person:max blumenthal

Max Blumenthal en interview à la télé norvégienne il y a trois jours : comparaison d’Israël avec ISIL (il l’appelle JSIL).

C’est très intéressant, tout ce qu’il dit est vrai et patenté, mais je ne suis personnellement pas sur de la pertinence de la comparaison JSIL et ISIL. Dans le sens ou j’ai l’impression que c’est contre-productif. Ce n’est quand même pas la même histoire ni les même objectifs, mais le mérite de Max Blumenthal et de rappeler avec force qu’Israël st un état ethnocratique en inquiétante dérive fasciste

– Israel mister de unge - Nyheter, tv og radio fra hele verden - NRK.no
▻http://www.nrk.no/verden/_-israel-mister-de-unge-1.12040369

Israel mister de unge

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/qy624uapdg3xcw5/Capture%20d%E2%80%99%C3%A9cran%202014-11-15%20%C3%A0%2001.08.34.png?dl=0

– Varselklokkene ringer i USA og Israel, skriver en amerikansk-jødisk avis. Et generasjonsskifte utfordrer USAs sterke støtte til Israel.

#israël #palestine #colonisation #occupation #ethnocratie

Archives : juin 2012, Max Blumenthal dénonce le Akhbar comme « propagandiste de Bachar Assad » et, en particulier, ridiculise l’idée que plusieurs milliers de combattants islamistes auraient pour but de « proclamer un caliphat islamique en Syrie ». (Dès novembre suivant, les « libérateurs » d’Alep annonçaient le désir d’établir un « État islamique juste », en posant devant un drapeau salafiste ; et évidemment Daech prétendra réaliser l’Émirat en juin 2014.)

The right to resist is universal : A farewell to Al Akhbar and Assad’s apologists
►http://maxblumenthal.com/2012/06/the-right-to-resist-is-universal-a-farewell-to-al-akhbar-and-assads-a

Echoing Assad, Ghorayeb has referred to the Syrian army’s pornographically violent crackdowns on what by all accounts is still a mostly homegrown resistance as “the regime’s war against the foreign sponsored terrorists and insurrectionists,” calling for “a security solution to root [them] out.” At the Al Akhbar’s Arabic site, Jean Aziz predicted a complete Salafi takeover of Syria if Assad falls. Meanwhile, Ibrahim al Amin claimed that the Syrian opposition “cop[ied] the modus operandi which was devised by the leadership of al-Qaeda,” then uncritically quoted an unnamed regime source who insisted that “a hardline majority of the armed groups have come to be led by non-Syrians.” Similarly, Narwani asserted that a shadowy 5000-man ultra-Islamist militia has been operating inside the city of Homs with “plans to declare an Islamic Caliphate in Syria” — Creeping Shariah! She based her remarkable assertion on a single conversation with an anonymous journalist.

Le texte de Blumenthal contient en particulier une remarque d’une grande faiblesse, mais qui a cela d’intéressant qu’elle est reprise par les usual suspects (Thomas Pierret me l’a sortie) :

(ironically, they seem to have little problem with Hezbollah’s core Islamist values)

Gaza : La communauté internationale promet de reconstruire Gaza... avec des ateliers de misère pour exploiter les ouvriers palestiniens - Max Blumenthal- Traduction : MR pour ISM
▻http://www.ism-france.org/analyses/La-communaute-internationale-promet-de-reconstruire-Gaza-avec-des-atelie

