Derde presidentskandidaat Democratische Partij wil eind aan VS hulp voor Israël

Elizabeth Warren, Democratisch presidentskandidaat, is de derde op rij die een eind wil maken aan de hulp die de VS aan Israël geeft, althans als Israël doorgaat met het annexatie beleid op de West Bank (o.a. middels het uitbreiden en stichten van nieuwe illegale nederzettingen op de West Bank). Eerder gingen Bernie Sanders en Pete Buttigieg haar voor. Tot voor kort zou een dergelijke stap als politieke suïcide worden gezien, maar blijkbaar veranderen de tijden (en dit keer ten goede van het verdrukte Palestijnse volk).

Na jaren tevergeefs druk te hebben uitgeoefend op Caterpillar, Motorola en een Israëlische bank (vreemd dat in het hieronder opgenomen artikel de naam niet wordt genoemd) te stoppen zaken te doen met Israëlische illegale nederzettingen in de door Israël illegaal bezette West Bank, heeft de Episcopaalse kerk besloten banden met deze bedrijven te verbreken (bijvoorbeeld de aandelen van dergelijke bedrijven weg te doen en de rekening bij de bedoelde bank op te zeggen). 

De Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association (RRA) steunt Betty McCollums (Republikein) wet om militaire hulp aan Israël in te houden, vanwege het gevangenhouden van Palestijnse kinderen. Onder druk zouden de Toronto Raptors hun reis naar Israël hebben uitgesteld en deze zal wellicht geheel worden afgesteld.

Tegelijkertijd heeft Warren laten zien geen ruggengraat te hebben daar ze een Israëlische lobbyclub heeft verzekerd dat haar politieke beleid niets te maken heeft met de progressieve Joodse groep IfNotNow....... De vraag is wat e.e.a betekent als ze de volgende president van de VS zal zijn en te vrezen valt dat ze het slappe beleid van Obama zal voortzetten, ofwel veel beloven, maar weinig of zelfs niets doen, immers de Joodse lobby in de VS politiek is uitermate machtig, sterker nog deze bepaald zelfs deels de buitenlandpolitiek van de VS...... 

Mocht die VS hulp aan Israël tekort schieten, of wordt er door de VS politici te veel kritiek geleverd op Israël (naar de mening van de Israëlische regering), gaat Netanyahu, of diens opvolger naar Capital Hill en laat daar de politici en het volk van de VS weten dat men bijvoorbeeld vooral niet op figuren als Warren moet stemmen (precies dat deed Netanyahu in 2016)...... Dit wordt dan niet als ongewenste buitenlandse inmenging in de verkiezingen van de VS gezien, iets waar men Rusland volkomen onterecht van beschuldigde, sterker nog voor die Israëlische inmenging in de VS politiek zijn pakken dossiers voorradig.......

Intussen hebben de 'Israëlische kolonisten', (echt) illegale bewoners van de West Bank, de Palestijnse olijvenoogst als doel van haar ongebreidelde agressie gemaakt: ze hebben olijfbomen vernietigd en zijn zelfs een 80 jarige rabbi te lijf gegaan, daar deze 100 olijfbomen van vernietiging wilde redden..... Een verhaal dat je niet op Radio1 zal horen, met haar Israël lobbyist Arlene Gelderblom, die als correspondent fungeert....

In Jeruzalem zijn dit jaar een record aantal huizen van Palestijnen vernietigd, daar Israël elke nieuwbouw als een bedreiging voor haar voortbestaan ziet, terwijl dit land met het zo ongeveer modernste leger ter wereld, niets te vrezen heeft van de Palestijnen, die je het best kan vergelijken met de oorspronkelijke volkeren van de drie Amerika's, ofwel een strijd van met pijl en boog bewapende bewoners, tegen modern bewapende schoften, die men destijds ook kolonisten noemde......

Jurist Remi Brulin heeft intussen aangetoond dat een terreurcampagne in de 80er jaren tegen Palestijnen in Libanon, waar een groot aantal Palestijnen in vluchtelingenkamp Shatila en de aangrenzende buurt Sabra werden vermoord, het werk was van Israëlische agenten, een zaak die de Israëlische militaire censor tot voor kort onder de pet heeft weten te houden...... (al moet gezegd worden dat men hier al vanuit ging bij de destijds nog echt onafhankelijke pers [en in de alternatieve pers] en dat vrijwel onmiddellijk na de vreselijke bloedbaden; opperschoft en massamoordenaar Sharon speelde ook hier ook een 'mooie rol...')

Stop alle hulp aan Israël en boycot deze (nu officiële) fascistische apartheidsstaat, 'gefundeerd' op de lijken van een enorm aantal Palestijnen.........

Het volgende artikel werd geschreven door Phil Weiss van Mondoweiss:

Elizabeth Warren becomes the third Democratic candidate to broach the subject of conditioning aid to Israel

Some good things happened this week and we were there to chronicle them. 

