Schell, Noam Chomsky, Marina Litvinenko, Lyudmila Alekseeva, Desmond O’Malley, Anne Nivat, Victor Fainberg, Lord Judd, Lord Rea, Lord Giddens, Lord Ahmed, Baroness Williams Of Crosby, Baroness Meacher, Professor Yakin Erturk, Elena Kudimova, Natasha Kandic, Caroline Mccormick, Sister Marya Grathwohl, Heidi Bradner, Meglena Kuneva, Elizabeth Kostova, Esther Chavez, John D. Panitza, Dubravka Ugresic, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Victor Navasky, Aidan White, Holly Near, Elizabeth Frank

[1]               Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser in Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998 p.76. He admitted he intentionally provoked the USSR’s entry to Afghanistan by fanning and bankrolling the insurgency against the legitimate government in Kabul. Asked whether he regrets it, he replied: “ Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists? B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?