Lorsque l’équipe internationale d’entretien d’Israël s’est réunie cette semaine au Caire avec un engagement de lever 5 milliards de dollars pour participer à la reconstruction des 8 milliards de dollars de dégâts causés par Israël à la population civile, le ministre israélien des Transports, Yisrael Katz, l’a assurée que ses efforts étaient parfaitement inutiles. « Les habitants de Gaza doivent décider s’ils veulent être Singapour ou le Darfour, » a fait remarquer Katz, alignant la menace de génocide et le fantasme de la prospérité économique. « Ils peuvent choisir entre la reprise économique et la guerre et la destruction. S’ils choisissent la terreur, le monde ne devrait pas gaspiller son argent. Si un missile est tiré, tout disparaitra. »

http://www.ism-france.org/photos/sculpture%20gaza.jpg

(...) Les diplomates réunis au Caire savaient que la conférence des donateurs était une farce qui ferait peu pour soulager la souffrance de la population assiégée de Gaza. Pourtant aucun ne semble prêt à s’écarter du statu quo. Ils ont abordé la destruction de Gaza comme si elle était le résultat d’une catastrophe naturelle aléatoire et non la fureur maléfique d’une colonie de peuplement anachronique armée jusqu’aux dents par la seule superpuissance du monde. Évidemment, la violence israélienne contre la population civile de Gaza a été à peine mentionnée, pas plus que n’a été proposée la moindre mesure diplomatique contre elle. Et avec le Hamas interdit de participation à la conférence, le gouvernement de Gaza n’a pas pu soulever la question.

http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/515089sculpt1.jpg

Kerry a salué Israël comme une nation généreuse qui prend des « mesures positives » pour aider à soutenir l’économie de Gaza et à remettre sur pied le territoire assiégé. Il a claironné que « de nouvelles mesures qui devraient permettre une augmentation du commerce des produits agricoles entre Gaza et la Cisjordanie , et davantage de permis d’entrée en Israël pour les chefs d’entreprise palestiniens, » omettant le fait qu’Israël a interdit l’entrée de tout matériel de construction à Gaza, retardant indéfiniment l’entrée de 60 camions. « Nous espérons voir beaucoup d’autres mesures positives annoncées et mises en œuvre dans les semaines et les mois à venir, » a déclaré Kerry.

http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/579334sculpt2.jpg

(...) Même s’il a admis que l’aide à Gaza était une « solution de fortune », Kerry n’a offert aucun remède politique au-delà du plan-cadre pour deux Etats que le gouvernement israélien a déjà rejeté de façon retentissante plus tôt cette année. Ainsi son apparition au Caire et l’ensemble du spectacle de la conférence des donateurs ont ajouté une nouvelle couche de poudre aux yeux sur le statu quo brutal.

Pendant ce temps, tandis que les diplomates rentraient chez eux, les responsables israéliens ont intensifié leurs imprécations à vous glacer le sang. « Si une Opération Bordure défensive ne suffit pas, vous en aurez deux ou trois, jusqu’à ce que cesse la terreur du Hamas, » a clamé le ministre des Transports Katz. « Je préfère 1000 mères palestiniens en pleurs que de laisser pleurer une seule mère juive. »

http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/741600sculpt3.jpg

Sur tweeter un hashtag connaît du succès pour désigner Israël : JSIL (Jewish State of Israel in the Levant) - construit sur l’acronyme anglais de Da3ch : ISIL. Popularisé, entre autres par Max Blumenthal (un ex chroniqueur d’al-Akhbar english), le calembours permet de construire une série d’intéressants parallèles : par exemple que les deux (ISIL/JSIL) construisent sur des terres un Etat en se revendiquant de Dieu pour en chasser les hommes :
►http://rt.com/news/192552-israel-jsil-twitter-isis

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/By2ujXSIUAAD_oz.jpg

Décembre 2011 – From Occupation to “Occupy”: The Israelification of American Domestic Security – Max Blumenthal
►http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/occupation-“occupy”-israelification-american-domestic-security

The Israelification of America’s security apparatus, recently unleashed in full force against the Occupy Wall Street Movement, has taken place at every level of law enforcement, and in areas that have yet to be exposed. The phenomenon has been documented in bits and pieces, through occasional news reports that typically highlight Israel’s national security prowess without examining the problematic nature of working with a country accused of grave human rights abuses. But it has never been the subject of a national discussion. And collaboration between American and Israeli cops is just the tip of the iceberg.