Palestinian human rights are finally becoming an issue in the Democratic Party. Elizabeth Warren became the third Democrat, joining Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, to say that the United States should withdraw aid from Israel if it continues its settlement/annexation project. As our reporter Michael Arria said, such a stance used to be "political suicide." 

After years of urging Caterpillar, Motorola and an Israeli bank to cease business in the occupied territories, the Episcopal Church moved to divest itself of these corporations. And the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association endorsed Rep. Betty McCollum's landmark bill to strip US military aid from Israel’s detention of children. And though the Toronto Raptors promised a trip to Israel, they appear to have scratched the date under pressure from activists. 

Now for the bad news…

Warren's campaign also assured an Israel lobby group that a young staffer who was a founder of the progressive Jewish group IfNotNow will have nothing to do with her foreign policy work. Jeez Louise. 

Settlers attacked the Palestinian olive harvest, and destroyed more than 100 trees-- and took a crowbar to an 80-year-old rabbi who was trying to protect the trees. And in 2019 Israel has already destroyed a record number of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem -- and it's only October."

Meantime, there’s a stateside campaign against Golbarg Bashi's children's book “P Is for Palestine” because Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Samidoun endorse the book and they support BDS.  "The book is basically banned," the Iranian-American author told Nada Elia. 

Here are two other pieces we were proud to publish. Haidar Eid reflects on the late Ghassan Kanafani's short story, The Land of Sad Oranges, written 50 years ago about the Nakba. 

While Remi Brulin demonstrates that a terrorist campaign in Lebanon in the 1980s that killed hundreds was the work of Israeli agents, but an Israeli military censor suppressed that information till now-- yet the U.S. press has not amended its reports from that period.

Phil Weiss
Founder and Senior Editor, Mondoweiss

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Voor meer berichten over de terreur tegen de Palestijnen, klik op het label met die naam, of op het label Israël, direct onder dit bericht te vinden.

Jeffrey Epstein en Ghislaine Maxwell werkten mede voor de militaire geheime dienst van Israël

Een voormalige 'hoge' medewerker van de Israëlische militaire geheime dienst, Ari Ben-Menashe  liet onlangs in een interview weten dat Jeffrey Epstein en Ghislaine Maxwell werkten voor de Israëlische geheime dienst....... Volgens deze figuur werd het seksnetwerk van Epstein gebruikt om vooraanstaande personen, zoals machtige politici (o.a. Bill Clinton en Tony Blair), te chanteren. Deze geheime dienst heeft de chantage dienst opgezet en..... gebruikt!

Het was overigens al duidelijk dat het netwerk van Epstein werd gebruikt om vooraanstaande politici te chanteren daar zij kinderen seksueel misbruikten, kinderen die hare kwaadaardigheid Ghislaine Maxwell 'trash' noemde, ofwel vuilnis waar je mee kan doen wat je wilt........ Vreemd genoeg hebben de reguliere westerse massamedia vooral aandacht aan Epstein besteed, waar ze zijn zelfmoord als zeker bestempelden, terwijl het meer dan duidelijk is dat Epstein werd vermoord en dat moet een overheidsinstantie hebben gedaan, of deze instantie heeft een ander de opdracht gegeven, Epstein mocht de rechtszaal nooit bereiken, teveel belangrijke en machtige figuren zouden van hun voedstuk donderen, neem Trump, Clinton en ga nog maar een tijdje door.......

Ari Ben-Menashe heeft overigens wel meer te vertellen, bijvoorbeeld dat hij in de 80er jaren van de vorige eeuw samen met Robert Maxwell betrokken was bij de Iran-Contra-Affaire........ Dezelfde Maxwell introduceerde Ben-Menashe bij Jeffrey Epstein in het midden van die jaren 80.

Maxwell had trouwens een heel netwerk in Israël en daar maakte ook Ariel Sharon deel van uit, Sharon de beestachtige oorlogsmisdadiger die verantwoordelijk was voor de massamoord in Sabra en Shatila, het Palestijnse vluchtelingenkamp en de aangrenzende wijk in Beiroet, Libanon......

Voorafgaand aan een interview met Robert Parry in 2012 over Iran Contra en andere smerige geheime acties in de 80er jaren van de vorige eeuw, ging het huis van Ben-Menashe in Montreal in vlammen op, e.e.a. als gevolg van een aanval met een brandbom waarin een vloeistof die alleen door militairen wordt gebruikt, het is dan ook wel duidelijk dat Israël Ben-Menashe de mond wilde snoeren....... 

Eén ding is zeker, de continue westerse steun voor de (nu officieel) fascistische apartheidsstaat Israël, is bepaald niet alleen ingegeven door een schuldgevoel over de holocaust........

