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4 October 2004 - MiddleEast.Org - MER is Free
News, Views, & Analysis Governments, Lobbies, & the
Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know

The most honest, most comprehensive, and most mobilizing news and
analysis on the Middle East always comes from MER. It is indispensable!"
Robert Silverman - Salamanca, Spain

Upcoming from MER 'Washington Scene':
Top Democratic Party Official Advocates 'pre-emptive' U.S.
attacks on Iran and Pakistan to destroy advanced weapons


Israel's URI AVNERI
Joins Sharon blanketly
charging anti-semitism
trying to silence and cower

"Avneri, along with many Israelis and Jews, rightly
fears that at some point Israel will be the direct target
of blame for it's major contribution to having brought
about such terrorism in the world and pushing the U.S.
into invading Iraq. It is an understandable fear;
for it is to a significant degree true."

MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 4 Oct 2004: Israel's aging self-professed 'leftist peacenik', Uri Avneri, has taken of late to charging all those who have pointed the finger of blame and guilt at the Jewish Neocons and the Israeli-Jewish Lobby in Washington as 'anti-semites'. They who dare point such fingers of responsiblity at the Neocons, the Lobby, and by extension Israel itself are modern-day descendants, according to Avneri's latest blast, of those who professed the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'.

Though Avneri's charges are outrageous and scurrilous, coming from him they will intimidate and silence at least some who pay little attention to Sharon's similar diatribes; especially if they do not know Avneri's past...as few will.

For with this latest clever screetch Uri Avneri is true to character and reputation -- a gifted opportunist journalist who has continually fanned his own fortunes and intriques for some time now. For at the end of the day, carefully analyzed, Avneri has always pursued a crafty Israeli Zionist agenda always shifting on que for 'leftist' political correctness and self-gain a long the way. And now, Avneri, along with many Israelis and Jews, rightly fears that if things continue to deteriorate at some point Israel will be the direct target of blame for it's major contribution to having brought about such terrorism in the world and pushing the U.S. into invading Iraq. It is an understandable fear; for it is to a significant degree true.

The full Avneri article published this past weekend can be found in the MER World Section. Below, from the MER archives, these insights originally published in 1998 and 2001 with regard to Uri Avneri and his purported leadership of Israel's much over-rated and considerably Zionist-in-allegiance 'Peace Movement'.





Uri Avneri - Fronting for Arafat and for a Castrated "Palestinian State"

MID-EAST REALITIES © - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 10/10/2001: The Israeli writer and activist Uri Avneri is "on tour" in the USA on his way to Washington. It shouldn't come as a surprise that a few naive or on- the-take "peace groups" -- Jewish and otherwise -- have invited him to speak. There's a long history in the U.S. of the so-called Middle East "left" being laughably manipulated and co-opted, in the process inviting the wrong people at times of opportunity, and as they do so actually helping support politically correct policies of the moment -- knowingly or not. Though the world of Jewish and "progressive" affairs in the U.S. is much more complicated and multi-faceted than that of the Arab Americans, there are many "client organizations" as well as oh-so-naive local organizations out there as well. Furthermore, of course, as this game is played out it is all done in lieu of actually inviting the much more independent and trustworthy persons who could actually inform people in the U.S. what is really going on in the Middle East and in Israel/Palestine...and most importantly why.

This is hardly the complete story, and Avneri is an interesting writer/speaker and colorful personality, but by way of information and warning this from MER's files published a few years ago -- for those who want to know what's really going on:


ISRAELI SCENE: URI AVNERI - ARAFAT'S PROPAGANDIST

URI AVNERI DISCREDITS ISRAELI LEFT, TAKES ON
PROPAGANDIST ROLE FOR ARAFAT

"...The corruption within the Palestinian Authority...
is not widespread."

"...Should something happen to Arafat, it would be
a disaster of national proportions."

"...Palestinians are not afraid to loudly voice
their sharp criticism."

