1094 Haaretz: "Netanyahu should not be allowed to start a war with Iran to save himself."

Haaretz: "Netanyahu should not be allowed to start a war with Iran to
save himself."

Newsletter published on December 29, 2019

(1) Haaretz: "Netanyahu should not be allowed to start a war with Iran
to save himself."
(2) Haaretz article 'Netanyahu will start war to save his skin' won't be
published in NYT
(3) Jewish war on Xmas

(1) Haaretz: "Netanyahu should not be allowed to start a war with Iran
to save himself."

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-netanyahu-should-not-be-allowed-to-start-a-war-with-iran-to-save-himself-1.8319960

Netanyahu Should Not Be Allowed to Start a War With Iran to Save Himself

The prime minister needs a win in the next elections, and initiating a
major conflict with Iran may be his only hope to convince Israelis that
there is no alternative to his leadership

Shlomo Brom and Shimon Stein

Haaretz Dec 26, 2019 1:50 PM

In this Sept. 27, 2012, file photo, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of
Israel shows an illustration as he describes his concerns over Iran's
nuclear ambitions during his address to the 67th session of the United
Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters. Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu shows an illustration as he describes his concerns
over Iran's nuclear ambitions during his address at the UN General
Assembly in 2012Richard Drew/AP

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to place Israel’s conflict
with Iran at the center of his recent election campaigns has been
causing much concern that his rhetoric might further inflame tensions
with Tehran. Netanyahu presents himself as the only one who can protect
Israel from what he describes as an existential threat posed by Iran and
believes this could help him garner more support in the March 2 elections.

This time, Netanyahu is running his third election campaign in a year
while facing three criminal indictments that could end his political
career, and he assumes that a victory at the polls might help him gain
immunity from prosecution. The concern is that he could initiate a major
armed conflict with Iran in the hope of convincing the Israeli
electorate that there is no substitute to his leadership in spite of the
costs to Israel of such a war.

Indeed, Israel’s military operations in Syria and Iraq aimed at stopping
Iranian forces and proxies from arming Hezbollah with modern strategic
weapons, as well as the build-up of Iranian strategic infrastructure in
those countries, may eventually escalate into a vaster military
conflict. But Iran’s attempts to retaliate against these strikes have so
far been relatively weak and very unsuccessful. An escalation is not
inevitable and goes against Israeli interests, so the country should
avoid initiating a conflict for internal political reasons.

Most Israelis understand that such a conflict is not in their interest.
In recent years, public opinion polls on security matters have
repeatedly indicated that a majority of Israelis does not perceive Iran
as an existential threat as long as it does not acquire nuclear weapons.

Even then, the majority believes that Iran can be deterred from using
nukes, and therefore when an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear
installations seemed imminent in 2011-2012 public support for such a
strike only went down.

Against  this background, the mere existence of public suspicion that
Netanyahu could initiate a military escalation to serve his political
purposes in the lead-up to the elections may be enough to deter him from
entertaining such ideas, because he understands that war with Iran would
be a very risky gamble. The odds that he would be hurt politically by a
costly campaign with inconclusive results and no unambiguous victory are
very high.

The escalation can also be avoided because both states have nothing to
gain from such a scenario. It is true that Iran is hostile to Israel and
this hostility also serves its ambitions in a Middle East with Arab
populations that traditionally oppose Israel, but a major conflict with
Israel would not be to Tehran's advantage.

Iran is currently facing many other issues that are higher on its
agenda. It is struggling with U.S. sanctions and domestic instability
while trying to retain its influence in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, protect
Shi'ite minorities abroad and oppose Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf
and Yemen.

On the other hand, Israel’s security and political echelons are indeed
determined to prevent Iran from arming Hezbollah and building up Iranian
strategic capabilities in Syria and Iraq, but believe this can be done
cautiously and without a major escalation.

Mutual understanding of the thinking on both sides could be helped by
delivering messages between them through third parties and would be very
useful in preventing an escalation from becoming inevitable.