Lees het volgende artikel geschreven door Whitney Webb en dat eerder verscheen op MintPressNews en ook jij zal begrijpen dat Epstein zijn mond moest houden, ofwel hij werd vermoord:

Former Israeli Intel Official Claims Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell Worked for Israeli Intel

A recent interview given by a former high-ranking official in Israeli military intelligence has claimed that Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual blackmail enterprise was an Israel intelligence operation run for the purpose of entrapping powerful individuals and politicians in the United States and abroad.

October 02nd, 2019

By Whitney Webb Whitney Webb

Since the apparent death by suicide of Jeffrey Epstein in a Manhattan prison, much has come to light about his depraved activities and methods used to sexually abuse underage girls and entrap the rich and powerful for the purposes of blackmail. Epstein’s ties to intelligence, described in-depth in a recent MintPress investigative series, have continued to receive minimal mainstream media coverage, which has essentially moved on from the Epstein scandal despite the fact that his many co-conspirators remain on the loose.

For those who have examined Epstein’s ties to intelligence, there are clear links to both U.S. intelligence and Israeli intelligence, leaving it somewhat open to debate as to which country’s intelligence apparatus was closest to Epstein and most involved in his blackmail/sex-trafficking activities. A recent interview given by a former high-ranking official in Israeli military intelligence has claimed that Epstein’s sexual blackmail enterprise was an Israel intelligence operation run for the purpose of entrapping powerful individuals and politicians in the United States and abroad.

In an interview with Zev Shalev, former CBS News executive producer and award-winning investigative journalist for Narativ, the former senior executive for Israel’s Directorate of Military Intelligence, Ari Ben-Menashe, claimed not only to have met Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, back in the 1980s, but that both Epstein and Maxwell were already working with Israeli intelligence during that time period. 

“They found a niche”

In an interview last week with the independent outlet Narativ, Ben-Menashe, who himself was involved in Iran-Contra arms deals, told his interviewer Zev Shalev that he had been introduced to Jeffrey Epstein by Robert Maxwell in the mid-1980s while Maxwell’s and Ben-Menashe’s involvement with Iran-Contra was ongoing. Ben-Menashe did not specify the year he met Epstein.

Ben-Menashe told Shalev that “he [Maxwell] wanted us to accept him [Epstein] as part of our group …. I’m not denying that we were at the time a group that it was Nick Davies [Foreign Editor of the Maxwell-Owned Daily Mirror], it was Maxwell, it was myself and our team from Israel, we were doing what we were doing.” Past reporting by Seymour Hersh and others revealed that Maxwell, Davies and Ben-Menashe were involved in the transfer and sale of  military equipment and weapons from Israel to Iran on behalf of Israeli intelligence during this time period.

He then added that Maxwell had stated during the introduction that “your Israeli bosses have already approved” of Epstein. Shalev later noted that Maxwell “had an extensive network in Israel at the time, which included the then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, according to Ben-Menashe.”

Ben-Menashe went on to say that he had “met him [Epstein] a few times in Maxwell’s office, that was it.” He also said he was not aware of Epstein being involved in arms deals for anyone else he knew at the time, but that Maxwell wanted to involve Epstein in the arms transfer in which he, Davies and Ben-Menashe were engaged on Israel’s behalf.

Ariel Sharon (right) meets with Robert Maxwell in Jerusalem on Feb. 20, 1990. Photo | AP

However, as MintPress reported in Part IV of the investigative series “Inside the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal: Too Big to Fail,” Epstein was involved with several arms dealers during this period of time, some of whom were directly involved in Iran-Contra arms deals between Israel and Iran. For instance, after leaving Bear Stearns in 1981, Epstein began working in the realms of shadow finance as a self-described “financial bounty hunter,” where he would both hunt down and hide money for powerful people. One of these powerful individuals was Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi arms dealer with close ties to both Israeli and U.S. intelligence and one of the main brokers of Iran-Contra arms deals between Israel and Iran. Epstein would later forge a business relationship with a CIA front company involved in another aspect of Iran-Contra, the airline Southern Air Transport, on behalf of Leslie Wexner’s company, The Limited. 

During this period, it is also known that Epstein became well acquainted with the British arms dealer Sir Douglas Leese, who collaborated with Khashoggi on at least one British-Saudi arms deal in the 1980s. Leese would later introduce Epstein to Steven Hoffenberg, calling Epstein a “genius” and describing his lack of morals during that introduction. Thus, there are indications that Epstein was involved with Middle Eastern arms deals, including some related to Iran-Contra, during this period. In addition, Epstein would later claim (and then subsequently deny) having worked for the CIA during this period.

After having been introduced to Epstein, Ben-Menashe claimed that neither he nor Davies were impressed with Epstein and considered him “not very competent.” He added that Ghislaine Maxwell had “fallen for” Epstein and that he believed that the romantic relationship between his daughter and Epstein led Robert Maxwell to work to bring the latter into the “family business” — i.e., Maxwell’s dealings with Israeli intelligence. This information is very revealing, given that the narrative, until now at least, has been that Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein did not meet and begin their relationship until after Robert Maxwell’s death in 1991, after which Ghislaine moved to New York.