Uri Avneri, Israeli writer

LONG HISTORY OF DECEPTIONS AND
OPPORTUNISM FROM AVNERI


MER - Washington - 5 February, 1998: One of the reasons the real Israeli left is so demoralized and confused -- and has so tragically abdicated to the deceptive left of the Israeli Labor Party better known as "Peace Now" -- is the untrustworthiness of many of its key personalities. Uri Avneri is one of these persons. And as amazing as it might seem in view of the realities of the Arafat regime, the quotes above are translated from a Hebrew column Avneri recently published. After a start in the Israeli terrorist right-wing underground, Avneri, now in his mid-70s, was one of the first Israelis to begin meeting with the PLO. During the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982, Avneri was one of the first Israeli journalists to interview Yasser Arafat.

The basic problem for Avneri has been that the more people have come to know him over the years, the more they have realized how little he could be truly trusted or believed.

For years Avneri made his money publishing an Israeli equivalent of the NATIONAL INQUIRER -- a tabloid, gossip, sex publication that was the first and only of its kind in Israel and sold well. Then when he had had enough of scandal-mongering journalism, the supposedly committed leftist sold his publication to Israeli right-wingers considerably enriching himself in the process. Some even began to wonder if Avneri hadn't been a kind of mole -- wittingly or unwittingly -- all along.

Whatever the reasons and motivations for Avneri's dealings, with this kind of personal background it certainly becomes easier to understand why Avneri gets along so well with Arafat and with the corrupt, self-aggrandizing officials of the "Palestinian Authority".

Avneri has tried to organize a number of what he has said were pro-Palestinian movements. But non of these have ever had any substantial following in Israel. And his latest ploy, rumored to be funded by Arafat, to boycott products produced by Israeli settlers in the territories, is said to have instead given Israeli right-wingers the very list they need to purchase more of those products. In recent years Avneri's efforts have deteriorated to the point where he now seems to border on being little more than a propagandist for Arafat and what in the end is Israel's armed and funded PA, a puppet regime primarily responsible for policing the "autonomous" Palestinian areas with ever-growing CIA and Shin bet "assistance".

Avneri writes, among so many other out and out deceptions, that much open debate and democracy has been fostered by the PA! It seems not to matter to him that the best journalists in the world, David Hirst and Robert Fisk among them, have been reporting in detail, story after story, precisely the opposite. It seems not to matter to him that professors and journalists have been arrested and literally tortured by Avneri's new friends. It seems not to matter to him that one of the leading Palestinian human rights organizations issued a report -- ironically about the same time Avneri's article was published -- specifically condemning Arafat for creating the infrastructure of a "Police State" and that Palestinians are looking on in horror and fear.

And yet Avneri continues: "What is most instructive is the fact of the debate itself (among the Palestinians); even high-ranking (PA) officials are not afraid to loudly voice their sharp criticism."

Whether it is old age, lack of information, nostalgia for the days of his old salacious tabloid, or something more sinister, who can know for sure. Whatever, Avneri's long history of scandal-mongering and personal aggrandizement seem to be playing themselves out in new ways. And in the end he seems to have done more to discredit the badly confused, divided, and demoralized Israeli left than to truly lead it.





What's left of Israel's left

ISRAEL'S FRACTURED AND DEMORALIZED LEFT

Israeli Prof Urges Blank Vote

MER - February 5, 2001: What's left of Israel's left is in a fractured and demoralized state of affairs. Not only is Ariel Sharon about to become Israel's Prime Minister, but in all likelihood he is to be swept into power tomorrow in a landslide unprecedented in Israel's history. Worse yet, many on the left are reduced to having General Barak and Shimon Peres as their champions. It's a cruel twist of fate; but it is also one that has been nurtured for decades now by the failure of Israel's left, coupled with "liberal" American Jewry, to come together and present a credible and principled alternative.

For some on the left like Uri Avneri, they have been doing what they could to rally the vote for Barak and for Oslo. They've failed miserably. But then Avneri, while an insightful and even courageous journalist, has been largely discredited by his fronting for the Arafat regime no matter what, not to mention by his decades of building a reputation as someone not to be personally trusted. Indeed just some 20 months ago Avneri was jumping up and down cheering and partying upon the election of Ehud Barak and shouting how the era of peace had finally come. We've written before about the dark contrast between Avneri's energetic activism and his lack of personal integrity and credibility.

