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A PALESTINIAN AND AN ISRAELI, FACE TO FACE

How can Israel and Palestine achieve peace? Palestinian peacemaker Aziz Abu Sarah and Israeli peacemaker Maoz Inon discuss the immeasurable tragedies they've experienced growing up in the region — and how they choose reconciliation over revenge, again and again. With a fierce belief in a better future, they talk about conflict, safety, finding shared values and how they're building a coalition of Israeli and Palestinian citizens who are intent on creating a path to hope and peace. (Read transcript)

Watch now (17 minutes)

EDITORIAL | ISRAEL – BECOME A GOOD NEIGHBOR!

By Abraham A. van Kempen

27 April 2024

How Could Modern Israel Be a Theocracy Solely for Jews If 72 Percent of Israeli Citizens Are Not Jewish (technically 'Non-Jews')?

According to a 2015 WIN/Gallup Poll, 65 percent of the Israeli population “said that they are either not religious or convinced atheists, compared to just 30 percent who say that they are religious.

Inside the Green Zone, most Israeli citizens are NOT Jewish; that is, they no longer observe Judaism, and they don’t believe in the Yahweh (God) of the Jews. Twenty-one percent of Israeli citizens, the Palestinians who are Israeli citizens, are mostly Muslims. Some are Christians.

A Shared Identity

Does Israeli nationalism contain an ancient historical core, or is it a fabrication of the 19th century? Relax! Professor Anita Shapira, Chair of the Chaim Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel at Tel Aviv University, says: "We [in the institute eds.] teach based on an established historical concept that there was, in fact, a Jewish collective, which considered itself a people not only in the religious sense but in the sense of an entity whose essence transcends the merely religious. The expression 'All Jews are responsible for each other' is not a religious one."

In Theodore Herzl's 'Judenstaat,' literally translated from German into English as' the state of the Jews' and not to be confused with 'the Jewish State,' the founder of the Return to the Land talked about, "We are a people. We are one people."

I second Herzl's proclamation. Jews, anywhere and everywhere, embrace each other, especially when the goings get tough. Even when my Jewish friends become foes, calling me a 'Judenrat'² and worse, I know we can depend on each other in the hour of need. It's an electrifying feeling that no Jew could describe to one who isn't.

Nonetheless, few thoughtful scholars in recent times believe that the Jews are a single ethnobiological people or 'race.' Neither are the Palestinians. That Jews are not a pure nation-race, and some Palestinians are more Israelites than most Jews might be too much of a bitter pill to swallow. Things of the heart are not easy to let go.

Often, myths persist despite clear contradictory evidence. Facts, though concrete, sometimes need to be revised. Fiction can be shaped and re-shaped into entrenched make-believe, especially when opportune. A mingling of myth, memory, truth, and aspiration conjured on scarce and confusing archaeological and archival records envelop Jewish history.

Despite Israeli secularism, who can refute what Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg of the New North London Synagogue says: "Jewish continuity is premised on religious factors, including observance of the Torah, the study of the Talmud, the creation of communities, the life of the synagogue and the bonds of the liturgy. These are what form the vital links between generations of Jews." ¹

What Kind of People Are We to Become?

What kind of people are we to become? Jews, Christians, and Muslims have an inherent spiritual link to the Region. Can we recognize and revere those genetically connected to the Land? We have much in common with each other. Like our Palestinian cousins, we enjoy snacking on falafels and gorging on baklavas. More people on both sides of the Divide have invited me to stop for tea or coffee or as their overnight guest. Can we become one in the spirit of our Abrahamic Faiths? Sadly, our present-day schism, to put it mildly, has kept most of us apart. As one Israeli friend said, and he's no longer talking to me, "it started so promising."

Israel – A Nation in Search of Itself

All my friends in Tel Aviv – Israeli citizens – are atheists. Despite their 'Jewish' roots, they are, technically, no longer Jews. Some consider themselves 'Cultural Jews.' Others call themselves 'Secular Jews.' All have nationalities in other countries, i.e., the US, the UK, France, Bulgaria, Hungary, South Africa, etc. Most of my friends, who are bonafide Israeli citizens, want to possess an Israeli Nationality. However, in the modern state of Israel, Israeli nationality does exist. Moreover, Israel has yet to invent a constitution. It is non-existent.

Nonetheless, Israel insists on becoming a theocracy for Jews only. But Israel’s majority is non-Jew. Plus, 21 percent of Israeli citizens are Muslim. A smaller percentage of Israeli citizens are Christian. In other words, how can Israel become a theocracy exclusively for Jews when those who are Jewish form a minuscule percentage of its people? It is time that Israel becomes a nation with an Israeli nationality.