Ben-Menashe says that well after the introduction, though again he does not specify what year, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein began a sexual blackmail operation with the purpose of extorting U.S. political and public figures on behalf of Israeli military intelligence. He stated: 

In this case what really happened, my take on it, in the later thing, is that these guys were seen as agents. They weren’t really competent to do very much. And so they found a niche for themselves — blackmailing American and other political figures.” 

He then confirmed, when prompted, that they were blackmailing Americans on behalf of Israeli intelligence. 

In response to his statement, Zev Shalev replied, “But, you know, for most people it’s hard for them to think of Israel as being … blackmailing their leaders in the United States, it’s a very …” at which point, Ben-Menashe interrupted and the following exchange took place:

Ari Ben-Menashe:  You’re kidding? [laughs]…. It was quite their M.O. Sleeping around is not a crime, it may be embarrassing, but it’s not a crime, but sleeping with underage girls is a crime. 

Shalev:  It was a crime in 2000 as well, but they let him off that… 

Ben-Menashe:  And that it is [why] always so he [Epstein] made sure these girls were underage.

In addition, when Shalev asked Ben-Menashe about the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Ben-Menashe stated “After a while, you know, what Mr. Epstein was doing was collecting intelligence on people in the United States. And so if you want to go to the U.S. if you’re a high-profile politician you want to know information about people.” Ben-Menashe subsequently stated that Barak was obtaining compromising information (i.e., blackmail) that Epstein had acquired on powerful people in the United States. 

PROMIS, sex, and blackmail

If Robert Maxwell did recruit Epstein and bring him into the “family business” and the world of Israeli intelligence, as Ben-Menashe has claimed, it provides supporting evidence for information provided to MintPress by a former U.S. intelligence official, who chose to remain anonymous in light of the sensitivity of the claim.

This source, who has direct knowledge of the unauthorized use of PROMIS to support covert U.S. and Israeli intelligence projects, told MintPress that “some of the proceeds from the illicit sales of PROMIS were made available to Jeffrey Epstein for use in compromising targets of political blackmail.” As was noted in a Mintpress series on the Epstein scandal, much of Epstein’s funding also came from Ohio billionaire Leslie Wexner, who has documented ties to both organized crime and U.S. and Israeli intelligence.

After the PROMIS software was stolen from its rightful owner and developer, Inslaw Inc., through the collusion of both U.S. and Israeli officials, it was marketed mainly by two men: Earl Brian, a close aide to Ronald Reagan, later U.S. envoy to Iran and close friend of Israeli spymaster Rafi Eitan; and Robert Maxwell. Brian sold the bugged software through his company, Hadron Inc., while Maxwell sold it through an Israeli company he acquired called Degem. Before and following Maxwell’s acquisition of Degem, the company was a known front for Mossad operations and Mossad operatives in Latin America often posed as Degem employees. 

With Maxwell — Epstein’s alleged recruiter and father of Epstein’s alleged madam — having been one of the main salespeople involved in selling PROMIS software on behalf of intelligence, he would have been in a key position to furnish Epstein’s nascent sexual blackmail operation with the proceeds from the sale of PROMIS. 

This link between Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation and the PROMIS software scandal is notable given that the illicit use of PROMIS by U.S. and Israeli intelligence has been for blackmail purposes on U.S. public figures and politicians, as was described in a recent MintPress report.

Can an ex-spy be trusted?

When dealing in the world of deception and intrigue that defines intelligence operations, it is often difficult to determine whether any individual linked to an intelligence agency is telling the truth. Indeed, in the United States, there are examples of elected intelligence officials committing perjury and lying to Congress on several occasions with no consequences, and of intelligence officials feeding politically motivated and untrue information to agency assets in the media. 

So, are Ari Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding Epstein and the Maxwells trustworthy? In addition to the aforementioned, corroborating information for his claims, a review of Ben-Menashe’s post-intelligence career suggests this is the case.


Ari Ben Menashe arrives at Harare International Airport, in Zimbabwe, Feb. 22, 2002. Photo | AP

Prior to his arrest in November 1989, Ben-Menashe was a high-ranking officer in a special unit of Israeli military intelligence. He would later claim that his arrest for attempting to sell American-made weapons to Iran was politically motivated, as he had threatened to expose what the U.S. government had done with the stolen PROMIS software if the U.S. did not cease providing Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with chemical weapons. Ben-Menashe was later acquitted when a U.S. court determined that his involvement in the attempted sale of military equipment to Iran was done on behalf of the Israeli state.

After his arrest, Ben-Menashe was visited in prison by Robert Parry, the former Newsweek contributor and Associated Press reporter who would later found and run Consortium News until his recent passing last year. Parry remembered that, during that interview, “Ben-Menashe offered me startling new information about the Iran-Contra scandal, which I thought that I knew quite well.”