For others on the left, like Professor Tanya Reinhart, integrity and credibility are high, but following very limited. Rather than cheering when Barak was elected, Reinhart was writing profound articles explaining that Barak had created a government of retired army generals and top intelligence agents; that Barak's policies were deceptively treacherous, dangerous, and that war clouds were already gathering. MER published many of those articles back in the days when applauding Barak and proclaiming the new era of peaceful relations between Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arabs was near universal in the major media.

The likelihood is that the what's left of the left will be rejuvenated by the coming of Sharon. There will be articles, demonstrations, protests, dialogue meetings with Palestinians. But don't expect any of this to amount to very much very soon. The "BullDozer" (that's Sharon's latest nickname for those who may have forgotten) isn't going to be stopped by what's left of the left; a left which needs a total ideological as well as political facelift and makeover, not to mention a new champion. MER





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October 2004


Magazine






Iran Next - Part 1
(October 31, 2004)
In a few days the American election itself will be history. The likelihood is the Bush/Cheney/neocon regime will remain in power; hard as that still is for so many to imagine and understand. Should the Democrats win the White House Middle East policies will be largely in the hands of the neoliberals and the super money-men like Haim Saban who when it comes to the Middle East and Israel have far more in common with the neocons than has yet been realized by many who will vote for them. Whatever happens on Tuesday next the build-up to attacking and if at all possible regime changing Iran is well underway and the showdown increasingly imminent.

Osama, Bush, Kerry - Past, Present, Future
(October 30, 2004)
Few Middle East realities have been heard during this long grueling American election campaign. Most of the rhetoric has been extraordinarily self-righteous and self-serving, disingenuous and dishonest. Sad and tragic as it is to have to say, for many in the Middle East and around the world beyond American shores, tactics aside, the words of Osama Bin Laden ring more true to their experience and perspective regarding U.S. foreign policy than those of either George Bush or John Kerry.

Fahrenheit 9/11 - Watch It On Your Computer This Weekend
(October 30, 2004)
Who would have imagined on 9/11 more than three years ago now that the top front-page story in the Washington Post Saturday before the 2004 election would be a picture of Osama Bin Laden addressing the American people! Reality keeps trumping fiction time after time in our era!

Escalating War Against the World after November 2nd?
(October 29, 2004)
Whether the Americans are lead by Bush and the neocons, or by Kerry and the neoliberals, the reality is that both of the great American political parties are today dominated by their super-hawkish Israeli-connected elements and that both are heavily mortgaged to major, however competing, segments of the Israeli-Jewish lobby in Washington.

ARAFAT - Pathetic Symbolism for the 'Grand Old Man' of the Palestinians
(October 29, 2004)
There is often such pathetic symbolism surrounding Yasser Arafat even as many of his people cling to his legacy as the 'symbol of Palestinian nationalism' -- itself nearly as tattered and frail as the Grand Old Man has himself become.

Bush Uncensored; Cheney Unauthorized
(October 28, 2004)
MAKE SURE TO WATCH THESE TWO VIDEOS ABOUT GEORGE BUSH and DICK CHENEY

Gaza Scam + Dem Party Emails American Jews
(October 27, 2004)
The price for the past political trickery has already been very high. The poison of the Israeli-Arab conflict has spread continually for decades now and played a substantial role in bringing about today's 'Clash of Civilizations' whose end is yet in sight. The eventual future price for what is happening these days threatens to be higher yet, potentially catastrophic.

IRAN Attack Imminent?
(October 24, 2004)
Though few in the world may fully realize it, international society is now at a historic moment and the future, even a potential World War III, is in the balance. Hence the leaks coming from Washington from those trying to warn, and to prevent, what the top neocons and Israeli operatives are pushing hard to bring about. Hence last month's extremely unusual 'Israeli Spy Scandal' which had officials in the FBI charging people working on the Iranian attack in coordination with the Israeli-Jewish lobby with espionage for Israel. Hence, as this article by a former National Security Council operative suggests: "Intelligence circles report that both intelligence agencies (CIA and Pentagon) are in open revolt against the Bush White House." It appears to have been quickly written and then quickly internet published using LebanonWire in the Middle East.