[…]

Besides JINSA, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has positioned itself as an important liaison between American police forces and the Israeli security-intelligence apparatus. […]

The ADL claims to have trained over 45,000 American law enforcement officials through its Law Enforcement and Society program, which “draws on the history of the Holocaust to provide law enforcement professionals with an increased understanding of…their role as protectors of the Constitution,” the group’s website stated. All new FBI agents and intelligence analysts are required to attend the ADL program, which is incorporated into three FBI training programs. According to official FBI recruitment material, “all new special agents must visit the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to see firsthand what can happen when law enforcement fails to protect individuals.”

Sayed Kashua, écrivain arabe et citoyen israélien, quitte israel pour s’installer a Chicago :
►http://www.liberation.fr/monde/2014/07/15/toutes-les-raisons-pour-lesquelles-je-quitte-israel_1064343

Si vous ne l’avez pas encore lu, lire absolument : comment, derrière la spectaculaire démission en direct d’une journaliste de Russia Today, Blumenthal et Khalek ont relevé les traces d’une manipulation néoconservatrice.
How Cold War-Hungry Neocons Stage Managed RT Anchor Liz Wahl’s Resignation - Max Blumenthal & Rania Khalek
►http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_cold_war-hungry_neocons_stage_managed_liz_wahls_resignation_20140319

Behind the coverage of Wahl’s dramatic protest, a cadre of neoconservatives was celebrating a public relations coup. Desperate to revive the Cold War, head off further cuts to the defense budget and restore the legitimacy they lost in the ruins of Iraq, the tightknit group of neoconservative writers and stewards had opened up a new PR front through Wahl’s resignation. And they succeeded with no shortage of help from an ossified media establishment struggling to maintain credibility in an increasingly anarchic online news environment. With isolated skeptics branded as useful idiots for Putin, the scene has been kept clean of neoconservative fingerprints, obscuring their interest in Wahl’s resignation and the broader push to deepen tensions with Russia.

Is the US Backing Neo-Nazis in Ukraine ? | Max Blumenthal
▻http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/us-backing-neo-nazis-ukraine

An Anarchist group called AntiFascist Union Ukraine attempted to join the Euromaidan demonstrations but found it difficult to avoid threats of violence and imprecations from the gangs of neo-Nazis roving the square. “They called the Anarchists things like Jews, blacks, Communists,” one of its members said. “There weren’t even any Communists, that was just an insult.”

“There are lots of Nationalists here, including Nazis,” the anti-fascist continued. “They came from all over Ukraine, and they make up about 30% of protesters.”

La seconde partie de l’article est plus originale : Max décrit les liens entre ces expatriés urkrainiens « très à droite » et la droite américaine.

Many surviving OUN-B members fled to Western Europe and the United States – occasionally with CIA help – where they quietly forged political alliances with right-wing elements. “You have to understand, we are an underground organization. We have spent years quietly penetrating positions of influence,” one member told journalist Russ Bellant, who documented the group’s resurgence in the United States in his 1988 book, “Old Nazis, New Right, and the Republican Party.”

In Washington, the OUN-B reconstituted under the banner of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), an umbrella organization comprised of “complete OUN-B fronts,” according to Bellant. By the mid-1980’s, the Reagan administration was honeycombed with UCCA members, with the group’s chairman Lev Dobriansky, serving as ambassador to the Bahamas, and his daughter, Paula, sitting on the National Security Council. Reagan personally welcomed Stetsko, the Banderist leader who oversaw the massacre of 7000 Jews in Lviv, into the White House in 1983.

“Your struggle is our struggle,” Reagan told the former Nazi collaborator. “Your dream is our dream.”

La face cachée d’Israël | Nicolas Bérubé | Moyen-Orient
►http://www.lapresse.ca/international/moyen-orient/201402/17/01-4739584-la-face-cachee-disrael.php
Publié le 17 février 2014

Pendant quatre ans, l’auteur et journaliste *Max Blumenthal a fouillé la société israélienne, rencontrant de jeunes soldats, visitant des hommes politiques conservateurs dans les colonies immaculées et des militants de gauche dans des appartements délabrés de Jérusalem. Son plus récent livre, Goliath, brosse un portrait brutal d’une société déboussolée, qui célèbre la violence contre la population immigrante et arabe, et réprime la dissidence. Ses observations trouvent de plus en plus d’oreilles attentives aux États-Unis, principal allié d’Israël. La Presse l’a joint par téléphone chez lui, à Jersey City, près de New York.*
(...)