Israel’s government immediately began to attack Ben-Menashe’s credibility following his interview with Parry, and claimed that Ben-Menashe had never worked for Israeli intelligence. When Parry soon found evidence that Ben-Menashe had indeed served in Israeli military intelligence, Israel’s government was then forced to admit that he had worked for military intelligence, but only as a “low-level translator.” Yet, the documentation Parry had uncovered described Ben-Menashe as having served in “key positions” and performed “complex and sensitive assignments.”

A year later, Ben-Menashe would be interviewed by another journalist, Seymour Hersh. It would be Ben-Menashe who first revealed to Hersh secrets about Israel’s nuclear program and the fact that British media mogul Robert Maxwell was an Israeli spy, revelations that Hersh would not only independently corroborate but include in his book The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Hersh was then sued by Robert Maxwell and the Maxwell-owned Mirror Group for libel. The case was later settled in Hersh’s favor, as the claims Hersh had made were true and not libelous. As a result, the Mirror Group paid Hersh for damages, covered his legal costs, and issued him a formal apology.

After Ben-Menashe’s interviews by Hersh and Parry, Israel’s government was apparently concerned enough about what Ben-Menashe would tell congressional investigators that it attempted to kidnap him and bring him back to Israel to face state charges, much like Israeli intelligence had done to Israel’s nuclear-weapons whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. The plan was foiled largely thanks to Parry.

Parry, who broke many key stories related to the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s and beyond, was tipped off by a U.S. intelligence source about a joint U.S.-Israel plan to have Ben-Menashe first be denied entry to the United States on his planned trip to give congressional testimony. Per the plan, Ben-Menashe would be denied entry to the U.S. in Los Angeles and then be deported to Israel, where he would have stood trial for “exposing state secrets.” Parry called Ben-Menashe and convinced him to delay his flight until he secured a guarantee for safe passage from the U.S. government. 

Ben-Menashe subsequently gave a sworn statement to the House Judiciary Committee that mostly focused on U.S.-Israel collusion regarding the theft and creation of a “backdoor” into the PROMIS software. Ben-Menashe offered to name names and provide corroborating evidence for several of his claims if he was offered immunity by the committee, which, for whatever reason. declined that request. 

Prior to the conclusion of the Hersh “libel” trial, which would later uphold Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding Robert Maxwell’s Mossad activities as true, there was a concerted effort in the U.S. press to downplay Ben-Menashe’s credibility. For instance, Newsweek — in an article on Ben-Menashe entitled “One Man, Many Tales” — claimed that “inconsistencies may undermine Ben-Menashe’s testimony in the British courtroom proceedings,” citing inconsistencies from sources in Israel’s government and Israeli intelligence as well as Ben-Menashe’s ex-wife and Israeli journalist Shmuel (or Samuel) Segev, a former IDF colonel. It goes without saying that such sources had much to gain from any effort to discredit Ben-Menashe’s claims.

According to Parry, this media campaign, which employed American journalists with close ties to Israel’s government and intelligence agencies, was very successful “in marginalizing Ben-Menashe by 1993, at least in the eyes of the Washington Establishment.” After a years-long media campaign to discredit Ben-Menashe, “the Israelis seemed to view him as a declining threat, best left alone. He was able to pick up the pieces of his life, creating a second act as an international political consultant and businessman arranging sales of grain.” The effort to marginalize Ben-Menashe has continued well into recent years, with mainstream news outlets still referring to him as a “self-described ex-Israeli spy” — despite the well-documented fact that Ben-Menashe worked for Israeli intelligence — as a means of downplaying his claims regarding his time in Israel’s intelligence service.

After the conclusion of the Hersh libel trial, Ben-Menashe became an international political consultant who “surrounded his far-flung business activities in secrecy and got involved with some controversial international figures, such as Zimbabwe’s leader Robert Mugabe,” and “conducted his international consulting business … in a wide variety of global hotspots, including conflict zones,” according to Parry. In addition to Mugabe, Ben-Menashe has also recently come under fire for his consulting work on behalf of Sudan’s military junta and Venezuelan opposition politician Henri Falcón.

Ben-Menashe has also maintained ties to several different intelligence services and eventually became a controversial whistleblower whose information led to the arrest of the former head of Canada’s Security Intelligence Review Committee, Arthur Porter.

As far as his character is concerned, Parry noted that Ben-Menashe could often be “his own worst enemy” and that, even though Parry considered his information regarding Iran-Contra and PROMIS reliable and noted that much of it was later corroborated, he “often compound[ed] his media problem by treating journalists in a high-handed manner, either due to his suspicions of them or his arrogance.”

Bill Hamilton, the original developer of the PROMIS software and head of Inslaw Inc., also found Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding the illicit use of PROMIS by U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies to be credible, though he expressed doubts about Ben-Menashe’s character. 

Hamilton told MintPress the following about Ben-Menashe: 

Ari Ben Menashe was the first source to tell us reliable information about the role of Rafi Eitan and Israeli intelligence vis-a-vis PROMIS but, in the end, of course, he was a clandestine services-type guy whose official duties include the ability and willingness to lie, cheat, and steal.”