This still leaves open the possibility that Israel might initiate a
major conflict as a result of a decision to attack Iran’s nuclear
infrastructure. But it does not seem that in the few months leading to
the Israeli elections Iran will take steps in the nuclear area that
would justify such a strike.

Tehran will probably continue to cautiously violate the provisions of
the nuclear deal that the United States withdrew from, without creating
a perception that it is really resuming its military nuclear program,
thus denying Netanyahu a real excuse for a major escalation also in the
nuclear domain.

In summary, an escalation is far from inevitable. Toning down the often
arrogant and insulting rhetoric used to threaten Iran (Israel’s strikes
deliver the message clearly enough) and continuing to carefully plan and
consider the steps aimed at countering the Iranian build-up in Israel’s
vicinity should be enough to stop an all-out war.

Brig. Gen. (ret.) Shlomo Brom is a senior research fellow at the
Institute for National Security Studies and was previously a deputy head
of Israel’s National Security Council

Shimon Stein Ambassador (ret.) is senior fellow at the Institute for
National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University

© Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved

(2) Haaretz article 'Netanyahu will start war to save his skin' won't be
published in NYT

https://mondoweiss.net/2019/12/israeli-fear-that-netanyahu-will-start-war-to-save-his-skin-wont-make-it-into-the-nyt/

Israeli fear that Netanyahu will start war to save his skin won’t make
it into the ‘NYT’

James North on December 28, 2019

Here, yet again, is an article you can read in an Israeli newspaper that
you will never see in the New York Times.

The Haaretz headline tells it all: "Netanyahu should not be allowed to
start a war with Iran to save himself." The two authors note that
Israel’s prime minister goes into his third election campaign in a year
facing three criminal indictments, and

The concern is that he could initiate a major armed conflict with Iran
in the hope of convincing the Israeli electorate that there is no
substitute for his leadership in spite of the costs to Israel of such a war.

What makes the article even more compelling is that its authors are
hardly left-wing extremists. Shlomo Brom is a retired Brigadier General
in Israel’s army, and Shimon Stein is a retired ambassador who is a
senior fellow at the Institute for Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Meanwhile, what does today’s report in the New York Times say about the
risk that Benjamin Netanyahu might start a war? Nothing. The long
article by Isabel Kershner notes that Netanyahu just won a convincing
victory in the primary within his Likud party, smashing challenger
Gideon Saar by nearly three to one. The article’s tone is respectful,
even admiring, as Kershner notes that the prime minister, "like a
political phoenix, rose to fight another day." Kershner devotes most of
her report to handicapping Netanyahu’s chances in the electoral horse
race (although she nowhere says that a central element of his strategy
once again is sure to be stoking racism against the 20 percent of
Israelis who are Palestinian).

And here’s another article that appeared in the Israeli press that the
Times will never touch; the online +972 Magazine reports on the
inspiring campaign within Israel to "expose Israel’s arms sales to the
world’s most repressive regimes." A brave human rights attorney named
Eitay Mack and others have carried out a campaign over the past decade
with the result that:

Israel’s arms industry has become a topic of public debate. Government
officials and politicians, for the first time in a long time, are
required to give answers.

The Times reporters in Israel, Isabel Kershner and the paper’s bureau
chief, David Halbfinger, don’t even have to read Hebrew to follow these
stories. Both Haaretz and +972 Magazine publish in English.

(3) Jewish war on Xmas

https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2019/12/24/is-it-anti-semitic-to-say-there-is-war-on-christmas/

Is it "anti-Semitic" to say there is war on Christmas?

December 24, 2019

by Kevin MacDonald

Dan Rosenberg, writing in the Canadian Jewish News, claims that it’s
"anti-Semitic" to say that there’s a war on Christmas. He also says that
"terms such as ‘New York lawyers (and bankers),’ and ‘Hollywood culture’
refer to Jews. When people speak of the ‘secularists’ and
‘internationalists’ who are behind conspiracies like the War on
Christmas, they are also referring to Jews." And I suppose any mentions
of globalists, George Soros’s influence, or the Israel Lobby are
similarly off limits. In fact, for the likes of Rosenberg (and pretty
much every Jew with a high position in the media), any mention that Jews
are an elite or have any influence at all (or at least not any influence
that is not utterly benign and good for everyone) is horrifying and
utterly irrational.

Activists like Rosenberg are not limited by having to deal with actual
data and facts. It’s simple. They can claim anything they want because
any assertion that Jews have anything to do with changing Christian
culture of America is automatically labeled as evil.

So what evidence does Rosenberg come up with?

The idea of the War on Christmas started with one of the founding
fathers of American anti-Semitism: automaker Henry Ford. Back in the
1920s, he published a newsweekly called the International Jew. It
frequently featured blatantly bigoted accusations such as, "Last
Christmas, most people had a hard time finding Christmas cards that
indicated in any way that Christmas commemorated someone’s birth.…
People sometimes ask why three million Jews can control the affairs of
100 million Americans. In the same way that 10 Jewish students can
abolish the mention of Christmas and Easter out of schools containing
3,000 Christian pupils."

In modern times, Fox News has been airing segments such as Bill
O’Reilly’s 2016 "Naughty or Nice" list, which praised businesses that
use "Merry Christmas" and condemned others that say "Happy Holidays."

That’s it. No heavy lifting required. Of course, it ignores Eli Plaut’s
academic book A Kosher Christmas which proudly claims, in the words of a
reviewer:

Jews have been the vanguard of an effort to "transform Christmastime
into a holiday season belonging to all Americans," without religious
exclusivity.  The most important Jewish mechanisms of secularization are
comedy and parody, for laughter undermines religious awe.  Take, for
example, Hanukkah Harry from "Saturday Night Live", who heroically steps
in for a bedridden Santa by delivering presents from a cart pulled by
donkeys named Moishe, Hershel, and Shlomo.  Remarkably, Hanukkah Harry
has emerged as a real Santa-alternative for many American Jews.  Plaut
sees such things not as attempts at assimilation but as an intentional
subversion of Christmas traditions.  "Through these parodies," he
writes, "Jews could envision not having to be captivated by the allure
of ubiquitous Christmas symbols."  And it isn’t just Jews: for Americans
in general, Jewish parody helps ensure that Christmas "not be taken too
seriously" and that the celebrations of other traditions "be accorded
equal respect and opportunity."

As I note in my comment, "there seem to be two messages here. One is the
message of subversion utilizing ridicule among other methods. The other
is that Jews are seen as high-mindedly making Christmas  ‘into a holiday
season belonging to all Americans.’ The end result is that Christmas is
not ‘taken too seriously’ and the Christian religious aspect central to
the traditional holiday is de-emphasized."

So is it "blatantly bigoted" to make claims such as that Jews have been
instrumental in getting Christianity removed from the public square? Of
course not. In Chapter 7 of The Culture of Critique I noted: "One aspect
of the Jewish interest in cultural pluralism in the United States has
been that Jews have a perceived interest that the United States not be a
homogeneous Christian culture. As Ivers (1995, 2) notes,

Jewish civil rights organizations have had an historic role in the
postwar development of American church-state law and policy." In this
case the main Jewish effort began only after World War II, although Jews
opposed linkages between the state and the Protestant religion much
earlier. … The Jewish effort in this case was well funded and was the
focus of well-organized, highly dedicated Jewish civil service
organizations, including the AJCommittee, the AJCongress, and the ADL.
It involved keen legal expertise both in the actual litigation but also
in influencing legal opinion via articles in law journals and other
forums of intellectual debate, including the popular media. It also
involved a highly charismatic and effective leadership, particularly Leo
Pfeffer of the AJCongress.