R Cacher des crimes n’est pas propre [à Israël] : la police américaine et les soldats en Irak et en Afghanistan l’ont fait. Or, aux États-Unis, des recours judiciaires existent. Les journalistes peuvent enquêter, etc. En Israël, ce qui est remarquable, ce n’est pas seulement l’immunité pour les soldats, mais aussi l’absence de protestations dans la société. Quand un enfant palestinien est assassiné de manière flagrante en Cisjordanie, seuls quelques individus, détestés par l’ensemble de la société israélienne, vont manifester. La société israélienne ne voit pas cela comme un crime, elle le voit comme une chose nécessaire, au pire malheureuse.

Pendant ce temps, des organisations comme Breaking the Silence colligent des témoignages anonymes de soldats israéliens qui confient avoir commis des crimes horribles. Ils pleurent et vident leur conscience. Puis ils retournent à leur service, à leur vie quotidienne, à leur emploi. Dans l’esprit de ces soldats, ce sont eux les victimes, eux et leur âme angoissée. Pas les civils palestiniens ou libanais.
(...)

Q Quelle réception votre livre a-t-il reçue ?

R Aux États-Unis, les choses bougent. J’ai fait une tournée de trois mois, et j’ai fait une présentation devant le National Press Club à Washington, D.C. Ils ont rempli la plus grande salle de bal pour la conférence, et ils ont dû ajouter des chaises. Mon livre s’en va bientôt en deuxième impression, ce qui est bon signe. En Israël, dans la presse généraliste, j’ai eu une critique négative, et une positive.

Q Le secrétaire d’État américain John Kerry prépare un plan de paix qu’il espère présenter à Benyamin Nétanyahou lors de sa visite à Washington, le mois prochain. Croyez-vous que cet effort sera fructueux ?

R Le processus de paix a toujours été un alibi utilisé par Israël pour faire ce qui lui chante sur le terrain et garder les Palestiniens en état d’occupation. Aujourd’hui, John Kerry est prêt à tout concéder à Nétanyahou, et même cela n’est pas assez pour la coalition qui dirige Israël. Pour les États-Unis, Israël est comme un enfant-roi qu’il est impossible de contrôler. Je pense que, ces prochaines années, Israël va poursuivre sur sa lancée vers les politiques de droite, et s’isoler davantage.

Goliath : Life and Loathing in Greater Israel

Max Blumenthal

Nation Books

496 pages

Scarlett Johansson controversy shows Hollywood’s fading Zionism | Max Blumenthal
▻http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/scarlett-johansson-controversy-shows-hollywoods-fading-zionism#full

Unlike the behaviour of pro-Israel PR operatives, which was amusingly predictable, the liberal Zionist reaction was stunning to behold.

Having always insisted that they were personally opposed to Israel’s settlement enterprise, major pro-Israel liberals were forced to demonstrate their stated principles. Asked about the campaign against Sodastream during a Huffpost Live segment, Jewish Daily Forward editor-in-chief Jane Eisner typified the mealy-mouthed liberal Zionist response: “It’s complicated … we’re trying to sort it out.”

A week later, she orchestrated an editorial denouncing settlement boycotts as “unfair”. By closing ranks with right-wing partisans of Greater Israel, Eisner and a chorus of liberal Zionists revealed their claims to reject the settlement enterprise as empty bluster.