A threat revived

While Ben-Menashe may have been viewed as a “declining threat” after the early 1990s, his plans to meet with Robert Parry of Consortium News years later in 2012 to discuss Iran-Contra and other covert dealings of the 1980s appeared to change that. Right before he planned to travel from Canada to the United States to meet with Parry and “finally prove” the truthfulness of his past claims, a fire-bomb was thrown into his Montreal home, destroying it.

Air Ben-Menashe surveys the damage to his home after it was mysteriously firebombed. Photos | Robert Parry

Though Canadian media referred to the incendiary device as a “molotov cocktail,” Consortium News reported that “the arson squad’s initial assessment is said to be that the flammable agent was beyond the sort of accelerant used by common criminals,” leading to speculation that the accelerant was military-grade.

Had it not been for the bomb, the origins of which Canadian police failed to determine, Ben-Menashe would have traveled to the U.S. alongside a “senior Israeli intelligence figure” to be interviewed by Parry. The other intelligence-linked individual, according to Parry, “concluded that the attack was meant as a message from Israeli authorities to stay silent about the historical events that he was expected to discuss.”

Though neither Ben-Menashe nor Parry directly blamed Israel’s government for the destruction of Ben-Menashe’s home, Parry noted that the bombing did succeed in “intimidating Ben-Menashe, shutting down possible new disclosures of Israeli misconduct from the other intelligence veteran, and destroying records that would have helped Ben-Menashe prove whatever statements he might make.”

While Ben-Menashe’s post-intelligence associations with controversial governments and individuals have given plenty of fodder to the still thriving media campaign to discredit his claims about covert U.S.-Israel operations in the 1980s, there remain troubling indications that the Israeli government sees his information on decades-old events as a threat. 

Now, with the major efforts by powerful Americans and Israelis to distance themselves from Jeffrey Epstein and other figures associated with his depraved sex trafficking operation, Ben-Menashe may soon again find his reputation — and perhaps more — under fire.

Feature photo | Graphic by Claudio Cabrera

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

Republish our stories! MintPress News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.
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'Jeffrey Epstein waarschijnlijk op 'loonlijst' Mossad, de Israëlische geheime dienst'

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VS: oud-geheime dienst medewerkers en inlichtingen veteranen waarschuwen Trump en de wereld voor een oorlog met Iran........

Oud-geheime dienst medewerkers en inlichtingen veteranen hebben een memorandum voor president beest Trump geschreven, met de waarschuwing geen oorlog met Iran te beginnen, dit daar ze de tekenen daartoe zien...... Zoals ze ook president George W Bush (nog zo'n gevaarlijke malloot, dat geldt overigens ook voor Obama de gespletene) waarschuwden geen oorlog te beginnen met Irak in de 6 weken voordat de VS illegaal, een op leugens gebaseerde oorlog begon tegen dat land.......

We weten wat van de illegale oorlog tegen Irak heeft gebracht: meer dan 1,5 miljoen vermoorde Irakezen en een land dat in chaos is gedompeld en in puin ligt (reken maar niet, met IS in het defensief, dat de ellende voor de bevolking daar voorbij is.....)

Een en ander is ook ingegeven door het bezoek dat de Israëlische Palestijnenslachter Netanyahu volgende week aan de VS zal brengen, deze psychopathische moordenaar 'is gewond geraakt' door met bewijs onderbouwde zware beschuldigingen van corruptie......* En als bij gewonde roofdieren moet je dan extra oppassen, immers een oorlog met Iran zou Netanyahu nu wel uitermate goed uitkomen.......

Uiteraard zal de VS komen met een zogenaamd bewijs waarop het 'niet anders kan' dan Iran aanvallen, ofwel een 'false flag' operatie, zoals de VS die door haar bloedige geschiedenis heen heeft gebruikt voor het uitoefenen van ongebreidelde agressie, of beter gezegd: grootschalige terreur...........

Lees het volgende uitstekende memorandum en oordeel zelf:

Intelligence Veterans Warn of Growing Risk for War With Iran Based on False Pretexts

February 26, 2018 at 9:05 am

Written by Anti-Media News Desk

(CN) — As President Donald Trump prepares to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week, a group of U.S. intelligence veterans offers corrections to a number of false accusations that have been leveled against Iran.

MEMORANDUM FOR:  The President

FROM:  Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT:  War With Iran

INTRODUCTION

In our December 21st Memorandum to you, we cautioned that the claim that Iran is currently the world’s top sponsor of terrorism is unsupported by hard evidence. Meanwhile, other false accusations against Iran have intensified. Thus, we feel obliged to alert you to the virtually inevitable consequences of war with Iran, just as we warned President George W. Bush six weeks before the U.S. attack on Iraq 15 years ago.