Who is your neighbor?

The Sacred Texts of our Abrahamic Faiths introduce us to the “Good Samaritan,” the Good Palestinian, our “Good Neighbor.” It’s the “Good Samaritan,” the half-breeds, the remnants of Israel, the Palestinians, who are our neighbors. They’re also our cousins.

The Gospels teach us that 2,000 years ago, the remnants of Israel, Israel’s half-breeds were as much Palestinians as their pedigreed Judean cousins. The Judeans, then, denigrated Israel’s half-breeds as worthless creatures, no different now. It’s time to wake up. The Judeans today are now half-breeds just like their half-breed cousins 2,000 years ago. The Jews who wandered in from the diaspora descended from pagan converts to Judaism, which diluted their genetic bloodlines to the original tribes of Israel. Recent DNA tests conclusively prove that most Jews from afar indicate genetic links to everywhere else other than Israel-Palestine.

In short,

               Modern-day Israel is no longer Jewish—sixty-five percent of its citizens who view themselves as Cultural Jews or Secular Jews are technically None-Jews.

               Most Jews who recently wandered into Palestine are less Israelite than the indigenous Palestinians who lived on the Land for millennia.

               The pedigreed Judeans of 2,000 years ago have evolved into half-breeds just like their cousins 2,000 years ago. The Tribes of Israel intermarried with members of other tribes. No pure-race Judean – Jew – exists today.

Finally, today’s Jews are not part of one ethnicity. Indeed, millennia ago, the Israelites stemmed from the House of Israel. Today, their bloodlines are so diluted. The Ashkenazi Jews (Jews from Eastern Europe), the Sephardic Jews (Jews from Spain), the Mizrahi Jews (Jews from the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and the Caucuses), the Ethiopian Jews, the Indian Jews, the Chinese Jews, and the Jews from North America and South America, not to mention Jews from Australia, South Africa, and Brazil have more in common with the people where they’re from than with each other.

Without the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, there would be an internal Israeli conflict that inevitably could unglue their social fabric, now fragilely held intact by the fear-mongering against a common enemy. Peace could bust the socio-cultural seams between the secular nationalists, the religious nationalists, the Orthodox, and the Ultra-Orthodox; between the Ashkenazim ¹⁶, the Mizrahi Middle Eastern or Oriental Jews, and the Sephardic communities; between the recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia; between the Heathen-Zionists (hell on earth) and the true Biblical-Zionists (heaven on earth); and could further alienate the Israeli-Arab citizens (21%), whose separation from the rest is increasing. Socially, Israel is unstable. It is even worse economically. In Israel, the disparity between rich and poor, so underreported, is reprehensible.

‘The Invention of the Jewish People (2015),’ authored by Schlomo Sand, professor of history at Tel Aviv University, torpedoes a Sacred Cow.

If Modern Israel is not Ancient Israel, if many indigenous Palestinians are genetically connected to the Ancient Israelites, and if most Jews who wandered in from Eastern Europe descend from pagans who converted to Judaism, who then carry the seeds of the biblical Abraham?

Can ‘A Shared Identity’ bring them closer to sharing the land?

The solution: a one-state democracy — NOT A ONE-STATE ETHNOCRACY — a beloved community for all!

Israel, become neighborly! Trust your instincts! Break out of your ghetto mentality. Your future is neither in Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia, or Asia. That’s where you’re from. Your future is among your neighbors in the Middle East. That’s where you’re going, your destiny. That’s where you belong.

Build the bridge. Is there a choice?

Read: How I Stopped Being a Jew by Schlomo Sand (2014); Sand wants to flaunt his non-existent Israeli nationality. So, in the Land of the Jews, for the Jews, and by the Jews, Sand can only fantasize about having an Israeli nationality. There is no such thing as an Israeli nationality.

van Kempen, Abraham. Christian Zionism ... Enraptured Around a Golden Calf, 2nd Edition 2019 (Kindle Locations 3802-3807).

What is the Side of the Story that is Still Decisive? Edited by Abraham A. van Kempen.

GLOBAL MILITARY SPENDING ROSE BY $2.4 TRILLION IN 2023 – STUDY

The Ukraine War Helped Push World Military Spending to a 35-year High; a Study Says … Tensions in Asia and the Middle East also contributed.