Très intéressante interview de Max Blumenthal au sujet de son livre : Inside Israel’s Apartheid State
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/02/inside-israels-apartheid-state

MB: There was no particular incident or event that I was not prepared for when I began the fieldwork for the book. What shocked me was the degree to which Israel was able to fuse Western-style neo-liberalism so seamlessly with settler-colonial apartheid. In Goliath, I described drinking at a bar in a hip neighborhood in Tel Aviv, staring at the nearby luxury “ghost tower” inhabited by wealthy American Jews like Marty Peretz, and listening to fusion jazz emanate from an adjacent club with my t-shirt still saturated in the residue of teargas from the demonstration against the separation wall I attended earlier in the day. That is when it became clear to me how much the Tel Aviv bubble required the Iron Wall.

I am filled with memories like this. In one instance, I was sitting in a macrobiotic/vegan restaurant in central Jerusalem with a French tourist who was staying at my flat during the summer of 2010. The tourist grabbed a French-Israeli magazine on a nearby table, flipped to a random page, and began translating an article to me about the dangers Jewish women could face if they dated Arab men – how the Arab male would charm you before he took you captive in his village and beat you into submission. The feeling of having a Jim Crow-style tract read to me in a French accent while I noshed on a quinoa, tempeh and kale platter in a restaurant packed with vegan settlers summed up the whole experience of Israel for me. I was living life in a tech-savvy, gay-friendly apartheid state where oiled up soldier girls in skimpy bikinis tanned themselves to an orange hue on balmy beaches a few kilometers up the coast from a besieged ghetto filled with food insecure refugees. Each day I spent in Israel, I was staring straight at the West’s most vulgar image of itself.

Liberal Fascism
▻http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/liberal-fascism

Max Blumenthal’s Goliath finds fascism in Israel, but overlooks the mask it’s hiding behind

Max Blumenthal’s “Goliath” seen as threat at heart of Israel’s propaganda machinery
▻http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/benjamin-doherty/max-blumenthals-goliath-seen-threat-heart-israels-propaganda-mac

The pair met a decade earlier in the Israeli army where, the company press release states, “they both were entrusted with revising the Army’s strategic media infrastructure.”

In 2010, Thunder11 created Iran180, an astroturf operation posing deceptively as a “human rights” group. Its real goal was to demonize and incite confrontation with Iran.

Iran180’s most notorious activities have included street performances depicting sexual assaults and intended to portray former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a gay Jew. Other Iran180 productions include bizarre music videos that portray Ahmadinejad defecating and him and Bashar al Assad as misogynistic, married gay men.

Dubious Intelligence and Iran Blackmail: How Israel is driving the US to war in Syria | Max Blumenthal
►http://mondoweiss.net/2013/09/dubious-intelligence-and-iran-blackmail-how-israel-is-driving-the-us-to-

Oddly, neither outlet was able to reproduce audio or any quotes of the conversation between the Syrian officials. Channel 2 did not appear to cite any source at all – it referred only to “the assessment in Israel” – while Focus relied on an unnamed former Mossad official for its supposed bombshell. The definitive nature of the Israeli intelligence on Ghouta stood in stark contrast to the kind introduced by other US allies, which was entirely circumstantial in nature. At the same time, it relied on murky sources and consisted of vague assertions.

The Assad regime may indeed be responsible for the Ghouta massacre, but Israel’s military-intelligence apparatus does not exactly have a reputation for trustworthiness. (Consider, for example, the Israeli army’s shameless attempt to link the Gaza Freedom Flotilla to Al Qaeda by plastering Israeli media with crude and easily discredited propaganda, always sourced to anonymous national security officials.) Yet in his determination to see the US attack the country he recently referred to as “Iran’s testing ground,” Netanyahu appeared to be succeeding in his campaign to bring Obama’s red line back into focus.

[…]

The threat of a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran if the US does not act on Syria is slowly seeping into American media, and will almost certainly grow more pronounced this week as pro-Israel pundits and members of the Obama administration unite on their message. AIPAC may also join the push for congressional authorization, a move the night flower-style lobby managed to avoid during the run-up to invading Iraq. If the Israel lobby is forced into the open, it could hold the prospect of an attack on Iran like a gun to the heads of members of Congress, warning them that the price of inaction is a regional conflagration.