In our first Memorandum in this genre we told then-President Bush that we saw “no compelling reason” to attack Iraq, and warned “the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.” The consequences will be far worse, should the U.S. become drawn into war with Iran. We fear that you are not getting the straight story on this from your intelligence and national security officials.

After choosing “War With Iran” for the subject-line of this Memo, we were reminded that we had used it before, namely, for a Memorandum to President Obama on August 3, 2010 in similar circumstances. You may wish to ask your staff to give you that one to read and ponder. It included a startling quote from then-Chairman of President Bush Jr.’s Intelligence Advisory Board (and former national security adviser to Bush Sr.) Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who told the Financial Times on October 14, 2004 that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had George W. Bush “mesmerized;” that “Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger.”  We wanted to remind you of that history, as you prepare to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week.

*   *   *

Rhetoric vs. Reality

We believe that the recent reporting regarding possible conflict with nuclear-armed North Korea has somewhat obscured consideration of the significantly higher probability that Israel or even Saudi Arabia will take steps that will lead to a war with Iran that will inevitably draw the United States in. Israel is particularly inclined to move aggressively, with potentially serious consequences for the U.S., in the wake of the recent incident involving an alleged Iranian drone and the shooting down of an Israeli aircraft.

There is also considerable anti-Iran rhetoric in U.S. media, which might well facilitate a transition from a cold war-type situation to a hot war involving U.S. forces. We have for some time been observing with some concern the growing hostility towards Iran coming out of Washington and from the governments of Israel and Saudi Arabia. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster is warning that the “time to act is now” to thwart Iran’s aggressive regional ambitions while U.S. United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley sees a “wake-up” call in the recent shooting incident involving Syria and Israel. Particular concern has been expressed by the White House that Iran is exploiting Shi’a minorities in neighboring Sunni dominated states to create unrest and is also expanding its role in neighboring Iraq and Syria.

While we share concerns over the Iranian government’s intentions vis-à-vis its neighbors, we do not believe that the developments in the region, many of which came about through American missteps, have a major impact on vital U.S. national interests. Nor is Iran, which often sees itself as acting defensively against surrounding Sunni states, anything like an existential threat to the United States that would mandate the sustained military action that would inevitably result if Iran is attacked.

Iran’s alleged desire to stitch together a sphere of influence consisting of an arc of allied nations and proxy forces running from its western borders to the Mediterranean Sea has been frequently cited as justification for a more assertive policy against Tehran, but we believe this concern to be greatly exaggerated. Iran, with a population of more than 80 million, is, to be sure, a major regional power but militarily, economically and politically it is highly vulnerable.

Limited Military Capability

Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard is well armed and trained, but much of its “boots on the ground” army consists of militiamen of variable quality. Its Air Force is a “shadow” of what existed under the Shah and is significantly outgunned by its rivals in the Persian Gulf, not to mention Israel. Its navy is only “green water” capable in that it consists largely of smaller vessels responsible for coastal defense supplemented by the swarming of Revolutionary Guard small speedboats.

When Napoleon had conquered much of continental Europe and was contemplating invading Britain it was widely believed that England was helpless before him. British Admiral Earl St Vincent was unperturbed: “I do not say the French can’t come, I only say they can’t come by sea.” We likewise believe that Iran’s apparent threat is in reality decisively limited by its inability to project power across the water or through the air against neighboring states that have marked superiority in both respects.

The concern over a possibly developing “Shi’ite land bridge,” also referred to as an “arc” or “crescent,” is likewise overstated. It ignores the reality that Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon all have strong national identities and religiously mixed populations. They are influenced — some of them strongly — by Iran but they are not puppet states. And there is also an ethnic division that the neighboring states’ populations are very conscious of– they are Arabs and Iran is Persian, which is also true of the Shi’a populations in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

Majority Shi’a Iraq, for example, is now very friendly to Iran but it has to deal with considerable Kurdish and Sunni minorities in its governance and in the direction of its foreign policy. It will not do Iran’s bidding on a number of key issues, including Baghdad’s relationship with Washington, and would be unwilling to become a proxy in Tehran’s conflicts with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iraqi Vice President Osama al-Nujaifi, the highest-ranking Sunni in the Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi government, has, for example, recently called for the demobilization of the Shi’ite Popular Mobilization Forces or militias that have been fighting ISIS because they “have their own political aspirations, their own [political] agendas. … They are very dangerous to the future of Iraq.”

Nuclear Weapons Thwarted

A major concern that has undergirded much of the perception of an Iranian threat is the possibility that Tehran will develop a nuclear weapon somewhere down the road. We believe that the current Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, even if imperfect, provides the best response to that Iranian proliferation problem. The U.N. inspections regime is strict and, if the agreement stands, there is every reason to believe that Iran will be unable to take the necessary precursor steps leading to a nuclear weapons program. Iran will be further limited in its options after the agreement expires in nine years. Experts believe that, at that point, Iran its not likely to choose to accumulate the necessary highly enriched uranium stocks to proceed.