But, since Rosenberg focuses on Henry Ford, let’s take a look at what
Ford’s The International Jew (TIJ)had to say (see my review). This was
around 1920, well before the post-World War II era when Jewish influence
crescendoed. The International Jew had a lot to say about Jewish efforts
to eradicate the idea that America ought to be a Christian culture.
Rosenberg writes that any mention of "Hollywood culture" is an
unacceptable reference to Jews. Ford’s writers were well aware of this:

TIJ notes that to advocate censorship is construed as anti-Semitism:
"Reader, beware! if you so much as resent the filth of the mass of the
movies, you will fall under the judgment of anti-Semitism" (2/12/1921).

But, after noting that "90% of the production is in the hands of a few
large companies, 85% of which "are in the hands of Jews" (2/12/1921),
there was enough resentment about the movies that in fact attempts to
control Hollywood were created shortly thereafter:

TIJ is careful to note that its concerns with the moral messages in
movies are not idiosyncratic but part of a larger kulturkampf between
the movie industry and large segments of the American public: "In almost
every state there are movie censorship bills pending, with the old ‘wet’
and gambling elements against them, and the awakened part of the decent
population in favor of them; always, the Jewish producing firms
constituting the silent pressure behind the opposition" (2/12/1921).
Indeed, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, headed
by Will H. Hays, was created in 1922 in response to movements in over
thirty state legislatures to enact strict censorship laws, and the
Production Code Administration, headed by Joseph I. Breen, was launched
in response to a campaign by the Catholic Legion of Decency (Gabler
1988). TIJ’s reservations about the moral content of movies was indeed
widely shared among the American public.

The effectiveness of these organizations in influencing the content of
Hollywood culture lasted until the 1960s’ counter-cultural revolution, a
social transformation, that as argued in Chapter 3 of The Culture of
Critique, was the product of a new Jewish-dominated elite that remains
dominant today. Moreover, "the assertions of TIJ are congruent with
recent studies indicating that Jews remain in control of the movie
industry and that the movies generally portray Christians and
Christianity negatively and Jews and Judaism positively (e.g., Medved,
1992/1993; MacDonald, 2002a)." For recent examples, see Edmund
Connelly’s War on Christmas articles (part one is here and part two here).

As also noted in the quote above from The Culture of Critique, TIJ was
also well aware of Jewish influence in removing Christianity from the
public square:

Besides the cultural influences described above, TIJ devotes a great
deal of attention to the Jewish political campaigns against public
expressions of Christianity and for official recognition of the Jewish
religion (e.g., recognizing Jewish holidays). "The St. Louis Charity
Fair in 1908 planned to remain open on Friday evening; a great outcry;
did the managers of that fair mean to insult the Jews; didn’t they know
that the Jewish Sabbath began on Friday night?" (6/04/1921). TIJ
presents a history of Jewish activism against public expressions of
Christianity based on Kehillah records [see TIJ‘s account of the
Kehillah], beginning with an attempt in 1899–1900 to remove the word
"Christian" from the Virginia Bill of Rights and culminating in
1919–1920: "In this year the Kehillah was so successful in its New York
campaign that it was possible for a Jewish advertiser in New York to say
that he wanted Jewish help, but it was not possible for a non-Jewish
advertiser to state his non-Jewish preference. This is a sidelight both
on Jewish reasonableness and Jewish power" (3/12/1920). "The Jews’
interference with the religion of the others, and the Jews’
determination to wipe out of public life every sign of the predominant
Christian character of the United States is the only active form of
religious intolerance in the country today" (3/21/1920).

Indeed, the focus of Jewish activism was that the United States was not
a Christian civilization but an "unshapen mass of potentiality":

Based on pronouncements of Jewish organizations and intellectuals, TIJ
makes the important point that Jews promote "one of the dangerous
doctrines being preached today" that "the United States is not any
definite thing as yet, but that it is yet to be made, and it is still
the prey of whatever power can seize it and mold it to its liking. It is
a favorite Jewish view that the United States is a great unshapen mass
of potentiality, of no particular character which is yet to be given its
definite form. . . . We are not making Americans; we are permitting
foreigners to be educated in the theory that America is a free-for-all,
the prize of whatever fantastic foreign political theory may seize it"
(3/05/1921). This comment on Jewish attitudes fits well with a great
deal of evidence that Jews have consistently opposed the notion that the
U.S. has any ethnic overtones or that it is a European or Christian
civilization (see MacDonald, 1998/2002, Ch. 7). …

What strikes the reader of TIJ is its portrayal of Jewish intensity and
aggressiveness in asserting its interests. Jews were unique as an
American immigrant group in their hostility toward American Christian
culture and in their energetic efforts to change that culture (see also
MacDonald 1998b, 2002b). From the perspective of TIJ, the United States
had imported around 3,500,000 mainly Yiddish speaking, intensely Jewish
immigrants over the previous 40 years. In that very short period, Jews
had had enormous effect on American society.

Fundamentally, TIJ was correct in all of its important assertions. I
conclude:

Mainstream scholarship supports the following contentions of TIJ
regarding Jewish influence on the U.S. as of the early 1920s:

Jews had achieved a great deal of economic success, even to the point of
dominating certain important U.S. industries.

Jewish organizations had launched highly successful campaigns to remove
references to Christianity from U.S. public culture and to legitimize
Judaism as a religion on a par with Protestantism and Catholicism.

Jewish organizations had been able to impose their ethnic interests on
certain key areas of domestic policy. As TIJ noted, Jews were the main
force behind maintaining the policy of unrestricted immigration; by
1920, unrestricted immigration policy had continued nearly 20 years
after U.S. public opinion had turned against it (see MacDonald 1998b,
Ch. 7). Jews had also shown the ability to have a great deal of
influence in the executive branch of the U.S. government, as indicated
by their influence in the Wilson administration.

Jews had also been able to impose their ethnic interests in the area of
foreign policy despite widespread feelings among the political
establishment that the policies advocated by the Jewish community were
often not in the best interests of the United States. The main examples
highlighted by TIJ were the abrogation of the Russian trade agreement in
1911 and post-W.W.I policy toward Eastern Europe where Jewish attitudes
were entirely dictated by their perceptions of the interests of foreign
Jews rather than the economic or political interests of the U.S. Jews
achieved their goals on these issues despite the views of the Taft
Administration on the Russian Trade Agreement and the views of a wide
range of military and diplomatic figures that the U.S. should support
post-W.W.I Poland as a bulwark against Bolshevism and that Jewish
complaints against Poland were exaggerated (see Bendersky 2000).

Jews had been a major force behind the success of Bolshevism and its
incredibly bloody reign of terror in the Soviet Union and in the
abortive Communist revolutions in Hungary by Kun and Germany by Eisner.

Jews were the main component and by far the most energetic component of
the radical left in the United States, a movement that advocated a
massive political, economic, and cultural transformation of the U.S.

Jews had attained a substantial influence over the U.S. media via a
virtual monopoly on the movie production business, domination of the
theater and music businesses, their influence in journalism, ownership
of some newspapers, and their ability to apply economic pressure on
newspapers because of their importance as advertisers. In turn, the
ability of Jews to pressure non-Jewish newspapers depended on Jewish
ownership of department stores in major cities. Jews used this media
influence to advance their domestic and foreign policy agendas, portray
Jews and Judaism positively while portraying Christianity negatively,
and promote a sexual morality at odds with the traditional culture of
the United States.

In turn, these consequences stemmed from critical features of Judaism as
a group evolutionary strategy

But for an activist like Rosenberg, all that is necessary is to scream
"bigoted," "anti-Semitic," and the vast majority of people, unaware of
the history of Jewish activism, acquiesce. This is unsurprising because
the history of Jewish activism and influence can’t even be discussed in
polite circles much less be disseminated in the mainstream media or the
educational system.

Or they are well aware of  the Jewish role in transforming the culture
of the United States, but they also aware of the Jewish power to ruin
their lives.

In short the present situation is an excellent marker of Jewish power in
contemporary America. And yes, Christianity remains in their crosshairs.


1