A US Army M1A1 Abrams tank with mounted mine roller, as delivered to Ukraine. © Getty Images/picture-alliance / Contributor

By Lara Jakes (Lara Jakes writes about weapons and military aid for Ukraine.)

New York Times
22Apri 2024

The world spent more on military costs and weapons in 2023 than it had in 35 years, driven in part by the war in Ukraine and the threat [editor: the propaganda that elicits fear of an impending or] an expanded Russian invasion, according to an independent analysis released on Monday.

The study, by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, concluded that global military spending reached $2.4 trillion last year—a 6.8 percent increase from 2022. Analysts found that growing tensions in Asia and the Middle East contributed to the rise. The United States spent $916 billion—more than one-third of the total—as the world’s largest military spender and weapons supplier.

“The unprecedented rise in military spending is a direct response to the global deterioration in peace and security,” said Nan Tian, a senior researcher at the institute who has been tracking military expenditures since at least 1988.

He described an “increasingly volatile geopolitical and security landscape.”

Ukraine devoted $64.8 billion to its military in 2023, its first full year of war with Russia. That accounted for 58 percent of the government’s overall spending last year and 37 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. Analysts found that only seven other countries spent more on military and defense costs than Ukraine in 2023.

…

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the figure marks the sharpest year-on-year jump since 2009.

RT Staff

HomeWorld News
22 April 2024

Military spending is soaring globally, with substantial increases recorded in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on Monday. Total global military expenditure was up 6.8% in real terms last year, reaching an all-time high of $2.4 trillion.

The figure marks the steepest year-on-year increase since 2009, the report shows, with the top three spenders last year being the United States, China, and Russia.

The US, which spends more on defense than any other nation, ramped expenditures by 2.3% to $916 billion, representing 68% of total NATO military spending.

China allocated an estimated $296 billion to its military in 2023, an increase of 6% from 2022. Thus, the country accounted for half the total military spending across Asia and Oceania.

The report indicated that the Ukraine conflict has led to increased spending by Kyiv and Moscow and “a whole host” of European countries.

Russia’s outlays rose 24% to an estimated $109 billion in 2023, according to SIPRI. The country’s spending on its armed forces made up 16% of the total government budget, and its military burden (military spending as a share of gross domestic product) was 5.9%.

Ukraine was the eighth largest spender in 2023 after a 51% surge to $64.8 billion. SIPRI noted that the country also received $35 billion in military aid, most coming from the US, meaning the combined aid and spending equaled over nine-tenths of Russia’s.

SIPRI said Ukraine’s defense expenditures equaled 37% of GDP and 58% of the government budget, adding that the room for a further increase is now “minimal.”

The study found that in 2023, NATO’s 31 members accounted for $1.3 trillion, 55% of the world’s military expenditure. In Europe, Poland had the most significant increase by far, up by 75% to $31.6 billion.

“For European NATO states, the past two years of war in Ukraine have fundamentally changed the security outlook,” said Lorenzo Scarazzato, a researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. “This shift in threat [editor: fear] perceptions is reflected in growing shares of GDP being directed towards military spending, with the NATO target of 2% increasingly being seen as a baseline rather than a threshold to reach.”

The report also highlighted that geopolitical tensions in the Middle East have fueled the most significant defense spending increases in the past decade. Regional military expenditures increased by 9% to $200 billion in 2023. Israel’s budget—the second largest in the region after Saudi Arabia—jumped by 24% to $27.5 billion last year, SIPRI concluded.

A SATURDAY MASSACRE IN CONGRESS

On a Saturday to mark and remember, congress funds two wars and hands the intelligence agencies sweeping new surveillance power, getting nothing in return.

We did it! We sold everybody out!

By Matt Taibbi

Substack.com
21 April 2024

Saturday, April 20th, 2024. The NBA opened its playoff season, the city of Pinecrest, Florida, was overrun by peacocks, and congressional Republicans cozied up to Democrats in one of the all-time legislative betrayals, overriding voter sentiment to hand the national security establishment a series of historic unearned victories.

               Do members of Congress work for voters or the Pentagon and the Intelligence Community?

               You be the judge:

SURRENDER #1: CONGRESS ALLOWS THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH TO RE-AUTHORIZE ITS POWER

The first betrayal began with a lie. Heading into the weekend, it was widely reported that unless the Senate reauthorized section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which, among other things, allows the government to collect communications of Americans without a warrant, an April 19th deadline would expire. Our poor government would be forced to make do for whole days, if not longer, without warrantless spying authority.

A typical headline was, “House to take up the bill to reauthorize crucial US spy program as expiration date looms,” as the AP put it. House Speaker Mike Johnson was one of many politicians who pushed the notion, saying on April 12th, “We still have time on the clock” to get FISA re-authorized by the 19th.

This was all fake. The law was already extended. On April 5th of this year, Joe Biden’s Department of Justice effectively granted itself a one-year extension of FISA, meaning the deadline was April 2025. Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin and others repeatedly announced the fact, even on the Senate floor, but the press didn’t report it.

“The U.S. Department of Justice has already obtained a fresh one-year certification from this Court to continue Section 702 surveillance through April of 2025,” Durbin said Thursday while arguing the need to require warrants to spy on Americans. “There is no need for the Senate to swallow whole a House bill that expands—rather than reforms—Section 702.”

Similarly, at the end of last year, Section 702 had been set to “expire” on December 31st amid another panic. Congressional leaders inserted an extension through April 19th into the “must-pass” National Defense Authorization Act, seemingly tying the FISA extension to all military appropriations and staving off the horror of even temporary FISA-less existence.

But that, too, was fake. As the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and over two dozen other groups wrote to congressional leaders at the end of last year, the government was already conducting surveillance “under a one-year FISA Court authorization” from the previous year.

In other words, the Executive Branch has been re-authorizing itself for two years. Congress has set the precedent that spy agencies need not ask permission to do anything.

The only actual check on the continuation of the FISA program is the court, which approved the Department of Justice’s request in late February of this year for an early extension. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen told the New York Times when the request was made that bypassing Congress was necessary because it is “our responsibility” to “avoid a dangerous gap in the collection.”

“Our” responsibility. Not yours.

Nonetheless, having Congressional approval is better than not, so yesterday, the Senate passed reauthorization of section 702 in a blowout. The 60-34 win included the crushing defeat of two key amendments. Durbin’s amendment seeking the requirement of a warrant to review Americans' communications was squashed 50-42. An even more critical Amendment introduced by Democrat Ron Wyden and Republican Cynthia Lummis (it ended up being called the Wyden-Hawley amendment) was routed 58-34.

That one was designed to cut out a seemingly small provision, covered here last week, that massively expands the number of companies and individuals who’ll be forced to cooperate with FISA surveillance requests under the new law. The new provision has been dubbed the “Everybody is a Spy” law, and all it needs now is someone to help Joe Biden add his signature.

SURRENDER #2: KILL FISA, BUT NOT REALLY?

“KILL FISA; IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME!” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on April 10th:

It would take too long to chronicle all the huffing and puffing Republicans have done about FISA in recent years after it was used illegally as part of an investigation into Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016, but also to obtain the communications of “tens of thousands of protesters, racial justice activists, 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign, journalists, and members of the U.S. Congress.” Republican as a result now overwhelmingly oppose reauthorization of FISA, and members like Devin Nunes effectively sacrificed their careers to expose its misuse. How could the party cave on this issue?

When Trump posted “KILL FISA,” it coincided with a move among a cadre of House Republicans to block a procedural vote allowing a vote on the overall bill. It was the fourth such instance and deemed a “major embarrassment” for leadership, suggesting that Trump, rather than Johnson, really controlled the House caucus.

Despite all this, two days later, Trump received Johnson at Mar-a-Lago and gave the appearance of backing him against a leadership challenge, among other things, over this issue. “He’s doing a great job,” Trump said. Once Johnson cast the critical vote to reauthorize warrantless FISA, it set the stage for yesterday’s Senate vote.

To say this is confusing is an understatement. Both Trump and Johnson spent much time talking about the border in their presser, but a significant subtext was mutual surrender on other issues like FISA. There is no price that Trump could extract from Johnson that would make giving in on FISA worth it, politically. Was Republican opposition to FISA ever real?

SURRENDER #3: UKRAINE

Shortly after Saturday’s FISA vote in the Senate, the Johnson-led House voted overwhelmingly to approve $91 billion in foreign aid, including $61 billion in assistance for war in Ukraine. The House also approved a ban on TikTok, which was part of the same vote. This measure passed by an astonishing 311-112 margin, and just three hours later, the Pentagon announced it was considering sending more military advisers to Kyiv.

Start with the obvious. As Democrats increasingly don’t want funding for Israel, Republican voters do not want more spending in Ukraine. This is from a Gallup poll in March when Republicans were still refusing to budge on Ukraine funding:

Seeing that poll, it was hard to imagine House Republicans folding on Ukraine funding anytime soon. Then, in the first week of April, a source sent a mailer from a high-profile weapons lobby firm, offering an assessment of Johnson’s intentions:

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) made news last weekend when he laid out a plan for passing Ukraine aid in a Fox News interview after previously remaining circumspect… This statement was significant because it demonstrated political will from Johnson that he hadn’t expressed in the past… Now that Johnson has put his oar in the water, we expect he will see it through… We don’t expect Johnson to walk away from Ukraine aid… he sees it as a quasi-must-pass issue.

From the moment Johnson first put his “oar in the water” on Ukraine on April Fool’s Day, it took less than three weeks to guide the caucus to forking over $61 billion to the Pentagon, whose Defense Secretary just a few months ago was threatening members in a classified briefing to send “your uncles, cousins, and sons to fight Russia.”

In a few months, the House went from not having the votes to pass Ukraine aid to a 199-vote victory. What happened?

On December 20th, after refusing to support $60 billion in new military aid for Ukraine sought by the White House, Johnson insisted his intransigence wasn’t a negotiation tactic. Yes, Republicans wanted more funding for border security, but they also needed to see a plan. What was the money for beyond continued fighting? Johnson said he’d been demanding answers since being named Speaker last October:

               Since I was handed the gavel as Speaker for clarity, I have asked the White House if we need a clear articulation of the strategy to allow Ukraine to win, and thus far, their responses have been insufficient… The Biden Administration seems to be asking for billions of additional dollars with no appropriate oversight, no clear strategy to win, and none of the answers I think the American people owe.

Johnson was reiterating conditions laid out first at a meeting with Jake Sullivan after being named Speaker, then again in a letter to Joe Biden on December 4th, in which he said Republican support was dependent upon “security at our border, and critical answers regarding the funds requested.” Johnson added that “in light of the current state of the U.S. economy,” American taxpayers “deserve a full accounting of how prior U.S. military and humanitarian aid has been spent” and an explanation for “failure thus far to present clearly defined objectives.”

Translated from Congress-ese, Johnson’s message was, Israel yes, Ukraine no.

The White House and Pentagon both threw fits, seeming to understand this was crucial. To the administration’s left, support for aid to Israel was eroding quickly. To Joe Biden’s right, Republicans were refusing to budge on Ukraine. White House sources told reporters we were on the precipice of sending American troops, and then Biden said it out loud.

“If NATO is attacked,” Biden chirped, “We’ll have American troops fighting Russian troops. We can’t let Putin win.” At roughly the same time, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin chewed out Hill Republicans with his rant about their “uncles and cousins,” we began to hear reports that House Republicans had laid down the law. It was “H.R. 2 or bust,” they said, referring to a comprehensive border security package whose passage was supposedly a precondition for even considering Ukraine aid.

Fast forward to yesterday. A compromise immigration bill, H.R. 3602, also went to a vote yesterday and failed 215-199. H.R. 2 passed the House last year but not the Senate. The vote on the similar 3602 bill was widely seen as a sham tactic designed to decouple immigration from military aid. It doesn’t matter your views on border security or immigration: this is a clear example of congressional leaders walking back theatrical demands to pass legislation their constituents don’t want.

Right on cue, after yesterday’s surrender to Langley and the Pentagon, CNN ran, “By passing Ukraine aid, the accidental speaker became an unlikely Churchill.”

Churchill speaks.

Mike Johnson is now Winston Churchill. All he had to do was give the NSA unlimited spying power, overrule constituents about funding two wars, and support allowing the government to block a platform used by 60 million Americans.

In return, he got nothing. There was no immigration reform, no articulation of benchmarks or a plan for success in Ukraine, no accounting for past spending, no insistence on warrants to spy on Americans, no concession that FISA can only be reauthorized by Congress, and no claw-back of a significant new “Everybody is a Spy” surveillance ask. Johnson traded his starting lineup for the proverbial bag of balls.

History will look back at the moment below from April 12th, just before the House passed FISA, and wonder about a last comment from Johnson. The Speaker talks about being initially horrified by the FBI’s “terrible abuses, hundreds of thousands of abuses” of FISA by the FBI.

But “then when I became Speaker, I went to the [secure briefing room] and got a confidential briefing” from intelligence officials and heard “sort of the other perspective on that.” It “gave him a different perspective.”

I’ll bet it did. Why even have congressional leaders? If they don’t even demand high prices to sell voters out, what’s the point?

Read more: ‘America's Adults in the Room Are Revolting, by Matt Taibbi, Substack.com, 22 April 2024.

“After betraying voters to lead a weekend wipeout in Congress for the war-and-spying crowd, Mike Johnson was granted honorary "adult" status by adoring pundits.”

IRAN THREATENS TO WIPE OUT ISRAEL

President Raisi has sent a pointed warning to West Jerusalem.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi arrives in Islamabad, Pakistan, on April 22, 2024. © Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs via AP

HomeWorld News

23 April 2024

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has threatened Israel with annihilation if it attempts to attack Iran again.

Raisi arrived in Pakistan on Monday for a three-day visit. On Tuesday, he addressed the recent tensions between Tehran and West Jerusalem at a Punjab event.

               “If the Zionist regime once again makes a mistake and attacks the sacred land of Iran, the situation will be different, and it is not clear whether anything will remain of this regime,” the state news agency IRNA quoted Raisi as saying.

Israel never officially acknowledged an April 1 airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, that killed seven senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. Tehran nevertheless retaliated on April 13, firing scores of drones and missiles at several targets in Israel.

Iran has shrugged off a series of reported explosions near the city of Isfahan last Friday, which were rumored to be a response from Israel. West Jerusalem did not acknowledge the reported attack while criticizing a cabinet minister who spoke about it out of turn. Tehran ignored it rather than deliver the promised swift and severe reprisal.

The Islamic Republic has vowed on multiple occasions to wipe out, destroy, or eradicate the “Zionist regime,” as it calls Israel.

Speaking in Lahore on Tuesday, Raisi vowed to continue “honorably supporting the Palestinian resistance.” He also denounced the US and the collective West as “the greatest violators of human rights,” pointing to their support for the Israeli “genocide” in Gaza.

So far, more than 34,000 Palestinians in the enclave have been killed in Israeli military operations. Israel declared war on Hamas after the October 7 raids by the Gaza-based Palestinian group that claimed the lives of an estimated 1,200 Israelis.

Raisi has promised to boost Iranian trade with Pakistan to $10 billion annually. Relations between the two neighbors have been rocky since January when Iran and Pakistan traded air and drone strikes aimed at “terrorist camps” in their respective territories.

SEYMOUR HERSH | THEY KNEW THERE WAS NO BOMB

Why Israel did not attack Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons facility

Satellite imagery from 2013 of the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant in Iran. / Satellite image (c) 2020 Maxar Technologies.

By Seymour Hersh

Substack.com
24 April 2024

The tit-for-tat attacks between Israel and Iran that consumed much of the world’s attention over the past two weeks reached a crescendo on April 13, when an Iranian drone and missile assault on Israel failed after an armada of allied fighter planes—secretly organized by the Pentagon, with the support of Russia—shot down more than three hundred armed Iranian drones and missiles headed for targets in Israel.

The Middle East and the Western world anxiously waited for the Israeli response. It came a few days later when two Israeli fighter planes, operating outside Iran’s border, fired supersonic missiles at a high-tech Iranian defensive missile site that was protecting Iran’s most crucial nuclear enrichment site near Natanz, eighty miles north of Isfahan.

The New York Times, in a dispatch from Washington, depicted the attack as limited but a ‘potentially big signal” to the Iranian leadership. The message was that Israel was willing and capable of attacking the heart of Iran’s most important weapons complex: “The taboo against direct strikes on each other’s territory was now gone.” Similar worried assessments were published around the world. A later Times report told of a conversation between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which the unpredictable Israeli leader was said to have been talked out of further and far more aggressive attacks. The world had perhaps moved away from the brink.

The Israeli decision to strike the Iranian missile defense site, and not the enrichment facility at Natanz itself, was seen in a far different light by political and weapons experts in the American intelligence community. Targeting the missiles was viewed as what a poker player would call a “tell”—a hint of a far deeper meaning.

For decades, the Israeli leadership—especially Netanyahu—has repeatedly warned the world of Iran’s burgeoning nuclear capability and dismissed the fact that the Iranian program has been under supervision and constant camera watch of the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. Two highly secret American National Intelligence Estimates, in 2007 and 2011, made public by this reporter in the New Yorker, also concluded that Iran had made no effort to fabricate its suspected highly enriched nuclear materials into a warhead. America’s nuclear weapons experts, despite years of efforts, have failed to find any evidence of an underground Iranian facility capable of turning highly enriched uranium into a weapon.

Now, given free rein and a rare measure of international support to respond to the Iranian missile barrage, Israel chose not to attack the enrichment facility itself.

“This was it,” an American intelligence official told me. In a series of backchannel talks, the Israelis were advised that they had three options for retaliation. The first was “a massive, crippling strike that would escalate the war and further degrade Israel’s world standing.” The second was “a limited strike on the greatest threat to you and the world by taking out Natanz—if you believe that Iran has the bomb or are about to. You can justify the strike as restrained and justified.” And the third: “If you know that Iran does not yet have or is not about to have the bomb, show your hidden hand—preemption ability—standoff hypersonic targeting at will, but pass on [targeting] the enrichment facility at Natanz.

“Here’s your chance,” the Israelis were told, “to tell the world, currently paralyzed by fear of the Iranian nuclear threat, not to worry. Iran does not pose a threat, and you know it. This opens a new opportunity for risk-free negotiating strength for the West and the Middle East. You will begin to show balanced judgment, put Gaza behind, and shed the rogue elephant rep.”

The American official said some states in the Middle East got the message. He thought the officials running foreign policy in the Biden Administration “had no clue” about what had happened.

In essence, he said, “Israel called the bluff,” as in a poker game, “on itself. We say to ourselves that we are glad that the Israelis were moderate” in their attack on Iran, “but nobody here has asked the right question. Did Israel want to show to the world that it could hit an Iranian air defense site with a hypersonic super weapon?

“The Israeli decision not to take out Natanz could lead to a whole new Middle East, and Iran will now be free to join the world,” the official said. “Israel showed that the Iranian bomb was a false alarm. Something potentially great has happened.”

A Reader’s Response | “Iran doesn’t need a bomb to destroy the West. We are doing it to ourselves from within. Look at our education system, intelligence operations, uni party, and fourth-turning presidential candidates. The removal of our civil liberties. If you don’t think we are on the verge of World War III, we have ignored Sarajevo in 1917 and Germany in 1939.”

NY TIMES GUEST ESSAY | I THOUGHT THE BRAGG CASE AGAINST TRUMP WAS A LEGAL EMBARRASSMENT. NOW I THINK IT’S A HISTORIC MISTAKE.

After initially thinking the Bragg case against Trump was a legal embarrassment, I now believe it to be a historic mistake.

Credit...Mark Peterson for The New York Times

By Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Professor of Law at Boston University
New York Times
23 April 2024

About a year ago, when Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, indicted former President Donald Trump, I was critical of the case and called it an embarrassment. I thought an array of legal problems would and should lead to long delays in federal courts.

After listening to Monday’s opening statement by prosecutors, I still think the Manhattan D.A. has made a historic mistake. Their vague allegation about “a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” has me more concerned than ever about their unprecedented use of state law and their persistent avoidance of specifying an election crime or a valid theory of fraud.

To recap, Mr. Trump is accused of falsifying business records, which are misdemeanor charges. Mr. Bragg and his team have pointed to potential violations of federal election law and state tax fraud to elevate the case to a criminal case. They also cite state election law, but state statutory definitions of “public office” seem to limit those statutes to state and local races.

Both the misdemeanor and felony charges require that the defendant made the false record with “intent to defraud.” A year ago, I wondered how entirely internal business records (the daily ledger, pay stubs, and invoices) could be the basis of any fraud if they are not shared with anyone outside the business. I suggested that the actual fraud was Mr. Trump’s filing an (allegedly) false report to the Federal Election Commission, and only federal prosecutors had jurisdiction over that filing.

A recent conversation with Jeffrey Cohen, a friend, Boston College law professor and former prosecutor, made me think that the case could be more legitimate than I had originally thought. The reason concerns those allegedly falsified business records: Most were entered in early 2017, generally before Mr. Trump filed his Federal Election Commission report that summer. Mr. Trump may have foreseen an investigation into his campaign, leading to its financial records. Mr. Trump may have falsely recorded these internal records before the F.E.C. filing as consciously part of the same fraud: to create a consistent paper trail and to hide intent to violate federal election laws or defraud the F.E.C.

In short, it’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up.

Looking at the case in this way might address concerns about state jurisdiction. In this scenario, Mr. Trump also intended to deceive state investigators. State investigators could find these inconsistencies and alert federal agencies. Prosecutors could argue that New York State agencies have an interest in detecting conspiracies to defraud federal entities; they might also have a plausible answer to significant questions about whether New York State has jurisdiction or whether this stretch of a state business filing law is pre-empted by federal law.

However, this explanation is a novel interpretation with many significant legal problems. And none of the Manhattan D.A.’s filings or today’s opening statement even hint at this approach.

Instead of a theory of defrauding state regulators, Mr. Bragg has adopted a weak theory of “election interference.”

In his summary during jury selection, Justice Juan Merchan described the case as an allegation of falsifying business records “to conceal an agreement with others to unlawfully influence the 2016 election.”

As a reality check, it is legal for a candidate to pay for a nondisclosure agreement. Hush money is inappropriate, but it is legal. The election law scholar Richard Hasen rightly observed, “Calling it election interference cheapens the term and undermines the deadly serious charges in the real election interference cases.”

In Monday’s opening argument, the prosecutor, Matthew Colangelo, still evaded specifics about what was illegal about influencing an election, but then he claimed, “It was election fraud, pure and simple.”

None of the relevant state or federal statutes refer to filing violations as fraud. Calling it “election fraud” is a legal and strategic mistake. It exaggerates the case and sets the jury with high expectations that the prosecutors cannot meet.

The most accurate description of this criminal case is a federal campaign finance filing violation. Without a federal violation (which the state election statute is tethered to), Mr. Bragg cannot upgrade the misdemeanor counts into felonies. Moreover, it is unclear how this case would even fulfill the misdemeanor requirement of “intent to defraud” without the federal crime.

In stretching jurisdiction and trying a federal crime in state court, the Manhattan D.A. is now pushing untested legal interpretations and applications. Three red flags raise concerns about selective prosecution upon appeal.

First, I could find no previous case of any state prosecutor relying on the Federal Election Campaign Act either as a direct crime or a predicate crime. Whether state prosecutors have avoided doing so as a matter of law, norms, or lack of expertise, this novel attempt is a sign of overreach.

Second, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the New York statute requires that the predicate (underlying) crime be a New York crime, not a crime in another jurisdiction. The Manhattan D.A. responded with judicial precedents only about other criminal statutes, not the statute in this case. Ultimately, they could not cite a judicial interpretation of this statute supporting their use of it (a plea deal and a single jury instruction do not count).

Third, no New York precedent has allowed an interpretation of defrauding the general public. Legal experts have noted that such a broad “election interference” theory is unprecedented, and a conviction based on it may not survive a state appeal.

Mr. Trump’s legal team undercut itself for its decisions in the past year: His lawyers essentially put all of their eggs in the meritless basket of seeking to move the trial to federal court instead of seeking a federal injunction to stop the trial entirely. If they had raised the issues of selective or vindictive prosecution and a mix of jurisdictional, pre-emption, and constitutional claims, they could have delayed the trial past Election Day, even if they lost at each federal stage.

Another reason a federal crime has wound up in state court is that President Biden’s Justice Department bent over backward not to reopen this valid case or appoint a special counsel. Mr. Trump has tried to blame Mr. Biden for this prosecution as the actual “election interference.” The Biden administration’s extra restraint belies this allegation and deserves more credit.

Eight years after the alleged crime, it is reasonable to ask if this is more about Manhattan politics than New York law. This case should be a cautionary tale about broader prosecutorial abuses in America and promote bipartisan reforms of our partisan prosecutorial system.

Nevertheless, prosecutors should have some latitude in developing their case during trial, and maybe they will be more careful and precise about the underlying crime, fraud, and jurisdictional questions. Mr. Trump has received sufficient notice of the charges and can raise his arguments on appeal. In the Supreme Court's terms, a critical principle of “our Federalism” is abstention, which means that federal courts should generally allow state trials to proceed first and wait to hear challenges later.

This case is still an embarrassment of prosecutorial ethics and apparent selective prosecution. Nevertheless, each side should have its day in court. Mr. Trump can fight many other days—and perhaps win—in appellate courts if convicted. But the prosecutors might not win a conviction if Monday’s opening previews exaggerated allegations, imprecise legal theories, and persistently unaddressed problems.

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By Abraham A. van Kempen

Senior Editor
Updated 19 January 2024

Those who commit to 'healing our broken humanity' build intercultural bridges to learn to know and understand one another and others. Readers who thumb through the Building the Bridge (BTB) pages are not mindless sheep following other mindless sheep. They THINK. They want to be at the forefront of making a difference. They're in search of the bigger picture to expand their horizons. They don't need BTB or anyone else to confirm their biases.

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanism for Many to Move Mountains

Accurate knowledge promotes understanding, dispels prejudice, and awakens the desire to learn more. Words have an extraordinary power to bring people together, divide them, forge bonds of friendship, or provoke hostility. Modern technology offers unprecedented possibilities for good, fostering harmony and reconciliation. Yet its misuse can do untold harm, leading to misunderstanding, prejudice, and conflict.

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