Cheney Uncovered - An Unauthorized Documentary by the CBC
(October 23, 2004)
Reporter Jean Heller presented Soviet satellite photos which did not show Iraqi troops amassed on the Saudi border to the Pentagon. "It's what it (the photos) didn't show that's more important. What you expected to see were tanks on the border. There was none that we could see. I said, look, if you can prove to me that our story isn't true, we won't run it. And they just ignored it. They have never shown those (U.S. satellite images) photos. Not then and not since."

New CIA 'Shocking' Cover-Up
(October 22, 2004)
Completed in June, mandated by Congress nearly two years ago, the CIA Report that names names is being suppressed until after the election. "What all the other reports on 9/11 did not do is point the finger at individuals, and give the how and what of their responsibility. This report does that," said the intelligence official. "The report found very senior-level officials responsible."

Talk about American Imperialism and Chutzpah!
(October 22, 2004)
The reaction in many quarters must be 'Oh My God'. Bill, Hillary, and Tenet all seek higher office! Talk about American Imperialism and Chutzpah!

The WARLORDS of AMERICA
(October 21, 2004)
Regardless of what happens on 2 November in the U.S. election, one group or another of "the Warlords of America" will be in power in Washington. And the years now immediately ahead, regardless if the President is named Kerry or Bush, are quickly shaping up as likely to be the most dangerous in modern history.

America on the Edge
(October 20, 2004)
The amazing thing about this American election is that in view of what has happened in the U.S. and in the world the Democrats should be running away with it -- and yet they are struggling everywhere and likely to go down to defeat.

Israel on Road to being Pariah State
(October 15, 2004)
Indeed Israeli policies and attitudes have for some time now seriously poisoned political relations throughout the Middle East, substantially helped bring about the era of the 'Clash of Civilizations', and through the powerful Israeli/Jewish lobby in Washington pushed the United States into the invasion of Iraq and other militarist isolated policies whose dangerous and destructive ramifications will be felt for many years to come

The Next Generation of Palestinians
(October 13, 2004)
If what has happened in Gaza in recent years would have happened in the USA (adjusted for population size) more than 100,000 Americans would have been killed and more than a quarter million homes destroyed by a foreign occupying army using battle tanks and attack helicopters against small resistance groups in cities and towns.

AMERICAN SECRET GULAG EXPANDING
(October 14, 2004)
THE CIA has greatly expanded its activities throughout the Middle East including in Jordan and Egypt as well as Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other countries throughout the region. Of course the CIA and the Mossad are working more closely together than ever to control the region and enforce what is now essentially the militarily imposed 'new world order' first announced during the current President father's days in the White House. Before President Bush I became President he was in fact the Director of the CIA, whose main headquarters is now named after him.

AOL Censors MER
(October 20, 2004)
AOL -- one of the largest internet service providers -- is blocking and censoring MER. Persons who subscribe to MER using an AOL email address can not receive MER -- it is being secretly censored from their mailboxes by AOL without notice of any kind. It is believed persons working for AOL may be censoring MER in coordination with Jewish Zionist groups. It may be that AOL has a special relationship with Jewish.com and other Israeli-connected groups in some way. It is all being done in secret with no notice of any kind to either AOL users or MER. A few of the messages we have received from AOL subscribers to MER follow:

Major Iraq Attacks on Hold Until After U.S. Vote
(October 11, 2004)
The Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld made an unannounced visit to Iraq in recent days. And soon after the American election the superpower military will be much more fully unleashed throughout the country preparing to push the U.S.-appointed strong-man Iyad Allawai forward in the carefully staged 'election' that will proceed if 'conditions are right'. In other words, just as Hamid Karzai was U.S. -installed and then essentially U.S.-elected in Afghanistan, the same template is now planned for Iraq.

