It’s not often that stories about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict make me laugh but one by Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East editor, did. Because he is the corporation’s correspondent supporters of Israel right or wrong most love to hate – from time to time they pressure the BBC to fire him – I imagine he enjoyed writing it.
In a vivid background report for From Our Own Correspondent, headlined Tough Lessons for Obama on Mid-East peace, Jeremy recalled some of the “false dawns” of previous presidential peace efforts.
One was a trip by President Clinton to Gaza in 1998 when Netanyahu was enjoying his first period as Israel’s prime minister. “Yes”, Jeremy added, “an American president in Gaza. It is not conceivable these days.”
After noting that Netanyahu drove Clinton mad, Jeremy went on:
After he (Netanyahu) had lectured the president about the Middle East, Mr. Clinton famously asked his aides: “Who the (bleep) does he think he is? Who’s the bleeping superpower here?” Only he did not say bleep.
What President Clinton actually said was, “Who the fuck does he think he is? Who’s the fucking superpower here?”
After recalling in his own way how President Obama has been humiliated to date by Netanyahu in his second period as prime minister, Jeremy commented that he, Obama, “might be using Bill Clintonesque language about Mr. Netanyahu.”
My own speculation is that Obama behind closed doors might even be outdoing Clinton in his use of expletives about Netanyahu.
But really there’s no cause for laughter. Tears of rage are more appropriate.
The documented truth, which flows through my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, is that every occupant of the Oval Office has at one point or another, and as President Ford once put it, been made “as mad as hell” by Israeli prime ministers. So the use of presidential expletives to describe them and Zionist lobby leaders at moments of great tension probably has a history going all the way back to Israel’s unilateral declaration of independence.
Even before that there were moments when President Truman could not contain his anger at the tactics Zionists were employing to bend him and the United Nations to their will. At one cabinet meeting Truman blurted out, “Jesus Christ couldn’t please them when he was here, so how could anyone expect that I would have any luck.”
In Memoirs published long after the events, Truman was very frank about Zionist coercion in the countdown to the General Assembly vote on the partition plan resolution. He wrote:
The facts were that not only were there pressure movements around the United Nations unlike anything that had been seen there before, but the White House too was subjected to a constant barrage. I do not think I ever had as much pressure and propaganda aimed at the White House as I had in this instance. The persistence of a few of the extreme Zionist leaders – actuated by political motives and engaging in political threats – disturbed and annoyed me. Some were even suggesting that we pressure sovereign nations into favourable votes in the General Assembly. I have never approved of the strong imposing their will on the weak whether among men or nations.
As it happened, the campaign of threats to cause a number of sovereign nations to turn their intended “No” to partition votes into “Yes” votes or to abstain was executed by the Zionist lobby with the assistance of a hit-squad of 26 U.S. senators. The whole effort to bend the UN General Assembly to Zionism’s will was co-ordinated by Zionism’s eyes and ears in the White House, David K. Niles. (He once confessed that “had Roosevelt lived, Israel probably would not have become a state.” President Roosevelt was opposed to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, and there is a good case for believing, I make it in my book, that if he had lived, he would have used the United Nations to say “No” to Zionism’s colonial enterprise).
When Truman subsequently learned how one sovereign nation in particular, Haiti, had been threatened in his name, he wrote in a memorandum not de-classified until 1971 that “pressure groups (he meant Zionist pressure groups) will succeed in putting the United Nations out of business if this sort of thing is continued.”
Events were to prove Truman more right than wrong on that account.
Eisenhower was the first and the last American President to contain Zionism (when he insisted in 1956/57 that Israel, after its collusion with Britain and France in war on Nasser’s Eygpt, should withdraw from occupied Arab territory without conditions).
There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that President Kennedy, if he had been allowed to live, was intending in a second term to continue Eisenhower’s containment of Zionism, and that as a result of doing so there would not have been a shift of U.S. policy in favour of Israel right or wrong. In that event, and in all probability, the 1967 war would not have happened – Greater Israel would not have been created; and the Zionist state would not have been allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
Though it contained no expletives, the most explicit statement of anger I am aware of was the one made by presidential candidate Kennedy after he had been taken to a meeting with Zionist funders in New York. After it, back in Washington, he went for a walk with an old and trusted friend, newspaper columnist Chares L. Bartlett. According to his account, Kennedy said:
As an American citizen I am outraged to have a Zionist group come to me and say – “We know your campaign is in trouble. We’re willing to pay your bills if you let us have control of your Middle East policy. They wanted control!”
In my view the question of who the bleep does Netanyahu think he is misses the point. It is that he knows who he is – another Israeli prime minister who, with the assistance of the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress, has got another American president by the testicles. At least for the time being.
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Good article. Absolute thugs. Let's hope Obama is the man he said he was when America voted him in. Only, I suspect, 4 years will tell. Over to you OB. Nobel peace prize or land grab prize?
I think Netanyahu knows exactly who the eff he is; he appears to have effectively neutralized the already feckless Mahmoud Abbas, and up to this point he has ignored Obama's requests (well, at first it was a demand, but we've seen where that's gone) to freeze settlements. It appears also that Hamas has had more success in using Israel's obsession with the prisoner of war (not the "kidnapped" or "hostage") Gilad Shalit as leverage to obtain the release of Palestinian political prisoners than George Mitchell has had with just about everything.
