The Arrogance of the Israel Lobby

Israel Lobby neocon Senator Joe Lieberman praised the film "Inglourious Basterds", in which Jews try to surpass Nazis in the carrying out of atrocities, relishing the burning of people to death, carving swastikas into the foreheads of live victims, scalping them, etc. (Newsweek 8/24-31/09) Lieberman pronounced this "cathartic." (Newsweek 11/23/09) Similarly, Israeli warmongers enjoy the suffering of the Palestinian people resulting from Israel's Nazi-like occupation. (See previous blog "Israelis Idea of a Fun Time" 1/16/09)

In recently boasting about the Zionists' great "success", Israel Lobby neocon David Brooks does not include the inconvenient fact that Israel has "made the desert bloom," as they say, by stealing Palestinian land and water resources. (The New York Times 1/12/10) The one-sided media presentation we suffer from here, due to the stranglehold of the Israel lobby, was experienced by the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 29,2009. Erdogan was participating in a panel discussion of Gaza moderated by David Ignatius of the Israel lobby-dominated Washington Post. (In true Washington Post neocon fashion, Ignatius had cheered us into the unnecessary war with Iraq, writing on 2/25/03 that "The Iraq War is just and defensible.")

In this one-hour forum in Davos, Ignatius allotted 25 minutes to Israel's president Shimon Peres, more than twice that allowed for the other three panelists. After Peres filibustered about how wonderful Israel's slaughter in Gaza was, Erdogan attempted to respond but was cut off after one minute by Ignatius. Erdogan managed to say, "You killed people. And I think that is wrong. The 6th Commandment: Thou shall not kill. We are talking about killing." (The Wall Street Journal 1/30/09) "I remember the children who died on the beaches. I remember two former prime ministers who said they were happy when they were able to enter Palestine in tanks." (AP 1/30/09) He told Peres, "The high tone of your voice has to do with a guilty conscience." "When it comes to killing, you know how to kill" "And so Davos is over from me from now on." The New York Times (1/30/09) "I don't think I'll come back to Davos because you don't let me speak." (The Wall Street Journal 1/30/09).

Erdogan left the stage and, needless to say, returned home to a hero's welcome. Despite the Israel Lobby's attempt at positive PR, their atrocities are universally loathed.

In their overriding compulsion for domination and humiliation of others, Israelis recently summoned Turkish Ambassador Ahmet Oguz Celikkol to a media dressing-down designed to force Turkey to cancel a Turkish TV program. The popular drama, "Valley of the Wolves," features actions of Israeli intelligence agents. Without informing Celikkol that the cameras would be rolling, Danny Ayalon, Israel's deputy foreign minister, greeted Celikkol without a handshake and made him sit down on a very low sofa. Across from Cellikol, Ayalon was perched on a high chair with a coffee table in between bearing the Israeli flag. (No coffee was served.)

Ayalon then addressed the cameras in Hebrew (which Celikkol does not speak) and "explained to local TV stations that the humiliation was intentional." (AP 1/14/10) Ayalon said, "The important thing is that people see that he's low and we're high and that there is no [Turkish] flag here." Ayalon refused the videographer's request that Ayalon shake Celikkol's hand.

Ayalon's insulting stunt received such world-wide criticism that he was forced to apologize. The important thing is that power, accomplishments, and money can not buy world popularity.