The recent incident involving the shoot-down of a drone alleged to be Iranian, followed by the downing of an Israeli fighter by a Syrian air defense missile, resulted in a sharp response from Tel Aviv, though reportedly mitigated by a warning from Russian President Vladimir Putin that anything more provocative might inadvertently involve Russia in the conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to have moderated his response but his government is clearly contemplating a more robust intervention to counter what he describes as a developing Iranian presence in Syria.

In addition, Netanyahu may be indicted on corruption charges, and it is conceivable that he might welcome a “small war” to deflect attention from mounting political problems at home.

Getting Snookered Into War

We believe that the mounting Iran hysteria evident in the U.S. media and reflected in Beltway groupthink has largely been generated by Saudi Arabia and Israel, who nurture their own aspirations for regional political and military supremacy. There are no actual American vital interests at stake and it is past time to pause and take a step backwards to consider what those interests actually are in a region that has seen nothing but disaster since 2003. Countering an assumed Iranian threat that is minimal and triggering a war would be catastrophic and would exacerbate instability, likely leading to a breakdown in the current political alignment of the entire Middle East. It would be costly for the United States.

Iran is not militarily formidable, but its ability to fight on the defensive against U.S. naval and air forces is considerable and can cause high casualties. There appears to be a perception in the Defense

Department that Iran could be defeated in a matter of days, but we would warn that such predictions tend to be based on overly optimistic projections, witness the outcomes in Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, Tehran would be able again to unleash terrorist resources throughout the region, endangering U.S. military and diplomats based there as well as American travelers and businesses. The terrorist threat might easily extend beyond the Middle East into Europe and also the United States, while the dollar costs of a major new conflict and its aftermath could break the bank, literally.

Another major consideration before ratcheting up hostilities should be that a war with Iran might not be containable. As the warning from President Vladimir Putin to Netanyahu made clear, other major powers have interests in what goes on in the Persian Gulf, and there is a real danger that a regional war could have global consequences.

In sum, we see a growing risk that the U.S. will become drawn into hostilities on pretexts fabricated by Israel and Saudi Arabia for their actual common objective (“regime change” in Iran). A confluence of factors and misconceptions about what is at stake and how such a conflict is likely to develop, coming from both inside and outside the Administration have, unfortunately, made such an outcome increasingly likely.

We have seen this picture before, just 15 years ago in Iraq, which should serve as a warning. The prevailing perception of threat that the Mullahs of Iran allegedly pose directly against the security of the U.S. is largely contrived. Even if all the allegations were true, they would not justify an Iraq-style “preventive war” violating national as well as international law. An ill-considered U.S. intervention in Iran is surely not worth the horrific humanitarian, military, economic, and political cost to be paid if Washington allows itself to become part of an armed attack.

FOR THE STEERING GROUP, VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY

William Binney, former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (ret.)

Kathleen Christison, CIA, Senior Analyst on Middle East (ret.)

Graham E. Fuller, Vice-Chair, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)

Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC Iraq; Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)

Larry C. Johnson, former CIA and State Department Counter Terrorism officer

Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF; ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC) (ret.)

John Brady Kiesling, Foreign Service Officer; resigned Feb. 27, 2003 as Political Counselor, U.S. Embassy, Athens, in protest against the U.S. attack on Iraq (ret.)

John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Edward Loomis, Jr., former NSA Technical Director for the Office of Signals Processing (ret.)

David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council, National Intelligence Estimates Officer (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst; CIA Presidential briefer (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Near East (ret.)

Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)

Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)

Greg Thielmann, former Director of the Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs Office, State

Department Bureau of Intelligence & Research (INR), and former senior staffer on Senate Intelligence Committee (ret.)

Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA ret.)

Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel (USA, ret.), former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State; Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary (associate VIPS)

Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)

Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)

Ann Wright, Colonel, US Army (ret.); also Foreign Service Officer who, like Political Counselor John Brady Kiesling, resigned in opposition to the war on Iraq

Republished with permission / Consortium News / Report a typo

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* En misdadiger Netanyahu wordt nog serieus genomen ook door de reguliere westerse journalistiek en het grootste deel van de westerse politici.....

Zie ook: 'Oost-Ghouta >> 'gematigde rebellen' schieten op vluchtende burgers, aldus VN....... Aandacht in Nederlandse media nul komma nada....' (waar me het nog meeviel dat deze media niet hebben gemeld dat Syrische troepen op de vluchtelingen schoten, zoals in Oost-Aleppo gebeurde, waarover je rustig kan zeggen dat dit een false flag operatie was)

       en: 'VS agressie in Syrië voorzien van een vooropgezet plan.......'

       en: 'Oost-Ghouta: MSM leugens ofwel het zoveelste geval van 'fake news' lekt weg uit uit de massamedia'

       en: 'VS bezig met voorbereiding van een 'door Syrië' gepleegde gifgasaanval, ofwel de volgende VS false flag operatie'