Israel
And 9-11
By
Wendy Campbell
06 January,
2008
Countercurrents.org
The time has come
To say fair’s fair
To pay the rent
To pay our share
The time has come
A fact’s a fact
It belongs to them
Lets give it back
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep when our beds are burning
The time has come
A fact’s a fact
It belongs to us all
Lets give it back
- Lyrics to “Beds Are Burning” by Midnight Oil
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10BbpGKLXqk
The
time has come for me to finally write about my experience with The Jewish
Voice for Peace (JVP) beginning back in 2001 shortly after the tragic
events of 9-11.
I had already
begun to learn the Truth about racist, apartheid Israel shortly after
the Second Intifada (uprising or “shaking off” in Arabic)
in September 2000 during a lunch break from my job at the time, while
I was listening to the famous progressive Berkeley-based KPFA radio
station. What I heard mesmerized me. When I reached the parking lot
at my workplace and parked my car, I couldn’t get out of the car
because I felt compelled to listen to the entire interview between an
Israeli, a Palestinian and an American with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. What I was hearing were things the mainstream US media never
really addresses nor rarely reveals to the American public: mainly the
conflict as seen from the Palestinian point of view, as well as from
an objective point of view (the American non-Zionist interviewer).
I also learned
from this interview certain generally hidden facts such how the Israeli
prime minister Yitzshak Rabin, who was really going to make some important
concessions with the Palestinians in order for Israel to finally take
some real steps towards justice and peace between the Israelis and Palestinians,
was assassinated in 1995 by an extremist Zionist Jewish Israeli. That
act completely halted any genuine peace process since then, so the assassin’s
motive for killing him was achieved. Obviously this man’s ideology
has a strong support base because ever since then, the “peace
process” has never seriously been revived. The “peace process”,
which is completely dominated and controlled by Israel, and backed by
its supporters in the US government, is really just a “stalling
process”, while the ethic-cleansing campaign continues unabetted.
Contrary to what the Israelis claim, the Palestinians have no “partner
in peace” in the Israelis, who have not stopped stealing more
Palestinian land nor their collective punishment against all Palestinians
via crippling roadblocks, turning off electricity and water supplies
at will for long lengths of time, and basically literally starving the
Palestinians in what amounts to huge open-air concentration camps. The
only thing that can stop this madness is for the USA to stop all manner
of support to Israel and for everyone to boycott apartheid Israel, just
as apartheid South Africa was boycotted.
At any rate,
much of my experience about this time can be found in my first ever
political article, which is entitled “Why I Am A Pro-Palestinian
Activist” and at the website for my tiny media company MarWen
Media. You can find the link at: http://www.marwenmedia.com/
articles_images/WhyIAmProPal.html
However until
now, I have never written about my experience with the Jewish Voice
for Peace, which I had discovered shortly after 9-11 from a flyer I
had picked up at La Pena Cultural Center when I had attended an excellent
slideshow entitled “Face of the Occupation” which was presented
by Penny Rosenwasser of MECA (Middle East Children’s Alliance)
which is directed by Penny’s partner, Barbara Lubin, an anti-Zionist
of Jewish heritage. Penny is also active in the JVP. She calls herself
a Zionist, but I think this is simply just because of a deep desire
on her part to be close to her Jewish community, most of whom are Zionists.
Her slideshow
was the inspiration for my first documentary “Truth: Exposing
Israeli Apartheid”. Penny Rosenwasser, a Jewish American peace
and human rights activist, was very generous to me, allowing me to film
her slideshow with my video camcorder and even giving me a copy of a
photo she took of a Jews-only by-pass road in Israel, where Palestinians
are shot and/or arrested if they are caught trying to use it. Of course
there are no signs there which say “No Palestinians Allowed”
because that would broadcast the fact that Israel is an apartheid country
by putting it in writing, confirming the obvious. For more details on
these apartheid roads in Israel including that photo, see http://www.marwenmedia.com/articles_images
/ApartheidIsraelRoads.html
Her slideshow
and this photo of the apartheid by-pass road for Jews-only are featured
prominently in my documentary. When I premiered my documentary “Truth:
Exposing Israeli Apartheid” at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley,
California, the very place where I saw her slide show about a year earlier,
I donated half of the proceeds to the Middle East Children’s Alliance.
At any rate,
I discovered the Jewish Voice for Peace from that flyer at her slide
show and decided to try to attend one of their meetings, since it was
the only group of any sort that I knew about which was discussing Middle
East politics. At that time, most Americans were simply clueless about
Israel and the Middle East in general. I should know. I used to be one
of them.