Now Shimon Peres is telling Hosni Mubarak that Israel is willing to freeze settlement construction to get the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. What credibility does Israel have now? Not much; not after breaking the 2008 ceasefire with Hamas last November, not with failing to adhere to the "road map" and their promise to dismantle illegal outposts, and not when they failed to lift the blockade on Gaza when they originally entered into that ceasefire agreement. Intransigence does not make for a good negotiating partner.
[...] it was f***) does Netanyahu think he is? By Alan Hart 2009 November 24 by kanan48 Via: Alan Hart. It’s not often that stories about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict make me laugh but one by [...]
[...] http://www.alanhart.net/president-clinton-and-now-obama-who-the-bleep-actually-it-was-f-does-netanya... Posted in Zionist Threat « Israel lobby goes after Human Rights Watch [...]
I would like to think that Hilary Clinton would be equally exasperated and outraged by the demands of the Israel lobby. She shows no evidence of anything but total support for even their most extreme demands
Netanyahu needs only to stall long enough in order to insert the issue into the 2010 U.S. election cycle.
He will be able to do anything he likes at that time.
No American elected official will want Jewish money being used to oust any incumbent.
Calm
The trouble is that Obama does not who he is. He is too busy bowing down to the wrong persons. He has a weak character, a follower, not a leader. He is a sycophant, a stooge. He will be noted for a Presidency that failed the American people by bowing down to outer forces that are anathema to our best welfare. Yes, Israel is the ruler of my country, whether we like it or not. Our government should be ashamed of itself, allowing an evil entity, 7,000 miles away to rule. Israel is responsible for the ongoing destruction of our country. What the heck is wrong with our government? Well, it is the Israeli lobby, AIPAC, American Israel Political Affairs Committee. We must get rid of it and take back our power. We need a strong leader with the courage to stand up the the AIPAC, THE ZIONISTS AND OTHER JEWS THAT RULE OUR COUNTRY. The condition makes me feel like leaving America. I fought for my country in WWII, and became an honor man. I fought to save the Jews who are now destroying my country. I must help the Palestinians to survive the new Nazis, the Jews.
Lloyd Allen Wright, a loyal American, but not loyal to the savage Jews.
Wow, Lloyd, you need to learn to understand the difference between the Zionists and the Jews. You should read Alan's book. I hope you will come to understand that Jews are not the problem; but the Zionists certainly are. Anti-Semitism is a vicious prejudice.
I think Obama didn't realize who he would be dealing with when he so confidently claimed he would settle the Israel-Palestine conflict in two years. Instead of asking "who the f*ck does Netanyahu think he is?" Obama should be asking, "how the hell do I get him to stop being such a obstinate sonofabitch?"
[...] By Alan Hart [...]
So why do they put up with it? Is it money, Israel's bomb,or what?
The jews are the most vile people on earth and always have been. They must be exterminated if the world is ever going to live in peace and properity for all, not just the jewish bankers.
One of the problems that exists is the fact that when you talk about Zionism and the evil that is associated with it, you are deemed as anti-semetic. Say anything bad about Israel, and you are a Jew hating bastard. I'm sorry, but telling the truth about Zionism and Israel is pragmatic and logical. Their finger pointing is just as bad as a bully crying after you punched him back for starting a fight. Hmmm, I wonder who really did kill Kennedy...:)
Real anti-Semitism (as opposed to criticism of Zionism's colonial enterprise, which is not anti-Semitism) as displayed by jack is as evil as the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust... and I'd like to add this. Denial of the holocaust is an obscenity, but so too is Zionist and, sadly, other Jewish denial of the Nakba.
Jews are not "vile". I have several Jewish friends who work very hard for Palestinian rights and to stop the Zionist ideology from destroying the Jewish people. Zionism is what is so destructive not only in terms of what the Palestinians continue to suffer, but it is indeed causing a backlash of anti-Semitism against Jews who do not espouse the Zionist ideology. Zionism also has an insidious effect on the Jews overall; Zionists pressure Jewish people into supporting Israel's policies lest they be perceived as "self-hating Jews." Jews in the US are torn between their own morality and supporting American policies towards Israel.
well, apparently Mr. Clinton foun out who the superpower is. American politicians bow to Israeli backed money Auntie Sams testicle are now kept in a mason jar in Tel Aviv. Has anybody ever wondered why the United States & Israel can DEMAND inspections of other countries but Israel tell the whole world including America to go fuck itself when asking about inspecting their nuclear arsenal. Wonder why that is. Will somebody out there please enlighten me. I mean Im kind of a dumb ass. Doe,s anybody out there wonder why the tragedy of the U.S.S. Liberty was never investigated. I know for a fact that military pilots are trained th recognize all types of ships. But then i am but a dumb ass. Does any body out their wonder why the whole congress is lobbing for the spy Jonatan Pollard to be set free. He did more damage to the United States than any other sppy in history. After his conviction he was given citizenship in Israel and made a Colonel in their armed forces. I especially get tired of all these religeous zealots who say God gave them the land they are stealing. WHERE IS THE DEED. Hope to hear back from somebody.