Lire absolument ce rapport de Max Blumenthal sur le “Security Forum” d’Aspen, proprement sidérant. La tirade sur le besoin d’une nouvelle commission, secrète, « du genre Sikes-Picot », pour que les États-Unis puissent redessiner les frontières, est un grand moment de bonheur :
▻http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/shocking-extermination-fantasies-people-running-americas-empire-full-displ

With the revolts blurring the old boundaries imposed on the Arab world during the late colonial era, former CIA director John McLaughlin rose from the audience to call for the U.S. to form a secret, Sikes-Picot-style commission to draw up a new set of borders.

“The American government should now have such a group asking how we should manage those lines and what should those lines be,” McLaughlin told the panelists, who dismissed the idea of a new Great Game even as they discussed tactics for preserving U.S. dominance in the Middle East.

Ça date du 25 juillet dernier (signalé par un lecteur d’Angry Arab).

Inside the strange Hollywood scam that spread chaos across the Middle East | Max Blumenthal | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/13/egypt-libya-hollywood-film?fb=optOut

Produced and promoted by a strange collection of rightwing Christian evangelicals and exiled Egyptian Copts, the trailer was created with the intention of both destabilizing post-Mubarak Egypt and roiling the US presidential election. As a consultant for the film named Steve Klein said: “We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen.”

U.S. journalist attacks Lebanon-based news site for pro-Assad slant
►http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/06/22/221982.html

Max Blumenthal publicly announced that he would no longer contribute to Al Akhbar English, accusing the news site of “defending the Syrian regime behind the cover of leftist ideology,” in a blog entry he wrote on his own website on Wednesday.

The journalist referred to “pro-regime op-eds” recently published on the site and writers who have “thrown their weight behind [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad’s campaign of brutality.”

Blumenthal wrote that Al Akhbar English had recently featured “an attack on Arab Third Wayers (supporters of the anti-imperialist, anti-authoritarian political tendency)” in a recent opinion piece, which he deemed to be in line with the “Syrian regime’s long record of exploiting the Palestinian struggle to advance its narrow self-interests.”

Israel’s bogus case for bombing Gaza obscures political motives | Max Blumenthal (Al Akhbar English)
►http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/5046

In the last two days, Israeli forces have killed at least 15 residents of the Gaza Strip and wounded over 30. Among the dead are two young boys (see here and here), while the wounded included a reporter from the Ma’an News Agency and his pregnant wife. Militant factions in Gaza have responded to the Israeli assault by launching several homemade rockets at Southern Israel, leaving two injured and no one dead. (...) Source: Al Akhbar English

Excellent billet de Max Blumenthal pour le Akhbar : Israel’s bogus case for bombing Gaza obscures political motives
►http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/5046

Netanyahu had hoped to secure a solid commitment from Obama to authorize an attack on Iran, or to at least support an Israeli strike in the near future. Instead, he was rebuked, with Obama condemning Netanyahu’s “loose talk of war” and warning him not to strike Iran. […]

Almost as soon as he limped back to Jerusalem in frustration, Netanyahu gathered with his generals to gin up a case for pounding Gaza. The Gaza Strip, with its warehoused population of stateless refugees, would serve as their punching bag and pressure release valve. They could not have their war on Iran — not yet, at least — but they could assault Palestinians in Gaza without fear of repercussions from Washington.

US Congress promises Iranian people strangulation and catastrophe - Max Blumenthal
►http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/gadfly/us-congress-promises-iranian-people-strangulation-and-catastrophe

A co-sponsor of the Swift sanctions, Republican Senator Mark Kirk, has been the largest single recipient of AIPAC-related donations in Congress. Kirk’s desire to collectively punish the Iranian people for anything their government might or might not have done is unconcealed. In an October 2011 appearance on a Chicago-area radio show, Kirk spent his time harumphing over a transparently trumped up Iranian government terror plot. But the host interrupted the senator with an important question: “Are you really going after the government of the country, or are you taking food out of the mouths of the citizens?‘”

Kirk’s reply neatly encapsulated the sadistic consensus in Washington: “It’s okay to take the food out of the mouths of the citizens from a government that’s plotting an attack directly on American soil.”

