- On October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed
the Israel Lobby's bill, the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. This legislation
requires the US Department of State to monitor anti-semitism world wide.
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- To monitor anti-semitism, it has to be defined. What
is the definition? Basically, as defined by the Israel Lobby and Abe Foxman,
it boils down to any criticism of Israel or Jews.
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- Rahm Israel Emanuel hasn't been mopping floors at the
White House.
- As soon as he gets the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of
2009 passed, it will become a crime for any American to tell the truth
about Israel's treatment of Palestinians and theft of their lands.
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- It will be a crime for Christians to acknowledge the
New Testament's account of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus.
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- It will be a crime to report the extraordinary influence
of the Israel Lobby on the White House and Congress, such as the AIPAC-written
resolutions praising Israel for its war crimes against the Palestinians
in Gaza that were endorsed by 100 per cent of the US Senate and 99 per
cent of the House of Representatives, while the rest of the world condemned
Israel for its barbarity.
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- It will be a crime to doubt the Holocaust.
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- It will become a crime to note the disproportionate representation
of Jews in the media, finance, and foreign policy.
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- In other words, it means the end of free speech, free
inquiry, and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Any facts or truths
that cast aspersion upon Israel will simply be banned.
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- Given the hubris of the US government, which leads Washington
to apply US law to every country and organization, what will happen to
the International Red Cross, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights,
and the various human rights organizations that have demanded investigations
of Israel's military assault on Gaza's civilian population? Will they all
be arrested for the hate crime of "excessive" criticism of Israel?
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- This is a serious question.
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- A recent UN report, which is yet to be released in its
entirety, blames Israel for the deaths and injuries that occurred within
the United Nations premises in Gaza. The Israeli government has responded
by charging that the UN report is "tendentious, patently biased,"
which puts the UN report into the State Department's category of excessive
criticism and strong anti-Israel sentiment.
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- Israel is getting away with its blatant use of the American
government to silence its critics despite the fact that the Israeli press
and Israeli soldiers have exposed the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the
premeditated murder of women and children urged upon the Israeli invaders
by rabbis. These acts are clearly war crimes.
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- It was the Israeli press that published the pictures
of the Israeli soldiers' T-shirts that indicate that the willful murder
of women and children is now the culture of the Israeli army. The T-shirts
are horrific expressions of barbarity. For example, one shows a pregnant
Palestinian woman with a crosshairs over her stomach and the slogan, "One
shot, two kills." These T-shirts are an indication that Israel's policy
toward the Palestinians is one of extermination.
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- It has been true for years that the most potent criticism
of Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians comes from the Israeli press
and Israeli peace groups. For example, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and
Jeff Halper of ICAHD have shown a moral conscience that apparently does
not exist in the Western democracies where Israel's crimes are covered
up and even praised.
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- Will the American hate crime bill be applied to Haaretz
and Jeff Halper? Will American commentators who say nothing themselves
but simply report what Haaretz and Halper have said be arrested for "spreading
hatred of Israel, an anti-semitic act"?
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- Many Americans have been brainwashed by the propaganda
that Palestinians are terrorists who threaten innocent Israel. These Americans
will see the censorship as merely part of the necessary war on terror.
They will accept the demonization of fellow citizens who report unpalatable
facts about Israel and agree that such people should be punished for aiding
and abetting terrorists.
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- A massive push is underway to criminalize criticism of
Israel. American university professors have fallen victim to the well organized
attempt to eliminate all criticism of Israel. Norman Finkelstein was denied
tenure at a Catholic university because of the power of the Israel Lobby.
Now the Israel Lobby is after University of California (at Santa Barbara,)
professor Wiliam Robinson. <http://www.counterpunch.org/henwood04292009.html>Robinson's
crime: his course on global affairs included some reading assignments critical
of Israel's invasion of Gaza.<http://www.counterpunch.org/henwood04292009.html>
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- The Israel Lobby apparently succeeded in convincing the
Obama Justice (sic) Department that it is anti-semitic to accuse two Jewish
AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, of spying. The Israel
Lobby succeeded in getting their trial delayed for four years, and now
Attorney General Eric Holder has dropped charges. Yet, Larry Franklin,
the DOD official accused of giving secret material to Rosen and Weissman,
is serving 12 years and 7 months in prison.
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- The absurdity is extraordinary. The two Israeli agents
are not guilty of receiving secrets, but the American official is guilty
of giving secrets to them! If there is no spy in the story, how was Franklin
convicted of giving secrets to a spy?
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- Criminalizing criticism of Israel destroys any hope of
America having an independent foreign policy in the Middle East that serves
American rather than Israeli interests. It eliminates any prospect of Americans
escaping from their enculturation with Israeli propaganda.
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- To keep American minds captive, the Lobby is working
to ban as anti-semitic any truth or disagreeable fact that pertains to
Israel. It is permissible to criticize every other country in the world,
but it is anti-semitic to criticize Israel, and anti-semitism will soon
be a universal hate-crime in the Western world.
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- Most of Europe has already criminalized doubting the
Holocaust. It is a crime even to confirm that it happened but to conclude
that less than 6 million Jews were murdered.
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- Why is the Holocaust a subject that is off limits to
examination? How could a case buttressed by hard facts possibly be endangered
by kooks and anti-semitics? Surely the case doesn't need to be protected
by thought control.
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- Imprisoning people for doubts is the antithesis of modernity.
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- Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentionshttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0307396061/counterpunchmaga
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- He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
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