I showed
up at the doorstep of the house in Berkeley where a meeting of the Jewish
Voice for Peace was being held sometime in early November 2001 and asked
the greeter at the door if I was “allowed” to attend even
if I am not Jewish . The person let me in.
I found myself
seated next to Prof. Joel Beinin, who teaches at Stanford University
and the University of California at Berkeley. We chatted before the
meeting began. He was very nice and informative. In fact, he told me
he was going to give some lectures about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
to a class at the UC Berkeley and when I expressed an interest in attending
it as a guest, he gave me his permission. I did show up with my camcorder
and filmed the entire lecture. Unfortunately, I was just getting used
to my camcorder and the quality is not not great, so I did not include
any of it in my documentary “Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid”.
(Note: Ultra hardcore Zionist and Islamaphobic David Horowitz has relentlessly
slandered Prof. Beinin for his activism with JVP and beyond.)
Anyway, everyone
was seated in the crowded room, in chairs, sofas and on the floor. Lincoln
Shlensky sat on the floor in the middle of the crowded room. He was
one of the original members and leaders of the Jewish Voice for Peace,
which was formed in 1996, after the provocative opening by the Netanyahu
government of an archaeological tunnel under Jerusalem's Temple Mount,
which led directly to confrontations in which 65 Palestinians and 14
Israelis were killed. After that conflict seemed to settle down a bit
during yet another sham of a “peace process”, the Jewish
Voice for Peace basically disbanded. However, shortly after 9-11-01,
the group was resurrected again, apparently to deal some damage control.
One astute observer of the Jewish political scene has made the reasonable
statement that if the JVP didn’t exist, then the Likuds would
have invented it themselves for creating good PR for Israel, but really
nothing much more than that, in that there is no positive change in
the direction that Israel has embarked on since day one with regards
to the human rights of the non-Jewish native Palestinians.
“ANYONE
WHO THINKS ISRAEL HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH 9-11 IS NAÏVE.”
says JVP Leader
Lincoln Shlensky,
a pleasant Jewish man, a student at UC Berkeley and who seemed to be
in his mid-30s, twisted himself left and right in order to look around
the room and make eye-contact with everyone as he opened the meeting
with the proclamation that “anyone who thinks that Israel has
anything to do with 9-11 is naïve.”
Hmmm…
I thought to myself. Very interesting. If this was indeed the case,
why are we even here? It immediately seemed to me like a bit of self-deception
at best and deliberate deception at worst. It quickly became obvious
to me that the Jewish Voice for Peace was really basically about doing
damage control with regards to Israel’s obvious role in 9-11 and
they were running interference for any attempts to blame or criticize
Israel in any way for the 9-11 attacks.
At that time,
I believed, like many others, that 9-11 was blowback as a result from
the unjust US foreign policy in the Middle East which is basically blind,
unconditional support for Israel. This includes funneling billions of
US tax dollars yearly in cash and in military aid to Israel, as well
as providing diplomatic cover and even military cover as demanded by
Israel. This is despite the fact that aggressive and war-mongering Israel,
which is a racist, apartheid, Jewish supremacist state is built upon
an on-going campaign of ethnic-cleansing of non-Jewish native Palestinians
from their own land, homes and businesses. Israel habitually breaks
International Laws and UN Resolutions, since day one of its existence
in 1948 when it began the process of wiping Palestine off the map, with
the consent of the ruling international political elites at the time.
It was only
until about 2003 to 2004 that I came to believe that Israeli agents
actually played a direct role in making 9-11 happen, as in Larry Silverstein
allowing the Mossad to plant explosives in the World Trade Center buildings
which brought them down on that fateful day. Not only did WTC buildings
1 and 2 implode/explode but so did building 7 which was not even hit
by a jet. This is really the smoking gun. But more about that later.
I had begun
to study in depth about the true nature of racist, apartheid Israel
beginning with a little booklet I had picked up that night at La Pena
when I went to Penny Rosenwasser’s slideshow “The Face of
the Occupation”. This highly recommended and well-known booklet
is entitled “Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict”. It
was written by Jews for Justice in the Middle East. I found it spell-binding,
and it can be printed out in PDF form or just read it at http://www.cactus48.com
Anyway, back
to that first JVP meeting. Although I didn’t agree with Lincoln’s
proclamation about the innocence of Israel with regards to 9-11, I felt
that I maybe I could learn more about it all and even partner up with
some Jewish people who might feel the way I did on some political activist
activities.
Talk about
being naïve! That didn’t happen, although I really gave it
the good girl scout try.
