Iran - Psychological Warfare Softening up the Minds for War

• 
  Iran anniversary 'punch' will stun West: Khamenei

• Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that Iran is set to deliver a "punch" that will stun world powers during this week's 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
  
  "The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman (February 11) in a way that will leave them stunned," Khamenei, who is also Iran's commander-in-chief, told a gathering of air force personnel. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.e0b08e9e64fe15a987c1cf73dd8c5fe2.521&show_article=1

Iran severs cultural ties with British Museum over Persian treasure

British Museum officials were due to lend the 2,500-year-old artefact to Iran's national museum last month, but announced they were holding on to it to do some more research.

The clay cylinder - which was acquired by the museum after being discovered in 1879 - is regarded as the world's first declaration of rights.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/7183364/Iran-severs-cultural-ties-with-British-Museum-over-Persian-treasure.html

• Iran to make 'advanced' attack drones
  
  Ahmad Vahidi, the Iranian defence minister, opened two production lines for the manufacture of the aircraft, the Fars news agency reported.
  
  The drones would be able to carry out "surveillance, detection and even assaults with high precision", the report said. US Predator drones have killed hundreds of suspected terrorists in Pakistan in recent years. Iran's sworn enemy Israel uses drones for reconnaisance. But it was not immediately clear what purpose the Iranian drones would serve. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/7187418/Iran-to-make-advanced-attack-drones.html

• New sanctions on Iran are only path left: Gates
  
  PARIS (Reuters) - Iran has rejected Western overtures and the international community has no choice but to move toward imposing new sanctions over its nuclear program, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Monday.
  
  Barack Obama
  
  "We must still try and find a peaceful way to resolve this issue. The only path that is left to us at this point, it seems to me, is that pressure track but it will require all of the international community to work together," Gates said at a joint news conference with French Defense Minister Herve Morin.
  http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6172K420100208

• Israel and the US preparing for Iran Part 1 - The Military Perspective
  Monday, 08 February 2010
  
  Israel_Navy2UK, February 8, 2010 (Pal Telegraph) -This year saw an Israeli-US joint exercise "Juniper Cobra 10" take place off the coast of Israel which involved the IDF and the US Navy 6th Fleet. The purpose of the exercise was to participate in countering simulated attacks by ballistic, medium-range and short-range missiles and rockets by Iran on Israel.
  
  As part of this build up the US Military has more than doubled its stockpile of weapons in Israel which it states "Israel can use." One would assume that just like the preparation in the build up to the Lebanon Crisis in 2006 and pre Cast Lead in 2008 that this is a very clear indication that both the US and Israel are preparing for a strike on the nuclear facilities in Iran. The US Navy already has a significant naval force in the Gulf and we are now seeing the slow deployment of Israeli Naval Vessels into the region. In order for the Israeli Navy to position to such a location it requires the permission of the Gulf States to enter their waters. One cannot fully understand how these Islamic States could allow Israeli vessels to transit their zone with the intention of carrying out an attack on another Islamic country (Iran). Nothing surprises me anymore when we saw those same states turn their back on Gaza and Palestine.
  http://www.paltelegraph.com/columnists/peter-eyre/4075-israel-and-the-us-preparing-for-iran-part-1-the-military-perspective

Psychopathic thinking: How to save the Obama presidency - bomb Iran

I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear and whose policies I work against. But here is a way for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the US and its allies.

If Obama's personality, identity and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient in 2009. He failed to deliver on employment and health care, he failed in foreign policy forays small (e.g., landing the 2016 Olympics) and large (relations with China and Japan). His counterterrorism record barely passes the laugh test.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=167618

tgII wrote:Dunno if that's connected to Iran specifically, but let's see, rainyday,
what better way to ferment home grown Islam Jihad than by having
these types of domestic groups actually run by the intelligence agencies
including the FBI and who knows what other pseudo government group.

Can't be a 'government' entity because government in the traditional
understanding doesn't exist anymore but under the facade by name
only, what we have are corporate interests that have taken over the
government and are running it so there's no telling how this Islamic
group got put in place.

If I'm not mistaken, I'd say we're being set up, I mean, it is becoming
so obvious now the inner workings of Iran and the west are
probably the same people.

• Islam...
  It is a history of dis-unity, disagreement, violence and the instillation of belief by force.
  Really no different than Judaism or Christianity.

• What is amazing is that such a grand hoax, and a transparent one at that, can captivate the minds of so many that they will over many hundreds, thousands of years and through many generations perpetuate a belief and agenda that will take them to their holy endgame.

• It really has to do with willpower and such obscure things that are called magick.

• Not at all to do with how educated one is.

• And it has to do with creating and producing something real, not just theorizing all day and producing nothing as do the physicists.

• Todays engineers which they don't have much to work on because much has been taken away, would have been the architects of the past, but they used magick and such back then. Maybe why so much techonolgy goes obsolete today and there really hasn't been any new technology since the chip.

The technology/physics is beyond anything we are even aware of, in
fact, the psychics is so advanced it makes what we know of to be
antiques. The chip will be replaced soon, if I can find the tech article
again I'll post it.

I think we're on two entirely different levels of discussion here. Without
reading the Philosophers' Stone it would be just simply too time consuming
to plow through a 'physics' discussion in relation to these 'templates' Farrell
is discussing.

Perhaps, but doubt it and first 'education' is going to have to be defined
here. I am specifically referring to the work and years of agonizing
reading and research done by Joseph Farrell to bring all this to light.

Once again, I have not read his new book [Farrell] so I can't sit here
like a pompous ass and try to go through all this, hell, I can barely
understand some of the more complex subject matter he has
discussed in previous books.

• Military Communications Alert
  
  
  
  
  February 9, 2010
  
  
  MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS OVERNIGHT WERE HOT AND HEAVY WITH MULTIPLE COMMAND UNITS UP AND OVER SIX 200+ CHARACTER MESSAGES WERE SENT TO OUT TO U.S. FORCES WORLD WIDE . ALSO, ANOTHER COMMAND SENT LONG MESSAGES TO ALL UK FORCES WORLD WIDE.
  
  THESE ARE ORDERS OF BATTLE RELATING TO MIDEAST AND OTHER THREATS AND IT IS HIGHLY EVIDENT THAT THE U.S. MILITARY IS TAKING IRAN'S THREAT OF "A PUNCH THAT WILL STUN THE WEST" VERY SERIOUSLY AS THE 2/11 DATE FAST APPROACHES. EXACTLY WHAT THE AYATOLLAH AND "ALMOND JOY" HAVE IN MIND HAS RAISED SPECULATION THAT POSSIBLE EMP ATTACK, NUCLEAR MISSILE LAUNCH , OR EVEN A TAKEOVER OF THE BRITISH EMBASSY COULD BE POSSIBILITIES. CYBER ATTACKS ON U.S AND UK FINANCIAL CENTERS HAVE ALSO BEEN DISCUSSED. ISRAEL MIGHT JUST NOT WANT TO WAIT FOR THE BIG SURPRISE AND GO UNILATERALLY AS WELL.
  
  ALL THE U.S. AND UK FORCES NEED IS A GREEN LIGHT ....OR TO SEE EVENTS FROM ISRAEL OR IRAN TO EXECUTE THE ORDERS.
  
  U.S. SHADOW GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN IN SITE R AND MT WEATHER SINCE FRIDAY AS THE WEATHER WAR SNOWFALLS MADE THEM SITTING DUCKS AND PRECLUDING RELIABILITY OF AIR TRANSPORT , LET ALONE SURFACE TRAVEL BY VEHICLE, THE DEEP UNDERGROUND TUBES HAVE LIKELY BEEN IN HEAVY USEAGE.
  
  NOTHING HAS TO HAPPEN, BUT A WATCHMAN'S WARNING HERE IS VERY NECESSARY........AS WHEN THE MIDEAST TESTOSTERONE LEVEL RISES TO ITS CURRENT LEVEL AND MEN BEGIN TO RATTLE SWORDS AND PLAY WITH LARGE CANDLES READY TO BE LIT .......YOU DESERVE TO HAVE THE HEADS UP THAT HAIR TRIGGERS ARE SET AND THE ORDERS ARE ALREADY IN THE HANDS OF THE THEATRE COMMANDERS.
  
  THERE IS POWER IN THE BLOOD OF JESUS.
  
  XXXX

• Back then their was no separation between religion and the esoteric, so there couldn't have been one between science and the esoteric. To bad it's all divided now.

• Reconciliation of Science and Religion

In January 2010, Project Camelot received 11 pages of information from an insider who was physically present at a meeting of Senior Masons in the City of London in 2005. What was discussed is chilling to the bone.

What our source reports is this:

* There is a planned Third World War, which will be nuclear and biological. Our source believes that this is on track to be initiated within the next 18-24 months.

* It is planned to begin with a strike by Israel on Iran. Either Iran or China will be provoked into a nuclear response. After a brief nuclear exchange, there will be a ceasefire. The world will be thrown into fear and chaos - all carefully engineered.

* The extreme state of tension will be used to justify heavy social and military controls in all western first world nations. Plans are already in place for that.

* During the nuclear ceasefire, there is planned to be a covert release of biological weapons. These will initially be targeted against the Chinese. As our source chillingly told us, "China will catch a cold". Biological warfare will spread further, to the west. Infrastructure will be critically weakened.

* This is intended to be just the beginning. After this, a full nuclear exchange would be triggered: the "real" war, with widespread destruction and loss of life. Our source tells us that the planned population reduction through these combined means is 50%. He heard this figure stated in the meeting.

This horrific scenario has been planned for generations. The first two world wars were part of the set-up for this final apocalypse - as is the centralization of financial resources that was precipitated with the equally well-planned financial collapse of October 2008.

As if all this were not enough, our source speculates this is all set against the backdrop of a coming "geophysical event" - the same kind of event as was experienced by our ancestors approximately 11,500 years ago. If this event occurs - not necessarily expected in 2012, but sometime in the next decade - it would destroy civilization as we know it, dwarfing even the effects of a nuclear war.

I asked the question to our source: If there's an expected catastrophe, then why initiate a Third World War? His answer, for the first time to me, made terrible sense.

The real goal, he explained, is to set up the post-catastrophic world. To ensure that this "New World" [note the term] is the one the controllers want, totalitarian control structures need to be in place when the catastrophe occurs - with an excuse that the populace will accept and demand them. Martial law in the right, carefully chosen countries before the catastrophe occurs will enable the "right" people to survive and prosper in the post-catastrophic world, and the beginning of the next 11,500 year cycle. What may have been carefully planned on a covert global scale, for the last several generations, is nothing less than who will inherit the Earth.

Who are the "right" people? The white Caucasians. This may be why the name of this project is The Anglo-Saxon Mission. Hence the justification for the planned genocide of the Chinese people - so that the New World is inherited by "us", not "them".

Our source was not informed about the planned fate of the second and third world countries such as those in South America, Africa and Asia. But he presumes that these would be allowed to fend for themselves and probably not survive well - or maybe not at all. The totalitarian military governments of the western, white, people are set to be the inheritors.

This is a plan so evil, so racist, so diabolical, so huge, that it almost defies belief. But it all aligns with what many commentators, researchers and whistleblowing insiders have been identifying for some years now. For me personally, it's the clearest picture yet of why the world is the way it is, and why the secrets are protected so fiercely: it may be all about racial supremacy. The Fourth Reich is alive and well.

Astonishingly, our source was not pessimistic. He stressed, as do we and many others, that consciousness is awakening rapidly all over the planet and that THESE PLANNED EVENTS ARE NOT INEVITABLE. If ever there was a reason to work closely together to raise awareness of the real threat to us all, this is it.

Watch this video, listen carefully to the strong message of hope and encouragement, and spread it far and wide. We stand for the potential magnificence of a united humanity that knows no racial boundaries or distinctions. Whether or not the catastrophe occurs - and many, including ourselves, maintain that it will not - we must co-create our own future, claim our power, and do whatever we can to alert people to the dangers around us... so that we can be stronger together, for the sake of our descendants and for the heritage of all living beings on Planet Earth.

Obama's sobering assessment, delivered from the White House podium, unfolded four days before national elections in which discussion of terrorism has played almost no role. The president went ahead with weekend campaign appearances.

Al-Shabab's violent and radical activity against the Somali Government, the presence of Al-Qaeda in Somalia and suspected links to Al-Qaeda in nearby Yemen essentially assures US action in Somalia. The extent of the US presence will depend on the ability of Somali forces to prosecute its own war against terrorists.

For all intent and purposes, the United States is insolvent.

This is not my personal assessment but that of world renowned “experts” and economists, and financial institutions. Just google “US Debts” and you can find thousands of analysts stating that there is no way that the US can ever pay off its debts. The US cannot even liquidate the accumulated interest on the outstanding debts. The debts are in the trillions!

The Casey Daily Dispatch observed:

The simple reality the Fed is waking up to is that the structural underpinnings of the economy are damaged beyond any quick or easy fix. That’s because until the debt is wrung out of the system, either through default or raging inflation – there’s no chance of it actually being paid in anything remotely resembling current dollars – the equivalent of an economic Black Death is going to plague the land.

The American rating agencies, Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch Ratings still give the thumbs up for the United States – a whopping AAA rating. These same agencies gave AAA ratings to the CDOs and other financial products peddled by the Too Big to Fail Global Banks when they were in fact junk. It took the financial tsunami to expose their fraudulent practices.

So I don’t give too much credence to the ratings by these crooked institutions.

The National Inflation Association (NIA) believes that the real credit rating of the US should be junk. But you don’t have to believe them either.

So how do we know for sure that the US should be rated as junk?

Simple! Apply common sense to the facts before you.

Since the United States defaulted on its debts in 1971, when President Nixon refused global and sovereign creditors the right of redemption in gold for US dollars, it has been living on borrowed time. The United States conned the world into accepting its toilet paper currency and for those who dared to question the integrity of its fiat currency, the mighty US military was deployed to ensure compliance.

The global banking elites then employed subservient economists the world over to tout the merits of the floating exchange rate as the mechanism to determine a currency’s value. Countries were compelled by threats of war or coups to peg their currency to the dollar. The dollar became the “anchor” in place of gold. Trade had to be denominated in US dollar which gave the United States an undue advantage.

This “pegging” gave an illusion of strength of the US dollar and creditworthiness of the United States. While others have to produce and earn an income in a “local currency” and then exchange it for US dollars to import and or purchase goods (as over 80% of global trade is denominated in dollars), the “paper tiger United States” need only to print money to pay for goods and services when its income was insufficient to pay and sustain its standard of living.

For over 37 years, the United States got away with this con!

For over 37 years, people the world over sold their produce to the United States in exchange for a paper with a number printed on it, a number denoting its value i.e. a 100 dollar note etc. People just accepted the number printed on the paper as reflective of the “real value” of the currency. In reality it has no value. It costs a few cents to print the toilet paper currency.

Through slick propaganda, people were led to believe that the value is as printed on the paper. No one dare to question the absurdity of this proposition.

But now, we have reached the stage of total collapse of the global fiat currency system. Every country in the developed world is implementing the policy of “quantitative easing” (the central bankers’ jargon for creating money out of thin air) in a desperate effort to pay off mounting debts and compounding interest in the trillions. To a lesser extent, developing countries are also following the Washington consensus. The global financial system is flooded with toilet paper currencies.

What will be the endgame?

Let’s pause and think for a moment. Let’s apply common sense.

The US dollar $, the Euro €, the pound £, the Yen ¥ etc. are all fiat currencies – they have no intrinsic value. Their value is a number arbitrarily printed on the paper and sanctioned by central bankers as “legal tender”.

In essence, they are all junk – toilet paper currencies. So how do they “float” against each other under the global floating exchange rate system?

This is where the fun starts.

How does one compare a junk from another? How does one determine the exchange value of one junk from another? A junk is a junk!

Forget about the market forces determining the values of the various junk currencies. It is determined by central bankers and no one else.

Whether a US dollar is equivalent to Ringgit 3.40 or Euro 1.18 or Yen 90 is arbitrarily decided by the respective central banks. And there is nothing you and I can do about it. If it serves the interest of a country to have its currency devalued, the central bank of that country will allow its currency to devalue and vice-versa.

Sometimes, the central bankers get their accomplices, the hedge funds to jointly manipulate the forex market through derivatives trading. And as long as the central bankers and their accomplices maintain the fluctuations in any one period of time in accordance with the parameters previously agreed by the central bankers, nothing much will happen. It is when central bankers cannot agree on the parameters that problems will emerge, often resulting in trade wars and even “hot” wars.

Don’t believe me?

I will give two examples:

The Plaza Accord

In 1985, at the request of the United States – France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom agreed to deliberately weaken the dollar's exchange rate. At the material time, the United States was having huge trade deficits, especially with Japan. The agreement, known as the Plaza Accord, was to help the United States reduce its huge trade deficit to assist its economy to climb out of the 1980's long recession. The intervention was so successful, that the dollar depreciated beyond its target level. By the end of 1987, the dollar had fallen by 54% against both the D-mark and the yen from its peak in February 1985. This sharp drop caused another panic – that of an uncontrolled dollar plunge.

To address and reverse the excessive depreciation of the dollar, the same group of countries agreed in 1987 to strengthen the dollar. This latter effort was known as the Louvre Accord. Another blatant market manipulation! Since when were any markets really free?

Why did England and France agree to participate in this blatant market manipulation? They owed US a big thank you for winning the Second World War. It was time for the US to collect past dues. In the case of Germany and Japan, being defeated nations and under occupation, they had no choice but to kow tow to big brother USA.

The Asian Financial Crisis

All you need to do is to recall what happened during the Asian financial crisis. The tiger economies were undermined and attacked and their currencies went into a free fall. Malaysia’s economic development was severely threatened. But the then prime minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad had the foresight and courage to take on the global financial elites and imposed capital and currency controls. The prime minister unilaterally fixed the exchange rate for the ringgit at RM3.80 to a dollar. Forex speculators took a major hit and never recovered from this surprise counter attack.

While this unprecedented intervention was executed to save the national economy and the livelihood of 23 million Malaysians, the global financial elites through the shadow banking system intervened to manipulate the market to reap obscene profits and to plunder.

We will now address the trillion dollar question.

How does China or the United States decide that one US dollar is equivalent to 6.7 Yuan or whatever rate?

Before addressing the question, it is important for us to understand how in a relatively short period of time, China was able to accumulate such a huge amount of dollar reserves and became the No. 1 creditor of the United States.

In their grand scheme for financial hegemony, the US financial elites proposed to the Chinese financial elites that in exchange for massive FDI and outsourcing of industries by the US, China must supply cheap goods to the American market and maintain an agreed exchange rate. This scheme was the lynchpin to an unprecedented expansion of credit in the global financial system, because such a rapid expansion of credit would be extremely inflationary. When China can supply the entire spectrum of goods at less than ten percent of the prevailing price, the financial elites knew that they could flood the global casino with dollars without having to worry about inflation.

And as they say, the rest is history.

This arrangement served the US and China well for two decades, in fact too well resulting in China having the largest dollar reserves in the world as well as becoming the largest creditor to the US.

Coming back to the trillion dollar question, as stated earlier the exchange rate is determined by the respective central banks. Of late, the Obama administration has been putting pressure on China to revalue its currency. In response to the pressure and to avoid a trade war, China allowed its currency to appreciate slightly. In fact, this happened just before the G-20 Summit in Toronto.

While the above arrangement (specifically the agreed exchange rate) has served its original purpose, it can no longer be sustained. This is because the current yuan/dollar peg is distorting the forex market and will exacerbate even further the present global financial crisis.

As a result of the global financial tsunami, the US is in default once again. But this time round, Obama cannot do what Nixon did in 1971.

The Daily Reckoning assessed the situation correctly when its subscribers were told:

Wait a minute. We're still Number One, right?

Yes...in the sense that we can, in theory, kick any butt in the world. That is, if the Chinese let us. They've got so much of our money and so many of our bonds, if they decided to dump them, we'd be in one helluva fix. Because we don't pay enough in taxes to fund our social programs and the Pentagon at the same time. We can't afford it. So the nice Chinese lend us money.

But don't worry. They've promised not to dump our bonds. And we're sure they'll honor that promise for as long as they want to.

As far as we know, no empire that had to borrow money from its rivals has ever lasted very long. Britain got itself in that position in WWI. It could no longer afford the carrying costs of the empire – including the huge cost of the war itself. So, it borrowed from the US. The Germans borrowed from US lenders too. But America's lenders to Britain had more money in New York and more power in Washington. So, the US entered the war on Britain's side rather than on Germany's side.

Then, in WWII, when an American general was put in charge of D-Day, it was clear that Britain had ceded the lead dog position to the US. It was a friendly handover, achieved by force of economics rather than by force of arms. The US did not have to defeat Britain militarily. Instead, she merely had to finance her.

A few years later, during the Suez crisis, Britain learned what it was like to be a subordinate power. She discovered that she could no longer throw her weight around without US consent.

But that is on the military front. At home, Britons discovered that they were poor...and getting relatively poorer. Under the weight of growing social welfare programs and a shrinking empire, Britain's economy sagged. Its old allies – France and the US – boomed in the post-war years. So did its old enemies – Japan and Germany. Soon, not only were its friends richer and more powerful...so were its adversaries.

So, we now have a ridiculous situation where the United States owes global creditors trillions of dollars (specifically China), is insolvent, yet, the exchange rate does not reflect the underlying weakness of the United States.

We also have the situation where China has been selling goods and services to the United States and is being paid in toilet paper currency that has no value other than the artificial and arbitrary value printed on the paper. China, in turn lends these toilet papers back to the United States so that it can purchase more goods and services from China. The United States has no money to repay China, so it creates money out of thin air, via the electronic printing press and use that to pay China.

Seriously, how long can this charade last?

Back in 1985, we had the Plaza Accord to bail out the paper tiger USA. The answer then was to devalue the US dollar. But Japan suffered two decades of stagnation.

Why have the same countries – UK, France, Germany and Japan not adopted a similar strategy at this juncture, thereby boosting US exports?

Simple!

1. The US has outsourced so much of their previous exports to China and other countries that it does not have enough meaningful products to export anymore to make a substantial difference in the trade deficit.

2. For the past decade, the main exports of the US were, and continue to be “Financial Products” – the junks wrapped up as CDOs and rated AAA and sold to gullible investors (i.e. gamblers) all over the world. The US was the centre of the global derivatives casino, managed by the Shadow Banking Cartel.

3. There has been such a massive US dollar credit expansion in the last decade as well as toilet paper dollars in the global financial system that any attempt to devalue the dollar would result in an uncontrolled free fall, and the complete destruction of the economy of the US.

4. And China by maintaining its current exchange rate with the dollar (and within a narrow band of fluctuation) has artificially maintained the current value of the US dollar to avoid the status of being downgraded to junk.

5. Thus in the short term, China is complicit, together with other major central banks, in hoodwinking the ordinary folks that the global fiat money system is still in a healthy state. But, by downgrading the US one notch, China and the global elites hope that the con can be maintained for some time so that China as well as other countries can get out of their massive US dollar assets. But the situation is so volatile that no one, absolutely no one can say for sure when a child would cry out the proverbial exposé, hey, the emperor has no clothes!

6. It is also obvious to the global financial elites that if there is a massive flight from dollar assets to euro assets, there would also be an uncontrolled plunge of the US dollar. The European global banks are also up to their eyeballs holding junk dollar assets and would thereby suffer huge losses over and above their exposure in euro loans to the “PIIGS” countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain). Unlike the time of the Plaza Accord, right now, no one wants dollar devaluation. When the slide starts, no one would be able to stop the plunge. Central bankers are sitting on a knife’s edge. Ouch!

7. So, the “Greek crisis” was engineered to prevent such a flight from dollar assets to euro assets. Greece is “Mary Poppins” in the overall financial scheme of things. Its GDP is not even 3% of the Euro zone. In contrast, California is bankrupt and is more pivotal to the US economy. It is the 7th largest economy in the world. Yet, the bankruptcy of California did not impact on the US economy as it should. This is because the global mass media ensured that the bankruptcy would not be highlighted. The hype instead was that the euro would be heading for a crash. The result? The flight to euros was halted in its tracks.

8. Someone threw the spanner in the works. The culprit in the eyes of the global financial elites was the indomitable Iran. China and Russia were playing geopolitical games in their trade relations with Iran in the hope that President Ahmadinejad would not spoil the party before they were ready to dump their massive dollar assets. The US and Israel played the hard ball role while China and Russia initially played the softy role so typical of the police methods when attempting to extract concessions and or confessions. But China’s and Russia’s true intentions were revealed, when exasperated with the resilience and defiance of Iran, they opted to impose severe sanctions on Iran. The quartet did not bother to maintain the farce. The nuclear weapons issue was merely a smoke screen to mislead the world of the impending financial implosion.

The downgrade by China must be seen for what it is – a stark warning that the end is near. The curtain has to come down on the charade.

Another signal that the end is near was when the Bank of International Settlement (BIS) swapped Gold as security for a dollar facility extended to a sovereign (most likely Portugal) via commercial entities. Gold, once considered a “barbaric relic” is now back in fashion in currency swaps. Who would have thought this was possible just a few months ago? In a sense, we have turned a full circle. In 1971, Nixon decoupled gold from the US dollar. