Monday, December 30, 2013

324 Gilad Atzmon: Left wing jews are NOT speaking about the most important fact.

This blog: http://tinyurl.com/qa6x7x3 or  tinyurl.com/qa6x7x3



Here I want to give you 3 articles: 

1.  Gilad Atzmon: "The role of the Left ... is to stop us from looking 
into Jewish power"

2. ) French filosopher Finkielkraut gives an interview to Der Spiegel. he states: Left denies Cash of Civilizations ( This clash is between Islam and the West,  whose Civ. has been destroyed).

3. Gilad Atzmon's critique on Finkielkraut:It's the French Left (jewish!)  that has destroyed Western Civilization, and now suppresses discussion about the real situation:  Jewish hegemony.

I find the first article an eye-opener. 
Yes, people like Amy Goodman and Chomsky are indeed not talking about the real elephant in the room: the fact that the Jews decide which subjects are discussed, and which are not discussed. 
They controle the Media.  They are, as Israel Shamir calls it:  the Masters of Discourse.

The result is that most people have no idea what is happening in this world. 
Not when Israel is involved.
Yes, we know about the intifada, about the iron Wall, about the Gaza War etc.  But those are the visible things.  Most people have no idea that Iraq and Iran and Syria were destroyed because it is good for Israel. 
If it were not good for Israel, they would never have been destroyed. 
If it were not good for Israel, 911 would never have happened. 
If it were not good for Israel , we would not see all this muslim-bashing in the media. 


I have changed nothing in the text. But I made some remarks myself: in red. 
And I made bold some parts in the original text, and underlined some sentences.   



(1) Gilad Atzmon: "The role of the Left ... is to stop us from looking
into Jewish power"

Radio interview with Ryan Dawson

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/ryan-dawson-interviews-gilad-atzmon-very-interesting.html

27 Oct 2013

"In fact, I actually argue that the so-called anti-Zionists are actually
far more dangerous - and this is crucial. You see, I like to talk about
Jewish power: there is no doubt that the Jewish power plays a major role
in contemporary politics, banking and so on. The Jewish Lobby openly
pushes for a war in Syria; and, before that, conflict with Iran and so
on. There is no doubt about it.

"However, I argue that all those events can be easily checked - you can
read my book, and John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt about the Israeli
Lobby, you can read James Petras, you can read Jeff Blankfort, and so
on. I argue that what they describe is not Jewish power; it is just
symptoms of Jewish power.


"The real meaning of Jewish power is the capacity to stop us from
talking about Jewish power.
The Jewish power is not the embodiment of
the pro-Zionists, for instance. ... Jewish power is the successful
tendency to stop us from looking into it. Now this is not done by
Dershowitz, or Foxman - ADL Foxman. This is done by the Jewish Left, and
the Left in general. The role of the Left, and the Jewish Left in
particular, is to stop us from looking into Jewish power. In other
words, the definition of Jewish power is the capacity to stop us from
looking into Jewish power."


"And this is exactly what Noam Chomsky did on Democracy Now, when he had
to discuss John Mearsheimer. He dismissed his whole approach, instead of
discussing it. Finkelstein – Norman Finkelstein - did pretty much the
same thing. By the way, Democracy Now should have brought Stephen Walt
and John Mearsheimer to debate Chomsky; but they didn't. They operated
as an instrument of Jewish power, diverting attention from the issue.

"Now, it is not a secret, that the vast majority of Progressive
organizations in America, the vast majority of Palestinian NGOs, the
vast majority of Palestinian Solidarity groups, are supported by George
Soros' Open Society, who also support the Zionist liberal J Street. And
this is why we see a suspicious similarity between the ideas presented
by liberal Zionism and the progressive network. And this is what
transforms the Left - which stands for beautiful values, that I respect
to a certain extent - this is what transforms the Left into a dubious
network of Controlled Opposition.
"




(2) Finkielkraut: Left denies Cash of Civilizations (Islam vs a West
whose Civ. has been destroyed)

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-french-philosopher-finkielkraut-on-muslims-and-integration-a-937404.html

French Philosopher Finkielkraut: 'There Is a Clash of Civilizations'

Interview Conducted by Mathieu von Rohr and Romain Leick

French society is under threat, argues philosopher Alain Finkielkraut in
a controversial new book. The conservative spoke to SPIEGEL about what
he sees as the failure of multiculturalism and the need for better
integration of Muslim immigrants.

Alain Finkielkraut is one of France's most controversial essayists. His
new book, "L'Identité Malheureuse" ("The Unhappy Identity," Éditions
Stock ), has been the subject of heated debate. It comes at a time when
France finds itself in the midst of an identity crisis. But rather than
framing things from a social or political perspective, Finkielkraut
explores what he sees as a hostile confrontation between indigenous
French people and immigrants. He was interviewed in his Parisian
apartment on the Left Bank.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Finkielkraut, are you unhappy with today's France?

Finkielkraut: I am pained to see that the French mode of European
civilization is threatened. France is in the process of transforming
into a post-national and multicultural society. It seems to me that this
enormous transformation does not bring anything good.

SPIEGEL: Why is that? Post-national and multicultural sounds rather
promising.

Finkielkraut: It is presented to us as the model for the future. But
multiculturalism does not mean that cultures blend. Mistrust prevails,
communitarianism is rampant -- parallel societies are forming that
continuously distance themselves from each other.

SPIEGEL: Aren't you giving in here to the right-wingers' fears of demise?

Finkielkraut: The lower middle classes -- the French that one no longer
dares to call Français de souche (ethnic French) -- are already moving
out of the Parisian suburbs and farther into the countryside. They have
experienced that in some neighborhoods they are the minority in their
own country. They are not afraid of the others, but rather of becoming
the others themselves.

SPIEGEL: But France has always been a country of immigrants.

Finkielkraut: We are constantly told that immigration is a constitutive
element of the French identity. But that's not true. Labor migration
began in the 19th century. It was not until after the bloodletting of
World War I that the borders were largely opened.

SPIEGEL: Immigration has had more of a formative influence on France
than on Germany.

Finkielkraut: Immigration used to go hand-in-hand with integration into
French culture. That was the rule of the game. Many of the new arrivals
no longer want to play by that rule. If the immigrants are in the
majority in their neighborhoods, how can we integrate them? There used
to be mixed marriages, which is crucial to miscegenation. But their
numbers are declining. Many Muslims in Europe are re-Islamizing
themselves. A woman who wears the veil effectively announces that a
relationship with a non-Muslim is out of the question for her.

SPIEGEL: Aren't many immigrants excluded from mainstream society
primarily for economic reasons?

Finkielkraut: The left wanted to resolve the problem of immigration as a
social issue, and proclaimed that the riots in the suburbs were a kind
of class struggle. We were told that these youths were protesting
against unemployment, inequality and the impossibility of social
advancement. In reality we saw an eruption of hostility toward French
society. Social inequality does not explain the anti-Semitism, nor the
misogyny in the suburbs, nor the insult "filthy French." The left does
not want to accept that there is a clash of civilizations.

SPIEGEL: The anger of these young people is also stirred up by high
unemployment. They are turning their backs on society because they feel
excluded.

Finkielkraut: If unemployment is so high, then immigration has to be
more effectively controlled. Apparently there is not enough work for
everyone. But just ask the teachers in these troubled neighborhoods --
they have major difficulties teaching anything at all. Compared to the
rappers and the dealers, the teachers earn so ridiculously little that
they are viewed with contempt. Why should the students make an effort to
follow in their footsteps? There are a large number of young people who
don't want to learn anything about French culture. This refusal makes it
harder for them to find work.

SPIEGEL: These neighborhoods that you speak of, have you even seen them
firsthand?

Finkielkraut: I watch the news; I read books and studies. I have never
relied on my intuition.

SPIEGEL: In the US the coexistence of communities works better. The
Americans don't have this European adherence to a national uniform culture.

Finkielkraut: The US sees itself as a country of immigration, and what
is impressive about this truly multicultural society is the strength of
its patriotism. This was particularly evident after the attacks of
September 11, 2001. In France, however, the opposite could be seen after
the attacks on French soldiers and Jewish children in Toulouse and
Montauban last year: Some schoolchildren saw Mohamed Merah, the
assailant, as a hero. Something like that would be unthinkable in the
US. American society is a homeland for everyone. I don't think that many
children of immigrants here see it that way.

SPIEGEL: America makes it easy for new arrivals to feel like Americans.
Does France place the hurdles too high?

Finkielkraut: France prohibits students from wearing headscarves at
school. This is also for the benefit of all Muslims who don't want a
religious cage for themselves, for their daughters and wives. France is
a civilization, and the question is what it means to participate in it.
Does this mean the natives have to make themselves extremely small so
the others can easily spread themselves out? Or does it mean passing on
the culture that one possesses?

SPIEGEL: But this has worked for a long time. The Italians, Spaniards,
Poles and European Jews had no difficulties becoming French patriots.
Why is this no longer working?

Finkielkraut: Why is there today such aggression toward the West in the
Islamic world? Some say that France was a colonial power, which is why
those who were colonized could not be happy. But why has Europe been
subjected to this massive immigration from former colonies over the past
half a century? France still has to pay for the sins of colonialism and
settle its debt to those who vilify it today.

SPIEGEL: You yourself are the child of immigrants, the progeny of a
persecuted family. Does your personal will to integrate explain your
radical commitment to the values of the Republic?

Finkielkraut: I defend these values because I probably owe more to my
schooling than do the Français de souche, the hereditary French. French
traditions and history were not laid in my cradle. Anyone who does not
bring along this heritage can acquire it in l'école républicaine, the
French school system. It has expanded my horizons and allowed me to
immerse myself in French civilization.

SPIEGEL: And made you into its apologist?

Finkielkraut: I can speak and write more openly than others precisely
because I am not a hereditary Frenchman. The natives easily allow
themselves to be unnerved by the prevailing discourse. I don't have such
complexes.

SPIEGEL: How do you define this French civilization that you speak of?

 >Finkielkraut: I recently reread a book by the admirable Russian writer
Isaac Babel. The story takes place in Paris. The narrator is in a hotel
and at night he hears the lovemaking sounds of the couples next door.
Babel writes: This has nothing to do with what one hears in Russia --
it's much more fiery. Then his French friend responds: We >French
created women, literature and cuisine. No one can take that from us.

SPIEGEL: Those are idealized clichés that nations create for themselves.

Finkielkraut: But it is true, or at least it was in the past. France
can't allow itself to bask in its own glory. But it has evidence of its
civilization, just like Germany -- it has its sights, its squares, its
cafés, its wealth of literature and its artists. We can be proud of
these ancestors, and we have to prove that we are worthy of them. I
regret that Germany -- for reasons that are understandable -- has broken
with this pride in its past. But I believe that German politicians who
speak of Leitkultur -- the guiding national culture -- are right. The
Leitkultur does not create an insurmountable barrier to newcomers.

SPIEGEL: Is the modern French identity still shaped by the Revolution of
1789?

Finkielkraut: Back in 1989, on the 200th anniversary of the revolution,
I signed a petition against the Islamic headscarf. For me it had to do
with the notion of secularism, which is running into criticism around
the world these days. France believed at the time that this was a model
for the world, and is today reminded of its distinctiveness. It is no
longer a question of exporting our model. We have to remain modest, yet
steadfast.

SPIEGEL: But doesn't French secularism today also serve to justify the
aggressive rejection of Islam?

Finkielkraut: How is that? We have prohibited the veil; we have not
banned the individual. Previously schoolgirls were urged to place under
their blouses or sweaters the crosses or medallions of the Virgin Mary
that they wore on their necklaces. That is not asking too much, merely a
bit of restraint on everyone's part. This has nothing to do with
aggression against Muslims.

SPIEGEL: Hasn't Islam long since become a part of Europe, a part of
France and Germany, as former German President Christian Wulff once put it?

Finkielkraut: Former French President Jacques Chirac made a similar
statement. Islam may one day belong to Europe, but only after it has
Europeanized itself. It is not an insult to the others to point out
their otherness.

SPIEGEL: Well, the Muslims are here now. So don't they also belong?

Finkielkraut: The question is: How are they here? Immigrants lose
nothing when they recognize their difference from the established
population. Today the Muslims in France like to shout in an act of
self-assertion: We are just as French as you! It would have never
occurred to my parents to say something like that. I would also never
say that I am just as French as Charles de Gaulle was.

SPIEGEL: In France immigrants are covered by the jus soli , or "right of
the soil," meaning that every child born there has a right to French
citizenship. Do you want to abolish this?

Finkielkraut: No. But all equality of rights aside, such a child has
become a French national in a manner that differs from descent. The
automatic right to French citizenship by being born on French territory
makes many French people feel uncomfortable these days, because the act
of wanting to be French gets lost in this process. Like most other
Europeans, the French have the feeling that immigration has become an
uncontrolled process -- something that happens, not something that is
willed into being. The countries are not directing this process; at
most, they are escorting it.

SPIEGEL: Isn't it extremely easy to attribute all problems to poverty
immigration from the developing world?

Finkielkraut: A public political debate on the issue is the least that
one could expect. Instead, this field is ceded to the extreme right.

SPIEGEL: How do you view the political rise of Marine Le Pen and her
far-right National Front party?

Finkielkraut: This disturbs me, of course. But the National Front would
not be continuously on the rise if it had not discarded the old issues
of the extreme right. Nowadays the National Front focuses on secularism
and the republic.

SPIEGEL: That sounds as if you could imagine voting for the party.

Finkielkraut: No, I would never do that because this party appeals to
people's base instincts and hatred. And these are easy to kindle among
its supporters. We can't leave these issues to the National Front. It
would also be up to the left, the party of the people, to take seriously
the suffering and anxiety of ordinary people.

SPIEGEL: What do you say to people who call you a reactionary?

Finkielkraut: It has become impossible to see history as constant
progress. I reserve the possibility to compare yesterday and today and
ask the question: What do we retain, what do we abandon?

SPIEGEL: Is that really any more than nostalgia for a lost world?

Finkielkraut: Like Albert Camus, I am of the opinion that our
generation's task is not to recreate the world, but to prevent its
decline. We not only have to conserve nature, but also culture. There
you have the reactionary.

SPIEGEL: When you see all these problems in France -- the debts,
unemployment, educational crisis, identity crisis -- do you fear for the
future?

Finkielkraut: I become sad and feel a growing sense of anxiety. Optimism
would seem a bit ridiculous these days. I wish the politicians were able
to speak the truth and look reality in the face. Then, I believe, France
would be capable of a true awakening -- of contemplating a policy of
civilization.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Finkielkraut, thank you for this interview.

Translated from the German by Paul Cohen

Kristoffer Larsson <krislarsson@gmail.com>

21 December 2013 09:30




(3) Gilad: French Left destroyed Western Civ., now suppresses discussion
of Jewish hegemony

Alain Finkielkraut, Jews, and Immigration

Friday, December 20, 2013 at 11:28AM

By Gilad Atzmon

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/alain-finkielkraut-jews-and-immigration.html
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/12/alain-finkielkraut-jews-and-immigration/

Along the second half of the 20th century many Jewish intellectuals,
activists and artists positioned themselves at the forefront of Western
advocacy of immigration and multiculturalism.
 
Occasionally we were also expected to believe that immigration, tolerance, pluralism and
multiculturalism are intrinsic to Jewish culture and thought.


But as the West became gradually aware of the scale of Israeli racism
and intolerance towards migrant communities, more than just a few
intellectuals were courageous enough to point at a clear discrepancy
between the progressive ideas Jews claim to represent and what their
Jewish State happens to be. 
There aren't many countries that are more anti-immigration than Israel. 
The Jewish State is also very selective 
when it comes to multiculturalism. Israel happily integrated humus and
falafel into its cuisine. It even let a few juicy Arab swear words into
its emerging Hebraic dialect but it has been far less enthusiastic about
Palestinian mourning their own plight and the Nakba in particular.

However, Jewish passion for immigration is clearly fading away these
days. It is not a secret that mass immigration of Muslims and Arabs made
many Western Jews feel uncomfortable to say the least. In recent years
we have been monitoring rapid surge of Jewish involvement in
anti-immigration political and intellectual activity.
Some so-called
'progressive' Jews fight the veil in the name of 'feminism,' others
insist on eradicating Islamic symbolic identifiers in the name of
'secularism.' I guess that even Jewish 'progressive tolerance' has its
limits, especially when it comes to Muslims. However, Zionists are
actually slightly more consistent in that regard: they openly ally
themselves with ultra-nationalist groups such as the hawkish EDL.
Anti-Islam positions are often promoted by Hasbara, interventionist and
neocon outlets such as Harry's Place.
The xenophobic message is also
disseminated via literature, academia and general media. Here in
Britain, journalist celebrity Melanie Phillips published her notorious
Londonistan.


Jewish past support of pro-immigration and multiculturalism is easy to
explain.


For the obvious reasons, many Jews prefer to live in multi-ethnic and
fragmented societies, being one minority amongst many. Identity
politics, pro-immigration and multiculturalism are there to dismantle
the cohesive national and patriotic bond
in favor of a manifold complex
structure consisting of a fragile and dynamic exchange between a
manifold of minority groups.

Jews are often threatened by the possibility that indigenous
lower-middle and working classes may follow their nationalistic and
patriotic inclinations and turn against them.
In that regard, a radical
demographic boost of the working class with a varied mixture of foreign
ethnicities is regarded by progressive Jews as a necessary preventative
measure against anti-semitism.

In many countries jewish people were almost the only minority. The rest of the country was rather homogenous: all christians for instance. All whites. o for this only minority it might be usefull to have more minorities.  The 'white christians' could now direct their frustrations or unhappyness to another scape-goat:  people from Mexico ( USA), India (UK), Surinam( NL), Algeria ( Fr), Turkey or Morocco. 
Where I differ from Atzmon is this: I think there was one more motive for the jews to support immigration:  a 'Multi' society can easily be destroyed, simply by creating internal animosity. So I think that the old strategy of 'devide and conquer' was ALSO a reason for the mass immigration that was promoted by the jewish Masters of Discourse.

But here is an interesting development. Last week Spiegel published an
intriguing interview with Alain Finkielkraut, a French so-called
philosopher and also a Jew and son of immigrants. Finkielkraut is no
longer threatened by 'the lower middle classes.' Quite the opposite, he
actually pretends to be their ally and he even makes himself their
ambassador: "the French that one no longer dares to call Français de
souche (ethnic French) are already moving out of the Parisian suburbs
and farther into the countryside. They have experienced that in some
neighborhoods they are the minority in their own country. They are not
afraid of the others, but rather of becoming the others themselves." In
other words, the ethnic French are now "otherized" together with the
Jews by a tidal wave of Islamic tsunami.

It doesn't take Finkielkraut long before he points directly at the
'enemy within.' "Many Muslims in Europe are re-Islamizing themselves. A
woman who wears the veil effectively announces that a relationship with
a non-Muslim is out of the question for her." I guess that Finkielkraut
finds it unacceptable that Muslims do not buy into the Mendelsohnian
Jewish 'assimilation' paradigm — be a Goy in the street and a Jew in
your dwelling —
the façade of pretending to blend into the masses, yet
adhering to tribal and exclusive supremacy in clandestine fashion.
Muslims, so it seems, are not collectively buying into this duplicity
mode. Seemingly, they are not shy of their love for Allah. They are
actually proud of their symbolic identifiers. These facts alone indeed
have managed to challenge the notion of left and progressive tolerance.
And it isn't exactly a secret — the Left has failed in this tolerance test.

Left and Islam

Finkielkraut may not be a sophisticated mind, but he is not a complete
idiot either. He rightly points at the deceitful nature of the
contemporary progressive and Left call. "The left" he says, "wanted to
resolve the problem of immigration as a social issue, and proclaimed
that the riots in the suburbs were a kind of class struggle. We were
told that these youths were protesting against unemployment, inequality
and the impossibility of social advancement. In reality we saw an
eruption of hostility toward French society." The Jewish thinker then
voices his exact and very particular concern — "social inequality does
not explain anti-Semitism."

Finkielkraut is indeed partially correct, and the 'Left' is indeed
wrong, deluded and misleading. Yet, in a symptomatic attempt to conceal
the truth, Finkielkraut diverts the attention from the vast French
institutional political support of Israel, its racist policies and the
impact of the Jewish lobby in France. Accordingly, it may as well be
possible that anti-Jewish sentiments within migrant communities in
France are provoked by the French pro-Israeli attitude. In other words,
we are dealing here with a clear rational sense of 'inequality' that is
ethnically and politically driven (rather than merely materially).

After all, France is actively and enthusiastically engaged in the
destruction of more than just one Arab State. The ultra-Zionist Bernard
Henri Levy was the leading advocate for the intervention in Libya. In
the last few weeks France went out of its way in its attempts to
jeopardize a UN deal with Iran. Thus, it is only natural that some
Muslims find it hard to accept the unbalanced French pro-Israeli policy.
Would Parisian Jews support France if it decided to bomb an Israeli
Government headquarters in Tel Aviv as a response to Israeli crimes
against humanity? In short, it is more than likely that what
Finkielkraut describes as anti-Semitism is actually a direct reaction to
Jewish power.

Yet, the French Left cannot deal with such a development for the obvious
reason that the Left is in itself an instrument of such power – it is
there to suppress the discussion on issues to do with Jewish political
hegemony and influence.

Civilization: Jewish and Left Perspectives

Finkielkraut continues, "the left does not want to accept that there is
a clash of civilizations." Finkielkraut is correct, for a change, but
for the wrong reasons. The Left cannot accept the notion of such a
'clash' because the Left, similarly to Jewish identity political
discourse, lacks a lucid understanding of the notion of 'civilization'.

This point needs a bit of elaboration. Zionism, according to its early
mentors, was set to 'civilize' the Jew by means of 'nationalization'.
Early Zionists contended that that the diasporic Jewish existence was
actually 'uncivilized'. Interestingly enough, in spite of the Zionist
dream, Hebrew doesn't offer its users a word for 'civilization' and this
is not exactly a coincidence. When Palestinian Israeli MK Azmi Bishara
suggested to civilize the Jewish State and transform it into a 'State of
its Citizens' he became Israel's 'No 1 enemy.' He had to run for his life.

Similarly, the Left is also dotted with a clear animosity towards the
traditional notion of civilization. The progressive commitment to social
change is driven by an attempt to undermine the 'bourgeois'
(reactionary) order. In retrospect, it was the '68 Students Revolution
and its long list of mentors from Antonio Gramsci to the Frankfurt
School that eventually succeeded to devastate the West and to cleanse it
of its most precious traditional assets. Targeting 'hegemony' as the
'enemy of the people', the new Left systematically uprooted every aspect
of Western philosophical and categorical thinking, destabilizing every
cultural, spiritual, intellectual and political domain.

In the name of liberation, the Left and the progressive have managed to
eradicate a sense of authenticity and belonging. Typically we, the
indoctrinated post-revolutionary subjects, often refer to ourselves as
'as a [something]', (as a Jew, as a black, as a lesbian, as an Arab, as
a Gay etc'). Instead of thinking authentically and exploring creatively
the deep dynamic meaning of the 'I', we deliver our thoughts by means of
projections driven by sets of collective identifications. Our sense of
'selfhood' has been hijacked by a contemporaneous, phenomenological,
post-modernist and vain relativism. But in fact phenomenology,
relativism and post-modernism are rootless, they are actually the
complete opposite of civilization or rootedness. They are flaky, they
are contextually and hermeneutically detached and they are also soil-less.

I guess that the Left's imperviousness to the notion of civilization may
explain why the Left has failed systematically in its attempt to bond
with working classes. Marx, I believe, failed to grasp that the working
class is also an expression of rootedness. It is defined by heritage,
patriotism, nationalism, spirit, culture, devotion, dialect, cuisine,
defiance, or shall we say civilization. The working class is also
defined by the negation of other classes' culture and civilization. The
Left's failure to grasp this dialectical mode of thinking that extends
far beyond (dialectical) materialism also explains the Left's incapacity
to bond with Muslims, Europe's current working class. This is indeed
tragic yet far from being a coincidence.

Nevertheless, when the French 'philosopher' Finkielkraut was asked to
define 'French civilization' he had nothing to offer. He referred
initially to French 'fiery' love making. The Spiegel interviewer wasn't
impressed. Then in order to rescue his case Finkielkraut continued and
quoted a 'friend'; "we, French, created women, literature and cuisine.
No one can take that from us." Embarrassingly yet symptomatic, the
'defender' of French civilization himself has a very limited
understanding of the true meaning of France nor can he grasp its
civilization. Finkielkraut happily reduces France to a banal material
symbolism consisting of Brigitte Bardot, baguettes and Balzac, but it is
hard to imagine what kind of 'Muslim Jihadist' would insist to bring
such 'France' down. On the contrary, if French contemporary civilization
is shaped by the powerful Jewish Lobby Crif, Bernard Henri Levy's
interventionist megalomania and tribal philosophy a la Finkielkraut, it
is actually easy to grasp why some French Muslims are irritated by their
republic and its state of affairs.

The Post-Political Condition

There is nothing in Finkielkraut that differentiates him from far
right-wing ideologists except of course his intellectual lameness and
theoretical lacking. Yet, for some peculiar reason, Finkielkraut doesn't
like to be associated with those who promote the politics he actually
preaches. When asked by Spiegel "how do you view the political rise of
Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Front party?" Finkielkraut
replied, "This disturbs me, of course. But the National Front would not
be continuously on the rise if it had not discarded the old issues of
the extreme right. Nowadays the National Front focuses on secularism and
the republic." I guess that Finkielkraut finds it difficult to admit to
himself that he is a hard core Right-winger, it simply doesn't fit
nicely into his Jewish assimilationist image. However, this ideological
discrepancy doesn't mature into a cognitive dissonance. It instead
manifests itself as a disingenuous spin.

Notably, Spiegel didn't fall into the trap. It obviously notices that
the 'new French philosopher' is obviously a right-wing hawk: "That
sounds as if you could imagine voting for the party." To which
Finkielkraut replies, "No, I would never do that because this party
appeals to people's base instincts and hatred. And these are easy to
kindle among its supporters. We can't leave these issues to the National
Front. It would also be up to the left, the party of the people, to take
seriously the suffering and anxiety of ordinary people."

Typically, the man who presents himself as the 'defender' of French
Civilization, the one who voices the plight of the 'lower middle class'
is apparently repulsed by French people's 'base instinct'. Like many
'progressives', Finkielkraut is actually dismissive of the working
class' inclinations and their way of thinking. Finkielkraut prefers
instead to transform the Left into an Islamphobic, national socialist
front. Finkielkraut probably realizes very well that the Left is no
longer an ideological standpoint — it is detached from any form of
universal or ethical thinking. It is only dedicated to its political
survival and its paymasters.

Sadly enough, Finkielkraut's pragmatism may prove to be successful. In
the 'Liberal' West in which we are living in, Left and Right have become
merely political instruments that facilitate similar policies whether it
is perpetrating Zionist interventionist wars or enabling our further
enslavement to bankers and big monopolies. From a popular perspective,
'Left' and 'Right' are means of identification (instead of theoretical,
analytical or political dynamic instruments). This political,
intellectual and ideological paralysis is indeed symptomatic to the
current post-political era.

With Jewish Lobby groups such as the Crif, AIPAC and CFI dominating the
Western political discussion and its outcome, democracy is just a
façade.
But far more disturbing is the fact that in contemporary France,
a uniquely lame mind such as Finkielkraut's is considered a
'philosopher'. In that regard, I would actually argue that Finkielkraut
is himself the ultimate emblem of the collapse of Western Civilization
or at least an evidence of the eradication of the French one.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

323. Demonstrators are often stupid: they work for their future oppressors.

Prof. James Petras, a life long Marxist if I am correct, does have a lot of correct analyses.

Of course I do not agree with his Marxist ideas, but I agree with him that quite often 'the People' are manipulated into demonstrations which do not serve these people, but serve a party that simply wants to take over govenment.
They use the dissatisfaction of the masses to topple the old regime, and then take over power.

An example which you will not find with Petras is this: The jews used the masses to topple the Tsar, and then took power themselves.  The masses were in much bigger trouble than before: in the next 50 years 60 million of them would be killed by their own government. ( R J Rummel) ( B. Russell)


Here is Petras's article, unchanged from ICH :


Oligarchs, Demagogues, and Mass Revolts against Democracy

By James Petras

December 27, 2013 "Information Clearing House - In ancient Rome, especially during the late Republic, oligarchs resorted to mob violence to block, intimidate, assassinate or drive from power the dominant faction in the Senate. While neither the ruling or opposing factions represented the interests of the plebeians, wage workers, small farmers or slaves, the use of the ‘mob’ against the elected Senate, the principle of representative government and the republican form of government laid the groundwork for the rise of authoritarian “Caesars” (military rulers) and the transformation of the Roman republic into an imperial state.
Demagogues, in the pay of aspiring emperors, aroused the passions of a motley array of disaffected slum dwellers, loafers and petty thieves (ladrones) with promises, pay-offs and positions in a New Order. Professional mob organizers cultivated their ties with the oligarchs ‘above’ and with professional demonstrators ‘below’. They voiced ‘popular grievances’ and articulated demands questioning the legitimacy of the incumbent rulers, while laying the groundwork for the rule by the few. Usually, when the pay-master oligarchs came to power on a wave of demagogue-led mob violence, they quickly suppressed the demonstrations, paid off the demagogues with patronage jobs in the new regime or resorted to a discrete assassination for ‘street leaders’ unwilling to recognize the new order’. The new rulers purged the old Senators into exile, expulsion and dispossession, rigged new elections and proclaimed themselves ‘saviors of the republic’. They proceeded to drive peasants from their land, renounce social obligations and stop food subsidies for poor urban families and funds for public works.
The use of mob violence and “mass revolts” to serve the interests of oligarchical and imperial powers against democratically-elected governments has been a common strategy in recent times.
Throughout the ages, the choreographed “mass revolt” played many roles: (1) it served to destabilize an electoral regime; (2) it provided a platform for its oligarch funders to depose an incumbent regime; (3) it disguised the fact that the oligarchic opposition had lost democratic elections; (4) it provided a political minority with a ‘fig-leaf of legitimacy’ when it was otherwise incapable of acting within a constitutional framework and (5) it allowed for the illegitimate seizure of power in the name of a pseudo ‘majority’, namely the “crowds in the central plaza”.
Some leftist commentators have argued two contradictory positions: One the one hand, some simply reduce the oligarchy’s power grab to an ‘inter-elite struggle’ which has nothing to do with the ‘interests of the working class’, while others maintain the ‘masses’ in the street are protesting against an “elitist regime”. A few even argue that with popular, democratic demands, these revolts are progressive, should be supported as “terrain for class struggle”. In other words, the ‘left’ should join the uprising and contest the oligarchs for leadership within the stage-managed revolts!
What progressives are unwilling to recognize is that the oligarchs orchestrating the mass revolt are authoritarians who completely reject democratic procedures and electoral processes. Their aim is to establish a ‘junta’, which will eliminate all democratic political and social institutions and freedoms and impose harsher, more repressive and regressive policies and institutions than those they replace. Some leftists support the ‘masses in revolt’ simply because of their ‘militancy’, their numbers and street courage, without examining the underlying leaders, their interests and links to the elite beneficiaries of a ‘regime change’.
All the color-coded “mass revolts” in Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR featured popular leaders who exhorted the masses in the name of ‘independence and democracy’ but were pro-NATO, pro-(Western) imperialists and linked to neo-liberal elites. Upon the fall of communism, the new oligarchs privatized and sold off the most lucrative sectors of the economy throwing millions out of work, dismantled the welfare state and handed over their military bases to NATO for the stationing of foreign troops and the placement of missiles aimed at Russia.
The entire ‘anti-Stalinist’ left in the US and Western Europe, with a few notable exceptions, celebrated these oligarch-controlled revolts in Eastern Europe and some even participated as minor accomplices in the post-revolt neo-liberal regimes. One clear reason for the demise of “Western Marxism” arose from its inability to distinguish a genuine popular democratic revolt from a mass uprising funded and stage-managed by rival oligarchs!
One of the clearest recent example of a manipulated ‘people’s power’ revolution in the streets to replace an elected representative of one sector of the elite with an even more brutal, authoritarian ‘president’ occurred in early 2001 in the Philippines. The more popular and independent (but notoriously corrupt) President Joseph Estrada, who had challenged sectors of the Philippine elite and current US foreign policy (infuriating Washington by embracing Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez), was replaced through street demonstrations of middle-class matrons with soldiers in civvies by Gloria Makapagal-Arroyo. Mrs. Makapagal-Arroyo, who had close links to the US and the Philippine military, unleashed a horrific wave of brutality dubbed the ‘death-squad democracy’. The overthrow of Estrada was actively supported by the left, including sectors of the revolutionary left, who quickly found themselves the target of an unprecedented campaign of assassinations, disappearances, torture and imprisonment by their newly empowered ‘Madame President’.


Past and Present Mass Revolts Against Democracy: Guatemala, Iran, and Chile

The use of mobs and mass uprisings by oligarchs and empire builders has a long and notorious history. Three of the bloodiest cases, which scarred their societies for decades, took place in Guatemala in 1954, Iran in 1953, and Chile in 1973.
Democratically-elected Jacobo Árbenz was the first Guatemalan President to initiate agrarian reform and legalize trade unions, especially among landless farm workers. Árbenz’s reforms included the expropriation of unused, fallow land owned by the United Fruit Company, a giant US agro-business conglomerate. The CIA used its ties to local oligarchs and right-wing generals and colonels to instigate and finance mass-protests against a phony ‘communist-takeover’ of Guatemala under President Arbenz. The military used the manipulated mob violence and the ‘threat’ of Guatemala becoming a “Soviet satellite”, to stage a bloody coup. The coup leaders received air support from the CIA and slaughtered thousands of Arbenz supporters and turned the countryside into ‘killing fields’. For the next 50 years political parties, trade unions and peasant organizations were banned, an estimated 200,000 Guatemalans were murdered and millions were displaced.
In 1952 Mohammed Mossadegh was elected president of Iran on a moderate nationalist platform, after the overthrow of the brutal monarch. Mossadegh announced the nationalization of the petroleum industry. The CIA, with the collaboration of the local oligarchs, monarchists and demagogues organized ‘anti-communist’ street mobs to stage violent demonstrations providing the pretext for a monarchist- military coup. The CIA-control Iranian generals brought Shah Reza Pahlavi back from Switzerland and for the next 26 years Iran was a monarchist-military dictatorship, whose population was terrorized by the Savak, the murderous secret police.
The US oil companies received the richest oil concessions; the Shah joined Israel and the US in an unholy alliance against progressive nationalist dissidents and worked hand-in-hand to undermine independent Arab states. Tens of thousands of Iranians were killed, tortured and driven into exile. In 1979, a mass popular uprising led by Islamic movements, nationalist and socialist parties and trade unions drove out the Shah-Savak dictatorship. The Islamists installed a radical nationalist clerical regime, which retains power to this day despite decades of a US-CIA-funded destabilization campaign which has funded both terrorist groups and dissident liberal movements.
Chile is the best-known case of CIA-financed mob violence leading to a military coup. In 1970, the democratic socialist Dr. Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile. Despite CIA efforts to buy votes to block Congressional approval of the electoral results and its manipulation of violent demonstrations and an assassination campaign to precipitate a military coup, Allende took office.
During Allende’s tenure as president the CIA financed a variety of “direct actions” –from paying the corrupt leaders of a copper workers union to stage strikes and the truck owners associations to refuse to transport goods to the cities, to manipulating right-wing terrorist groups like the Patria y Libertad (Fatherland and Liberty) in their assassination campaigns. The CIA’s destabilization program was specifically designed to provoke economic instability through artificial shortages and rationing, in order to incite middle class discontent. This was made notorious by the street demonstrations of pot-banging housewives. The CIA sought to incite a military coup through economic chaos. Thousands of truck owners were paid not to drive their trucks leading to shortages in the cities, while right-wing terrorists blew up power stations plunging neighborhoods into darkness and shop owners who refused to join the ‘strike’ against Allende were vandalized. On September 11, 1973, to the chants of ‘Jakarta’ (in celebration of a 1964 CIA coup in Indonesia), a junta of US-backed Chilean generals grabbed power from an elected government. Tens of thousands of activists and government supporters were arrested, killed, tortured and forced into exile. The dictatorship denationalized and privatized its mining, banking and manufacturing sectors, following the free market dictates of Milton Friedman-trained economists (the so-call “Chicago Boys”). The dictatorship overturned 40 years of welfare, labor and land-reform legislation which had made Chile the most socially advanced country in Latin America. With the generals in power, Chile became the ‘neo-liberal model’ for Latin America. Mob violence and the so-called “middle class revolt”, led to the consolidation of oligarchic and imperial rule and a 17-year reign of terror under General Augusto Pinochet dictatorship. The whole society was brutalized and with the return of electoral politics, even former ‘leftist’ parties retained the dictatorship’s neo-liberal economic policies, its authoritarian constitution and the military high command. The ‘revolt of the middle class’ in Chile resulted in the greatest concentration of wealth in the hands of the oligarchs in Latin America to this day!


The Contemporary Use and Abuse of “Mass Revolts”: Egypt, Ukraine, Venezuela, Thailand, and Argentina

In recent years “mass revolt” has become the instrument of choice when oligarchs, generals and other empire builders seeking ‘regime change’. By enlisting an assortment of nationalist demagogues and imperial-funded NGO ‘leaders’, they set the conditions for the overthrow of democratically elected governments and stage-managed the installment of their own “free market” regimes with dubious “democratic” credentials.
Not all the elected regimes under siege are progressive. Many ‘democracies’, like the Ukraine, are ruled by one set of oligarchs. In Ukraine, the elite supporting President Viktor Yanukovich, decided that entering into a deep client-state relationship with the European Union was not in their interests, and sought to diversify their international trade partners while maintaining lucrative ties with Russia. Their opponents, who are currently behind the street demonstrations in Kiev, advocate a client relationship with the EU, stationing of NATO troops, and cutting ties with Russia. In Thailand, the democratically-elected Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, represents a section of the economic elite with ties and support in the rural areas, especially the North-East, as well as deep trade relations with China. The opponents are urban-based, closer to the military-monarchists and favor a straight neo-liberal agenda linked to the US against the rural patronage-populist agenda of Ms. Shinawatra.
Egypt’s democratically-elected Mohamed Morsi government pursued a moderate Islamist policy with some constraints on the military and a loosening of ties with Israel in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. In terms of the IMF, Morsi sought compromise. The Morsi regime was in flux when it was overthrown: not Islamist nor secular, not pro-worker but also not pro-military. Despite all of its different pressure groups and contradictions, the Morsi regime permitted labor strikes, demonstrations, opposition parties, freedom of the press and assembly. All of these democratic freedoms have disappeared after waves of ‘mass street revolts’, choreographed by the military, set the conditions for the generals to take power and establish their brutal dictatorship – jailing and torturing tens of thousands and outlawing all opposition parties.
Mass demonstrations and demagogue-led direct actions also actively target democratically elected progressive governments, like Venezuela and Argentina, in addition to the actions against conservative democracies cited above. Venezuela, under Presidents Hugo Chavez and Vicente Maduro advance an anti-imperialist, pro-socialist program. ‘Mob revolts’ are combined with waves of assassinations, sabotage of public utilities, artificial shortages of essential commodities, vicious media slander and opposition election campaigns funded from the outside. In 2002, Washington teamed up with its collaborator politicians, Miami and Caracas-based oligarchs and local armed gangs, to mount a “protest movement” as the pretext for a planned business-military coup. The generals and members of the elite seized power and deposed and arrested the democratically-elected President Chavez. All avenues of democratic expression and representation were closed and the constitution annulled. In response to the kidnapping of ‘their president’, over a million Venezuelans spontaneously mobilized and marched upon the Presidential palace to demand the restoration of democracy and Hugo Chavez to the presidency. Backed by the large pro-democracy and pro-constitution sectors of the Venezuelan armed forces, the mass protests led to the coup’s defeat and the return of Chavez and democracy. All democratic governments facing manipulated imperial-oligarchic financed mob revolts should study the example of Venezuela’s defeat of the US-oligarch-generals’ coup. The best defense for democracy is found in the organization, mobilization and political education of the electoral majority. It is not enough to participate in free elections; an educated and politicized majority must also know how to defend their democracy in the streets as well as at the ballot box.
The lessons of the 2002 coup-debacle were very slowly absorbed by the Venezuelan oligarchy and their US patrons who continued to destabilize the economy in an attempt to undermine democracy and seize power. Between December 2002 and February 2003, corrupt senior oil executives of the nominally ‘public’ oil company PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela) organized a ‘bosses’ lockout stopping production, export and local distribution of oil and refined petroleum produces. ,Corrupt trade union officials, linked to the US National Endowment for Democracy, mobilized oil workers and other employees to support the lock-out, in their attempt to paralyze the economy. The government responded by mobilizing the other half of the oil workers who, together with a significant minority of middle management, engineers and technologists, called on the entire Venezuelan working class to take the oil fields and installations from the ‘bosses’. To counter the acute shortage of gasoline, President Chavez secured supplies from neighboring countries and overseas allies. The lockout was defeated. Several thousand supporters of the executive power grab were fired and replaced by pro-democracy managers and workers.
Having failed to overthrow the democratic government via “mass revolts”, the oligarchs turned toward a plebiscite on Chavez rule and later called for a nation-wide electoral boycott, both of which were defeated. These defeats served to strengthen Venezuela’s democratic institutions and decreased the presence of opposition legislators in the Congress. The repeated failures of the elite to grab power led to a new multi-pronged strategy using: (1) US-funded NGO’s to exploit local grievances and mobilize residents around community issues; (2) clandestine thugs to sabotage utilities, especially power, assassinate peasant recipients of land reform titles, as well as prominent officials and activists; (3) mass electoral campaign marches, and (4) economic destabilization via financial speculation, illegal foreign exchange trading, price gouging and hoarding of basic consumer commodities. The purpose of these measures is to incite mass discontent, using their control of the mass media to provoke another ‘mass revolt’ to set the stage for another US-backed ‘power grab’. Violent street protests by middle class students from the elite Central University were organized by oligarch-financed demagogues. ‘Demonstrations’ included sectors of the middle class and urban poor angered by the artificial shortages and power outages. The sources of popular discontent were rapidly and effectively addressed at the top by energetic government measures: business owners engaged in hoarding and price gouging were jailed; prices of essential staples were reduced; hoarded goods were seized from warehouses and distributed to the poor; the import of essential goods were increased and saboteurs were pursued. The Government’s effective intervention resonated with the mass of the working class, the lower-middle class and the rural and urban poor and restored their support. Government supporters took to the streets and lined up at the ballot box to defeat the campaign of destabilization. The government won a resounding electoral mandate allowing it to move decisively against the oligarchs and their backers in Washington.
The Venezuelan experience shows how energetic government counter-measures can restore support and deepen progressive social changes for the majority. This is because forceful progressive government intervention against anti-democratic oligarchs, combined with the organization, political education and mobilization of the majority of voters can decisively defeat these stage-managed mass revolts.
Argentina is an example of a weakened democratic regime trying to straddle the fence between the oligarchs and the workers, between the combined force of the agro-business and mining elites and working and middle class constituencies dependent on social policies. The elected-Kirchner-Fernandez government has faced “mass revolts” in the a series of street demonstrations whipped up by conservative agricultural exporters over taxes; the Buenos Aires upper-middle class angered at ‘crime, disorder and insecurity’, a nationwide strike by police officials over ‘salaries’ who ‘looked the other way’ while gangs of ‘lumpen’ street thugs pillaged and destroyed stores. Taken altogether, these waves of mob action in Argentina appear to be part of a politically-directed destabilization campaign by the authoritarian Right who have instigated or, at least, exploited these events. Apart from calling on the military to restore order and conceding to the ‘salary’ demands of the striking police, the Fernandez government has been unable or unwilling to mobilize the democratic electorate in defense of democracy. The democratic regime remains in power but it is under siege and vulnerable to attack by domestic and imperial opponents.


Conclusion

Mass revolts are two-edged swords: they can be a positive force when they occur against military dictatorships like Pinochet or Mubarak, against authoritarian absolutist monarchies like Saudi Arabia, a colonial-racist state like Israel, and imperial occupations like against the US in Afghanistan. But they have to be directed and controlled by popular local leaders seeking to restore democratic majority rule.
History, from ancient times to the present, teaches us that not all ‘mass revolts’ achieve, or are even motivated by, democratic objectives. Many have served oligarchs seeking to overthrow democratic governments, totalitarian leaders seeking to install fascist and pro-imperial regimes, demagogues and authoritarians seeking to weaken shaky democratic regimes and militarists seeking to start wars for imperial ambitions.
Today, “mass revolts” against democracy have become standard operational procedure for Western European and US rulers who seek to circumvent democratic procedures and install pro-imperial clients. The practice of democracy is denigrated while the mob is extolled in the imperial Western media. This is why armed Islamist terrorists and mercenaries are called “rebels” in Syria and the mobs in the streets of Kiev (Ukraine) attempting to forcibly depose a democratically-elected government are labeled “pro-Western democrats”.
The ideology informing the “mass revolts” varies from “anti-communist” and “anti-authoritarian” in democratic Venezuela, to “pro-democracy” in Libya (even as tribal bands and mercenaries slaughter whole communities), Egypt and the Ukraine.
Imperial strategists have systematized, codified and made operational “mass revolts” in favor of oligarchic rule. International experts, consultants, demagogues and NGO officials have carved out lucrative careers as they travel to ‘hot spots’ and organize ‘mass revolts’ dragging the target countries into deeper ‘colonization’ via European or US-centered ‘integration’. Most local leaders and demagogues accept the double agenda: ‘protest today and submit to new masters tomorrow’. The masses in the street are fooled and then sacrificed. They believe in a ‘New Dawn’ of Western consumerism, higher paid jobs and greater personal freedom … only to be disillusioned when their new rulers fill the jails with opponents and many former protestors, raise prices, cut salaries, privatize state companies, sell off the most lucrative firms to foreigners and double the unemployment rate.
When the oligarchs ‘stage-manage’ mass revolts and takeover the regime, the big losers include the democratic electorate and most of the protestors. Leftists and progressives, in the West or in exile, who had mindlessly supported the ‘mass revolts’ will publish their scholarly essays on ‘the revolution (sic) betrayed” without admitting to their own betrayal of democratic principles.
If and when the Ukraine enters into the European Union, the exuberant street demonstrators will join the millions of jobless workers in Greece, Portugal, and Spain, as well as millions of pensioners brutalized by “austerity programs” imposed by their new rulers, the ‘Troika’ in Brussels. If these former demonstrators take to the streets once more, in disillusionment at their leaders’ “betrayal”, they can enjoy their ‘victory’ under the batons of “NATO and European Union-trained police” while the Western mass media will have moved elsewhere in support of ‘democracy’.
James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books).


Wednesday, December 25, 2013

322 The FED is jewish. No doubt about it.


Greenspan, Bernanke and Yellen are jewish. 
But that is not enough. 

Read how Stanley Fisher has sucked the US taxpayer for the benefit of Israel. 

Don't say we were not warned. 


Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer Nominated for Number Two Spot at the Federal Reserve

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 The rushed campaign to insert Stanley Fischer straight from his position leading Israel’s central bank into the number two spot at the Federal Reserve has allowed little time for research into the appointee’s career or for informed public debate about his record.  Like the failed recent Obama administration-Israel lobby pincer move to ram approval for U.S. military strikes on Syria through Congress, avoiding such due diligence through velocity may actually be the only means for successful Senate confirmation.
 Some of Fischer’s accomplishments—from co-authoring a seminal textbook on macroeconomics to handling economic crisis at the IMF have—not surprisingly—been recalled by his many supporters.  Other doings that shed light on Fischer’s controversial attributes—such as overhauling how U.S. aid and trade packages are delivered to Israel—have been mostly ignored.  Appointing an openly dual Israeli-American citizen into the most important central bank in the world could be a watershed moment.  While the doors of federal government have long swung open for Israel-lobby appointees focusing most—if not all—their energies on advancing the interests of a foreign state, any who were actually Israeli dual citizens have traditionally kept that a closely-guarded secret. Fischer’s long-term boosters, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), likely want to accustom Americans to openly dual citizens circulating between top roles in the U.S. and Israeli governments.  A closer examination of Fischer reveals that average Americans have good reason to oppose his appointment, because his lifelong achievements for Israel have imposed high costs and few benefits to the United States while making peace more difficult to achieve.
 Economics
Stanley Fischer was born in Northern Rhodesia in 1943. He studied at London School of Economics and received a PhD in economics from MIT.  He taught and chaired the MIT economics department and co-authored a leading macroeconomics textbook with Rudiger Dornbusch. Fischer joined the World Bank in 1988 and became the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1994. He oversaw emergency bailout lending and austerity programs over Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil and Argentina. High flying Citigroup—under the helm of Sanford “Sandy” Weill—recruited Fischer in 2002. There he rose to become vice president with a seven-figure pay package.
 Israel
Fischer not only been an ardent supporter of Israel, his professional efforts began when he took sabbatical leave to Israel in 1972 and 1976-1977.  He was a visiting scholar at the Bank of Israel in 1980.  More importantly for Israel, Stanley Fischer won an appointment to the Reagan administration’s U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Discussion Group that dealt Israel’s 1984-1985 economic crisis.  In October of 1984, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres arrived in Washington asking an initially reluctant Reagan Administration for an additional $1.5 billion in U.S. emergency funding—over and above the already-promised aid $5.6 billion aid package.[i]  The help amounted to U.S. taxpayers funding each Israeli citizen $1,650.
Another key component of the plan called for a largely unilateral lowering of U.S. tariffs and trade barriers to Israel, a program initially called “Duty Free Treatment for U.S. Imports from Israel” but later repackaged and sold as America’s first “free trade” agreement.  Over time the FTA reversed a previously balanced U.S.-Israel trading relationship for one that has produced a cumulative deficit to the U.S. that passed $100 billion in 2013.  Seventy American industry groups opposed to the give-away in 1984 were disenfranchised when Israeli Economics Minister Dan Halpern and AIPAC illegally obtained a classified compendium of their industry, market and trade secrets to use against them in lobbying and public relations.  An FBI espionage and theft of government property investigation was quashed before it could narrow in on those inside the U.S. government who delivered the secrets to Halpern.
The U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Discussion Group fundamentally transformed U.S. aid to Israel forever.  Before the Reagan administration, most U.S. aid to Israel took the form of loans that had to be repaid with interest.  After the input of Fischer’s team, subsequent U.S. aid was delivered in the form of outright grants paid directly from the U.S. Treasury—never to be repaid or conditioned when Israel took actions the U.S. opposed.
  Like many of Fischer’s later IMF austerity programs, the Joint Discussion Group initially announced that strings attached to the aid would make it temporary.  Secretary of State George Shultz insisted during a 1985 address to AIPAC that “Israel must pull itself out of its present economic trauma . . . . No one can do it for them . . .our help will be of little avail if Israel does not take the necessary steps to cut government spending, improve productivity, open up its economy and strengthen the mechanisms of economic policy. Israel and its government must make the hard decisions.” [ii] Shultz wanted to make the huge American cash transfer conditional on major Israeli economic reforms, but intense AIPAC lobbying in Congress threatened to make the State Department influence irrelevant.  In the end, Congress delivered aid without Israeli sacrifices, such as selling off bloated state-owned industries and spending belt-tightening.  The proposed privatization of $5 billion in state enterprises threatened too much bureaucratic “turf” and too many jobs, so Israel put them on hold.  Fischer apologetically characterized the Likud years as a “wasted opportunity by a government that should have known better.”[iii]  Not until 1996 were Fischer’s proscribed economic remedies adopted by American neoconservative consultants to Benjamin Netanyahu as minor points in the “Clean Break” manifesto for Israeli regional hegemony. They remain among the few unimplemented tasks in a plan that called for military action against Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
Despite the absence of any real economic reforms that would take Israel off the American taxpayer dole, Fischer co-wrote a blustering 1986 article for the Wall Street Journal called “Israel Has Made Aid Work” that AIPAC circulated widely as an official memorandum of its achievements.  “Israel is the largest single recipient of economic aid from the U.S.  This is partly because the economic stability of Israel is uncertain and is important to U.S. national interests.  Therefore a report on the progress of the Israeli economy is relevant to policy decisions to be made here.”  Fischer never bothered to substantiate his premise, that U.S. national interests were somehow served by the bailout or that any aid given to Israel produced tangible benefits.  Instead Fischer delivered a fusillade of dry and all but unreadable statistics about Israel’s temporary economic performance.  Issues of long-term importance to most Americans, such as returning U.S. aid to the traditional format of loans to be repaid and the likely impact of the FTA on U.S. jobs went unaddressed by Fischer.  Fischer’s core achievement—that the transformation of aid from loans to outright taxpayer give-aways—has been unchanged since 1986.  The premises behind this ever-increasing entitlement and one-sided FTA performance are likewise never reexamined by Congress—despite the fact that a majority of polled Americans have come to oppose aid increases to Israel.  Fischer’s rare admonitions that Israel be held to account, unlike like the economies he transformed through biting IMF austerity programs, have remained nothing more than lip service.
 At the end of 2004 Israel’s U.N. ambassador recruited Fischer to become the head of Israel’s central bank, asking, “Why not be our governor?”[iv]  Fischer accepted and initially provided endless amusement to reporters by insisting on speaking Hebrew during press conferences and refusing to speak English.  Initial concerns that Fischer’s global stature and experience would overshadow and chafe the relevant players in Israel proved unfounded as Fischer moved energetically into his new role. AIPAC continued to trumpet Fischer’s accomplishments steering Israel through the global financial crisis, though beneath the surface he was performing far more serious tasks for Israel and its global lobby.
Iran Sanctions
 As Bank of Israel governor, Stanley Fischer played a central role in coordinating the implementation of AIPAC-generated sanctions against Iran—ostensibly over its nuclear program.  Stuart Levey, the head of the U.S. Treasury Department’s division for “Terrorism and Financial Intelligence,” an office created after heavy AIPAC lobbying, met often with Fischer in Israel alongside the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and chiefs of both the Mossad and Shin Bet to explore how to “supplement” UN sanctions and end-run Russian and Chinese opposition.[v] The Levey-Fischer strategy was “to work outside the context of the Security Council to engage the private sector and let it know about the risks of doing business with Tehran” particularly against European banks that had only partially drawn back their business dealings with Iran.  In 2010, Israel dispatched Fischer to meet with Chinese and Russian “counterparts” in order to financially isolate Iran.[vi]
 Fischer’s final official duties for the Israeli government included drilling for “big crisis” scenarios—specifically, Fischer told an Israeli television station—the unavoidable financial fallout of a military attack on Iran.[vii]  ”We do plans, we do scenarios, we do exercises about how the central [bank] will work in various situations.”[viii]  After years targeting Iran, Fischer became convinced in his final months in Israel that sanctions alone were not enough to collapse its economy.  Fischer reluctantly concluded that even as Iranian economic prospects “continue to go down” the country would likely “find a way to continue to keep economic life going.” [ix]
 Fischer suddenly resigned and left the Bank of Israel on June 30, before completing his second five-year term.
Israelis into the Fed and then where?
The last time Fischer’s name was floated to lead a major organization was during a rushed Bush administration attempt at damage control.  In 2007, the controversial architect of the Iraq invasion and later World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz was engulfed in an ethics scandal over his pay and promotion package for Shaha Ali Riza.  In two short years leading the institution, Wolfowitz catalyzed the alienation of most divisions within the bank and the distrust of economics ministries around the world.  Fischer, along with Robert Zoellick and Robert Kimmitt and a handful of others, were considered as emergency replacements while the administration and stakeholders strategized on how to ease Wolfowitz out with a minimum of scandal.[x]  In the end, Fischer stayed put in Israel.
 It came as a surprise to many when The Wall Street Journal and Israel’s Channel 2 news simultaneously reported in early December 2013 that the White House was “close to nominating” Fischer to be appointee Janet Yellen’s second-in-command at the U.S. central bank.[xi] Media reports initially indicated that Fischer’s candidacy-to-Senate-confirmation would proceed on greased skids—with no Senate debate—taking only a week so that the pair could quickly take over the Fed in January.  However, the Senate concluded its 2013 business without taking up the matter.  The earliest date the measure could be put up for a vote is January 6, 2014.  Even that date might slip since Senator Rand Paul and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell plan to delay the vote unless a long-languishing measure to “Audit the Fed” is also put up for a vote.
This rushed approach has meant relatively little reporting on the deeper implications of having an openly dual Israeli-American citizen a heartbeat away from Fed chairmanship.  That is unfortunate, since Israel and its U.S. supporters have many hidden reasons for wanting stronger influence at the Fed that they would likely prefer not to discuss.

That the Fed is a key player in Iran sanctions implementation is certainly no secret.  The Fed has been an equal partner in levying hundreds of millions in fines against foreign banks such as R.B.S, Barclays, Standard and Chartered and H.S.B.C. which were charged with violating the Iran sanctions regime.  Although AIPAC never mentions it, American exporters have been seriously hurt by sanctions on Iran and the punitive secondary boycott.  A coalition representing the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, Coalition for American Trade, the National Foreign Trade Council and others urged Congress not to enact sanctions provisions they estimated would cost $25 billion and 210,000 American jobs.  (PDF)  Keeping such a costly regime in place despite thawing relations and any hard evidence of an Iranian nuclear weaponization program has therefore required immense ongoing efforts by Israel lobbying groups.
An equally important target for Fischer and Israel may be—somewhat ironically given their pro-boycott programs—anti-boycott activities.  In the 1970-80s the Federal Reserve played an active “moral suasion” role chastising and corralling U.S. banks away from any activity that Israel construed as compliant with the Arab League economic boycott.  An expert with deep experience enforcing the international boycott of Iran, Fischer is likely aware of the many active American grass-roots campaigns aimed at ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinians through targeted boycotts.  These boycotts range from efforts to get retailers to stop carrying manufactured goods produced in the occupied West Bank (Ahava and Soda Stream), to overturning contracts with firms providing services in occupied territories (Veolia), to academic boycotts and even efforts to get labor union pensions to divest from Israel bonds.  Working more closely with Israel and AIPAC, the Fed could become a vital node for reinterpreting and enforcing old or new laws aimed at outlawing and punishing groups organizing such grass-roots activities by targeting U.S. bank accounts and freezing their financial flows.

Fischer may also want to launch “exercises” to prepare the U.S. financial system for the fallout of Israeli military attacks on Iran. New bills in Congress drafted by AIPAC call not only for additional sanctions aimed at thwarting a fledgling deal on Iran’s nuclear program (favored 2-to-1 by Americans). AIPAC’s bill forces the U.S. to “have Israel’s back” in the event of a unilateral Israeli strike.  If Israel has already decided to attack Iran, it would benefit immensely from having Fischer inside the Fed, protecting the financial flows Israel now regards as all but a birthright from its primary global underwriter. Less well-known is the Fed’s authority to authorize foreign bank acquisitions.  Any future Israeli campaign to further entwine its banks into the U.S. financial system through acquisitions would likely find a much more welcoming regulator in Fischer.
 Whatever the real motivation for Fischer’s sudden, inexplicably rushed insertion into the Federal Reserve, it is also worthwhile to note longstanding Fed policies have correctly considered U.S. citizenship to be preferable for at least one key position, “because of the special nature of the supervisory function, the need to ensure confidentiality of information, and the delegated nature of the function.”  Unfortunately, that policy preference covers only Fed bank examiners rather than top leadership—the Federal Reserve Act is silent on the wisdom of installing a revolving door for returning U.S. citizens who took on dual citizenship as a condition of serving a foreign government.
AIPAC, Fischer’s co-author of harmful U.S. economic policies on behalf of Israel, likely sees the Fischer appointment as an important test case to assess American tolerance for openly dual Israeli-American citizens running key U.S. federal agencies.  In 2009 former AIPAC research director Martin Indyk, who was at the center of AIPAC’s research division during the FTA push,said that “the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement served as a wedge that opened up the Congress to free trade agreements across the world, including the NAFTA agreement.”
Likewise, if Fischer can be “wedged” into the Fed, it begs the question of why former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and historian Michael Oren could not someday lead the Near East division of the State Department.  From AIPAC’s perspective, having qualified Israelis directly run key divisions of the U.S. Treasury such as Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, rather than indirectly through AIPAC-vetted appointees such as Stuart Levey and his hand-picked successor David Cohen, could probably boost the volume of taxpayer give-aways while improving coordination with Israel. Given AIPAC and Israel’s overly large influence on U.S. military initiatives in the region, the lobby may now feel the moment is right for appointing Israeli generals into the Joint Chiefs at the Department of Defense.  This, AIPAC may well reason, would be much more convenient than constantly arranging visiting Israeli military and intelligence delegations that increasingly serve as sole briefers (rather than DoD or the American intelligence community) of members of the US Congress.
 Soon after word of his Fed nomination spread, Fischer again made uncharacteristically harsh statements about Israel at an NYU Law School forum.  As reported in The Jewish Week, Fischer told the audience that Israel is not seeking peace “to the extent that it should” and that it is “divided between those who want to settle the West Bank and those who seek peace.”  Fischer—who had every chance to pull U.S. and Israeli financial levers that could have forced Israel out of occupied territories or forced compliance with International law—never did.  Adding to suspicion that the statement was simply more empty “lip service” aimed at building popular support among Americans tired of war, was the reporter of the quote—former AIPAC lobbyist Douglas Bloomfield.  In 1986 Bloomfield was grilled as a key suspect (PDF) in the 1985 FBI investigation of AIPAC for espionage during the FTA negations
If Americans were ever polled on it—and they never are—the majority who now object to increasing aid to Israel would also likely object to quasi-governmental and governmental positions being staffed by people who—by citizenship or sheer strength of identity politics—are primarily occupied with advancing Israeli interests rather than those of the United States.  It is obvious that the real reason AIPAC and its economic luminaries such as Fischer never substantiate any of the advertised benefits the U.S.-Israel “special relationship” delivers to America in return for all of the costs is simple—there simply aren’t any.  As greater numbers of Americans become aware that the entire “special relationship” framework is sustained by nothing more than Israel lobby campaign-finance and propaganda networks, the harder the lobby will have to work to forcibly wedge operatives like Fischer into positions where they can thwart growing public opposition—whether it takes the form of boycotts or grassroots opposition to the U.S. fighting more wars for Israel.  In the very short term, Americans can only fight such undue Israel lobby influence by again—like during the drive to attack Syria—staging a mass action to demand their senators reject Stanley Fischer’s nomination.
Notes
[i] Oberdorfer, Don “Will U.S. Dollars Fix Israel’s Economy?” The Washington Post, June 9 1985
[ii] Oberdorfer, Don “Will U.S. Dollars Fix Israel’s Economy?” The Washington Post, June 9 1985
[iii] Passell, Peter “Need Zionism Equal Socialism?” The New York Times, July 2, 1992
[iv] Maital, Shlomo “Stanley Fischer: the man and the plan,” The Jerusalem Report, February 7, 2005
[v] BBC Monitoring Middle East, March 5, 2007
[vi] Keinon, Herb “Russia won’t back crippling sanctions.” Comment comes day before high-level US-Israel meeting on Iran” The Jerusalem Post, February 25, 2010
[vii] Williams, Dan “Iran Stepping Up Its Atomic Efforts” – The Gazette, August 13, 2012
[viii] “Bank of Israel governor: Sanctions won’t collapse Iran economy. Islamic Republic will likely find way to ‘keep economic life going,’ says Fischer in interview with CNBC” The Jerusalem Post, October 24, 2012.
[ix] “Bank of Israel governor: Sanctions won’t collapse Iran economy. Islamic Republic will likely find way to ‘keep economic life going,’ says Fischer in interview with CNBC” The Jerusalem Post, October 24, 2012.
[x] Weisman, Steven R. “Wolfowitz Said to Push for Deal to Let Him Quit” The New York Times, May 17, 2007
[xi] “Fischer set to be tapped as vice chair of US Federal Reserve” the Times of Israel, December 11, 2013