Je n’avais pas encore eu le temps de regarder l’interview de Max Blumenthal sur Future TV. Voilà qui est fait.

►http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_Q_ePHGHc4

Après les événements d’Oslo, je pense qu’il est urgent de relire l’enquête menée par Max Blumenthal il y a plus de six mois. Parce que l’idéologie haineuse et paranoïaque du meurtrier n’est pas tombée du ciel, elle a été façonnée et sa promotion a été soutenue financièrement.

J’avais référencé cette enquête à l’époque ici :
►http://seenthis.net/messages/6496

#Max_Blumenthal expose l’influence directe des réseaux israéliens dans la montée des thèmes et des politiciens hystériquement islamophobes aux #États-Unis. Je crois que c’est un article très important.

The Great Islamophobic Crusade - Max Blumenthal
►http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/19/opinion/main7166626.shtml

Little of recent American Islamophobia (with a strong emphasis on the “phobia”) is sheer happenstance. Years before Tea Party shock troops massed for angry protests outside the proposed site of an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, representatives of the Israel lobby and the Jewish-American establishment launched a campaign against pro-Palestinian campus activism that would prove a seedbed for everything to come. That campaign quickly — and perhaps predictably — morphed into a series of crusades against mosques and Islamic schools which, in turn, attracted an assortment of shady but exceptionally energetic militants into the network’s ranks.

Besides providing the initial energy for the Islamophobic crusade, conservative elements from within the pro-Israel lobby bankrolled the network’s apparatus, enabling it to influence the national debate. One philanthropist in particular has provided the beneficence to propel the campaign ahead. He is a little-known Los Angeles-area software security entrepreneur named Aubrey Chernick, who operates out of a security consulting firm blandly named the National Center for Crisis and Continuity Coordination. A former trustee of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which has served as a think tank for the American Israel Policy Action Committee (AIPAC), a frontline lobbying group for Israel, Chernick is said to be worth $750 million.

Chernick’s fortune is puny compared to that of the billionaire Koch Brothers, extraction industry titans who fund Tea Party-related groups like Americans for Prosperity, and it is dwarfed by the financial empire of Haim Saban, the Israeli-American media baron who is one of the largest private donors to the Democratic party and recently matched $9 million raised for the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces in a single night. However, by injecting his money into a small but influential constellation of groups and individuals with a narrow agenda, Chernick has had a considerable impact.

Through the Fairbrook Foundation, a private entity he and his wife Joyce control, Chernick has provided funding to groups ranging from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and CAMERA, a right-wing, pro-Israel, media-watchdog outfit, to violent Israeli settlers living on Palestinian lands and figures like the pseudo-academic author Robert Spencer, who is largely responsible for popularizing conspiracy theories about the coming conquest of the West by Muslim fanatics seeking to establish a worldwide caliphate. Together, these groups spread hysteria about Muslims into Middle American communities where immigrants from the Middle East have recently settled, and they watched with glee as likely Republican presidential frontrunners from Mike Huckabee to Sarah Palin promoted their cause and parroted their tropes. Perhaps the only thing more surprising than the increasingly widespread appeal of Islamophobia is that, just a few years ago, the phenomenon was confined to a few college campuses and an inner city neighborhood, and that it seemed like a fleeting fad that would soon pass from the American political landscape.

She also benefited from close alliances with leading Islamophobes from Europe. Among Geller’s allies was Andrew Gravers, a Danish activist who formed the group Stop the Islamicization of Europe, and gave it the unusually blunt motto: “Racism is the lowest form of human stupidity, but Islamophobia is the height of common sense.” Gravers’ group inspired Geller’s own U.S.-based outfit, Stop the Islamicization of America, which she formed with her friend Robert Spencer, a pseudo-scholar from Great Britain whose bestselling books, including The Truth About Muhammad, Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion, prompted former advisor to President Richard Nixon and Muslim activist Robert Crane to call him, “the principal leader… in the new academic field of Muslim bashing.” (According to the website Politico, almost $1 million in donations from Chernick has been steered to Spencer’s Jihad Watch group through David Horowitz’s Freedom Center.)