At that time,
JVP didn’t even have a brochure! I was surprised at how they basically
just sat around talking or you could say, kvetching, about how they
felt. Really it was basically just a big therapy session for them, to
manage their anxieties, their feelings of guilt, and worries about how
this would all affect the Jewish community, the Jewish state of Israel
and its relationship with its sponsor and benefactor, the United States
of America.
I was ready
for taking some real actions, as in printing up some postcards to hand
out to educate the American public and to mail to politicians about
the Israel-Palestine conflict. At that time, I was actually wanting
to promote the Two-State Solution, two separate states of Israel and
Palestine, because at that time I thought that was the more “realistic”
solution. When I tried to enlist the help of others on the JVP’s
subcommittee of “Stop US Military Aid to Israel” to help
me pay for some postcards to be printed up promoting the Two-State Solution
(since I worked at a printing company, and would get a discounted price
on printing them) I got no takers. In fact, one Jewish woman at JVP
even ridiculed my efforts. So I decided to take a different tact and
got some other activists and friends outside of the JVP to help me pay
for the postcards calling for the Two-State Solution based on the 1967
borders. When I asked the leaders of JVP if I could reference their
website on the postcard, even just to say “For more information”,
not claim “Endorsed by JVP”, they said N-O. No way. I was
perplexed and getting discouraged with them and their lack of a sense
of urgency about doing anything or making a strong stand on anything
besides just saying they were “against the occupation”,
which is akin to saying you are against rape but not sexism.
Some of the
members of JVP began to make it clear that I was not really welcome
to be there, especially Joel Beinin’s wife Miriam, and another
woman, and a couple of the men, too. So I stopped going to their meetings.
To be fair,
some members of JVP were exceptionally kind, generous and open to me.
And perhaps many of them are as clueless as your average American. But
unlike your average American, they are committed to maintaining Israel
as a Jewish supremacist state. Anyway, the time had come for me to part
ways with the Jewish Voice for Peace.
I later became
an advocate of the One-Democratic State solution, after realizing that
the Two-State Solution is really just official apartheid, shortly before
I made my documentary “Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid”
in 2003, and I had some postcards made up advocating the One-Democratic
State solution for disseminating to the public and politicians.
Later I ran
into a JVP member at an event screening a documentary about the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict, and I said hello to him. He was very cold to me and mentioned
that he had heard that I was getting “radical”, to which
I said, I guess you could say that (according to some people that might
seem true, but not to me) , but I am NOT violent. Then he said darkly,
“You better be careful.” It sounded like he said it as a
threat to me rather than out of concern for my safety.
I have long
since abandoned any attempts to seek approval or permission from Jewish
people with regards to my activism efforts. I act only based on my beliefs
in The Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus
Christ. I don’t need to managed by Jews, although some of them
seem to think I do. I avoid seeing everything through a Jewish filter
by avoiding as much as possible the US mainstream media. I do read it
or watch it occasionally just to keep current of the latest propaganda,
but I get most of my news from a wide variety of sources on the internet,
sometimes even from the website of the progressive Israeli newspaper
the Ha’aretz. I also count myself as fortunate to have some good
Jewish friends who are also activists in seeking justice, freedom, equality,
peace and security for the Palestinian people.
FIRST SEED
PLANTED WITH REGARDS TO 9-11 AS THE INSIDE JOB
I first heard
about 9-11 being an inside job from a flyer that was being disseminated
at some anti-war rally by some activists in San Francisco on behalf
of Lyndon LaRouche, a political figure who has run for president numerous
times. The flyer just said something about how the US government was
involved with making 9-11 happen and that the Arab terrorists were just
patsies. At first I was just flabbergasted! I even called up a representative
for LaRouche and questioned him about this bizarre assertion. After
I finished talking with this man, I hung up, still shaking my head,
still thinking it was really far-fetched. However, the seed had been
planted and it started to slowly grow.
On July 4,
2003, I attended a 9-11 Truth event at an artsy building where many
kinds of creative and alternative events regularly occur in the Mission
district of San Francisco. At that time, my belief that 9-11 was indeed
an INSIDE JOB by elements in our own government had fully blossomed.
Then, as
the extremely convincing evidence kept pouring in about the use of explosives
to bring down the World Trade Centers which were owned by neocon Larry
Silverstein who is best friends with the Israeli ex-Prime Minister Netanyahu
(one of the authors of PNAC), along with the reports of the “dancing
Israeli spies”, the warnings made to the Israeli Mossad front
company Odigo in the World Trade Center, Mossad agent Dominic Suter
and his Urban Moving Systems with his van with explosives, the Fox News
4-part series on “Israeli Spying in the US” which was later
spiked from its archives, the manifesto of the neocons’ Project
for New American Century, I have become totally convinced that along
with Americans Bush, Cheney, and Israeli-Americans Wolfowitz, Perle
and their neocon cohorts, that Israeli agents played a major role in
“making it happen” with regards to the 9-11 attacks. The
free-fall collapse of Building 7 was really the biggest smoking gun,
along with Larry Silverstein’s video-taped admission about it
being “pulled”, which can be easily found on the internet.