U.S. Forces IMF into secret Iraqi debt 'forgiveness' scheme
(October 11, 2004)
But maybe most of all in the longer run, and unspoken now for all of these reasons by the powers that be, once Iraq's prior debt to other countries is 'off the books', the new U.S.-installed and CIA-controlled government in Baghdad is free to sign agreements with the Americans -- secret or otherwise -- that will essentially mortgage Iraq's future oil revenues to the U.S.A. and those it approves.

Chomsky on American Force and Pre-emption
(October 10, 2004)
"Bush planners know as well as others that the resort to force increases the threat of terror, and that their militaristic and aggressive posture and actions provoke reactions that increase the risk of catastrophe."

IRAN - Targeted by U.S. and Israel
(October 9, 2004)
You would think after the Iraq debacle that the ability of the U.S. to blackball, sanction, and then attack, occupy and regime-change another country would be considerable reduced. Not so however as this article in Z Magazine helps explain with regard to Iran. Indeed, soon after the American election the situation will quickly escalate.

The Debates - Fixed and Controlled
(October 8, 2004)
The moderators -- both from the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) -- could have, and should have, asked hard, probing, unexpected questions like this:

Israeli AIPAC Spy Scandal - Update
(October 7, 2004)
It was just a month ago that the latest Washington spy scandal involving the very heart of the Israeli-Jewish Lobby had everyone buzzing. Then it faded from view as the corporate media moved on, as CBS News which originally broke the story found itself under assault, and as the election campaign and debates took center stage. Interesting, not one question from the PBS moderators about Israeli spying, nor even about the U.S. veto of the Security Council resolution condemning Israel, nor the International Court of Justice decision doing the same. Here's an update -- however inadequate -- from yesterday's L.A.Times. Though the real heart of the story should be AIPAC and the influence, tactics, and status of the Israeli-Jewish lobby; instead they focus on just the individual and not as they should on the large group of support persons and organizations. This should especially include, of course, the current cabal of largely Jewish neocons in top positions...including the one who hired Larry Franklin (Douglas Feith), and the ones who hired him (Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle).

AOL Blocks and Censors MER Articles
(October 6, 2004)
AOL is blocking and censoring MER articles because of pressures originating with Jewish and Israeli groups.

Emergency U.N. Security Council Meeting on Israel
(October 4, 2004)


The Springsteen 'Vote For Change' Concerts
(October 5, 2004)
"The press has let the country down. It's taken a very amoral stand, in that essential issues are often portrayed as simply one side says this and the other side says that. I think that Fox News and the Republican right have intimidated the press into an incredible self-consciousness about appearing objective and backed them into a corner of sorts where they have ceded some of their responsibility and righteous power." - Bruce Springsteen

Israel's Peacenik - Uri Avneri: Realities
(October 5, 2004)
"Uri Avneri, along with many Israelis and Jews, rightly fears that at some point Israel will be the direct target of blame for it's major contribution to having brought about such terrorism in the world and pushing the U.S. into invading Iraq. It is an understandable fear; for it is to a significant degree true."

Iraq is a "disaster...that will haunt the U.S. for decades" - Wall Street Journal Reporter
(October 2, 2004)
Iraq is a "disaster" that has deteriorated "into a raging barbaric guerilla war" that will haunt the United States for decades.

The Passion of the Bush
(October 2, 2004)
As the modern-day American-Israeli led Christian-Jewish crusade to remake the Middle East in the name of 'democracy and freedom' proceeds, this new documentary is telling indeed. It was first shown at the Republican Convention in New York a few weeks ago; and now, as a kind of Bush-loving counter to Fahrenhite 9/11, the DVD is being rushed out in advance of the upcoming election.

U.S. and Israel Prepare for Iran +
(October 1, 2004)
Even as the two branches of the American political establishment semi-debated last night who would fight the new wars better than the other, even as U.S. and Israeli battle tanks and attack aircraft bombed and killed in Iraq and Palestine worse than ever, preparations to either force compliance or attack Iran, Syria, Hezbollah (Lebanon), Hamas (Palestine), and North Korea soon after the American election are fast proceeding at the Pentagon and the CIA.




© 2004 Mid-East Realities, All rights reserved