Inspiration from Israel

It was evident from the involvement of figures like Gravers and Spencer that the Islamophobic network in the United States represented a trans-Atlantic expansion of simmering resentment in Europe. There, the far-right was storming to victories in parliamentary elections across the continent in part by appealing to the simmering anti-Muslim sentiments of voters in rural and working-class communities. The extent of the collaboration between European and American Islamophobes has only continued to grow with Geller, Spencer, and even Gingrich standing beside Europe’s most prominent anti-Muslim figure, Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, at a rally against Cordoba House. In the meantime, Geller was issuing statements of support for the English Defense League, a band of unreconstructed neo-Nazis and former members of the whites-only British National Party who intimidate Muslims in the streets of cities like Birmingham and London.

In addition, the trans-Atlantic Islamophobic crusade has stretched into Israel, a country that has come to symbolize the network’s fight against the Muslim menace. As Geller told the New York Times’ Alan Feuer, Israel is “a very good guide because, like I said, in the war between the civilized man and the savage, you side with the civilized man.”

Rami Zurayk interviewé par Max Blumenthal, pour Electronic Intifada. Wow.
►http://electronicintifada.net/content/interview-planning-nakba-day-movement-lebanon/10046

Every year the Nakba is commemorated and each year, the commemoration becomes more intense, not less. This year the demonstrations were inspired by the Arab Spring, a massive pacifistic resistance with no weapons and under only one flag — the Palestinian flag. So no factions, no PFLP, no Hamas, no Fatah, just everyone flying one flag and wearing white hats emblazoned with the flag. Like the demonstrations in Tahrir Square and throughout Tunisia, the Nakba Day demonstrators were audacious, tenacious and most of all, repetitive. Repetition is why Tahrir worked — you put your body on the line against repression. So that became our modality.

People arrived at the border in 1,000 buses. All in all, we counted 40,000 to 50,000 people. The Arab Spring is a revolution of the disenfranchised and desperate, and the Palestinians who live in Lebanon certainly fit that description. But what was remarkable about the Nakba Day demonstrations was that they also included rich Palestinians who were not from the camps — students from AUB (American University of Beirut) and Lebanese civil society.

#Max_Blumenthal expose l’influence directe des réseaux israéliens dans la montée des thèmes et des politiciens hystériquement islamophobes aux #États-Unis. Je crois que c’est un article très important.

The Great Islamophobic Crusade - #CBS_News
►http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/19/opinion/main7166626.shtml

It reflects an aggressively pro-Israel sensibility, with its key figures venerating the Jewish state as a Middle Eastern Fort Apache on the front lines of the Global War on Terror and urging the U.S. and various European powers to emulate its heavy-handed methods.

Little of recent American Islamophobia (with a strong emphasis on the “phobia”) is sheer happenstance. Years before Tea Party shock troops massed for angry protests outside the proposed site of an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, representatives of the Israel lobby and the Jewish-American establishment launched a campaign against pro-Palestinian campus activism that would prove a seedbed for everything to come. That campaign quickly — and perhaps predictably — morphed into a series of crusades against mosques and Islamic schools which, in turn, attracted an assortment of shady but exceptionally energetic militants into the network’s ranks.

Besides providing the initial energy for the Islamophobic crusade, conservative elements from within the pro-Israel lobby bankrolled the network’s apparatus, enabling it to influence the national debate. One philanthropist in particular has provided the beneficence to propel the campaign ahead. He is a little-known Los Angeles-area software security entrepreneur named Aubrey Chernick, who operates out of a security consulting firm blandly named the National Center for Crisis and Continuity Coordination. A former trustee of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which has served as a think tank for the American Israel Policy Action Committee (AIPAC), a frontline lobbying group for Israel, Chernick is said to be worth $750 million.

#Israël #islamophobie