The fact that the government and the mainstream media have refused to
address any of this in any meaningful way confirms my conclusions shared
by many others, that there is a cover-up of 9-11 as an inside job and
the apparent Israeli connection as well.
I have reached
my conclusions in a way that is very similar to the account by Ryan
Dawson at this URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/9-11neocon.php
Another book
that really lays it on the line with all the evidence and proof is “9-11
Evil” by Victor Thorne and Lisa Guiliani available at: http://www.wingtv.net/911evil.html
There are
by now lots of books and many DVDs that really make the case for 9-11
having been an INSIDE JOB, although many do not mention the Israeli
connection directly or at all in some cases, mainly due out of fear
of retaliation and being smeared by the common smear words used by shills
for Israel towards anyone who dares to criticize the Jewish state of
Israel, Zionism and its political supporters. The typical, predictable
smear words include” “anti-Semite”, “nazi”,
“hitler”, “holocaust denier”, “white supremacist”,
which are certainly all completely untrue accusations with regards to
myself and are generally untrue with regards to anyone who is smeared
as such by Israel-firsters. It’s just a method the Israel-firsters
use to attempt to intimidate anyone from criticizing Israel and Zionism,
in an all out dirty effort to maintain the status quo with regards to
US support for the Jewish supremacist state of Israel.
But more
and more people are forging ahead with criticizing Israel and its racist
policies anyway because their sense of moral consciousness speaks to
them much more loudly than any Zionist thug ever could. For example,
President Jimmy Carter and the Professors Walt and Mearsheimer have
had to endure such smears even though their criticisms of Israel and
its ardent supporters were rather milk toast.
ANYONE WHO
DOESN’T THINK THAT THERE IS AN ISRAELI CONNECTION TO 9-11 IS NAÏVE
says Wendy Campbell
In concluding
this article, to come full circle, I would like to make the proclamation
that anyone who DOESN’T think that Israel was involved with 9-11
is naïve, at best.
*****
(For the
record, as per their website and its mission statement, the JVP does
not advocate for the one-democratic state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict where all its residents would enjoy completely equal rights
regardless of religion, ethnicity or race; nor does JVP support a boycott
of Israel similar to the boycott of apartheid South Africa; nor does
it make a stand for supporting the Palestinian refugees’ Right
to Return to their ancestral homeland as equals. In other words, the
JVP cleverly and deceptively avoids these issues with smoke and mirrors,
making only ambiguous statements, all the while trying to place all
the blame for Israel’s racist policies on the USA.
Just for
one example of their deceptive ” blame game” while trying
to maintain their innocence of playing any part in Israel’s sins
: they bought shares of the Caterpillar company which manufactures the
vehicles which Israelis use to demolish thousands of Palestinian homes,
orchards and businesses every year, so that the JVP can go to Caterpiller’s
investor meetings to complain about Caterpillar’s sales to Israel,
when the JVP should really just put pressure on Israel and the Jewish
settlers there to stop buying these Caterpillar vehicles and to stop
using them to demolish Palestinian homes, orchards and businesses. The
Caterpillar tractors don’t demolish Palestinian property on their
own- they are operated by Zionists! In other words, the JVP are essentially
themselves Zionists who do not want to disturb the status quo with regards
to maintaining US economic support for Israel as the Jewish supremacist
state that it is, nor does the JVP recognize or address the racist nature
of Zionism, nor do they consistently directly criticize their brethren
and the leaders in Israel.
The JVP also
decry the use of the words which accurately describe Israeli policies
and actions including apartheid, ethnic-cleansing and genocide. Simply
put, the JVP wishes to preserve the Jewish supremacist nature of the
state of Israel but place the blame on others, specifically the US,
for the inevitable strife and injustices that are created as a result
of the racist ideology of Zionism.)
Wendy Campbell is an American human rights activists
whose documentaries include: “Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid”,
“Rosa Remembers Palestine”, “Neturei Karta: Jews Against
Zionism”, and “Syria: Land of Friendly People and Hidden
Treasure”. Her many articles have been published on a wide variety
of websites and newspapers (google: “Wendy Campbell Palestine
Israel”) and also appear at her websites: http://www.marwenmedia.com
and http://www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com
She can be reached at info@marwenmedia.com
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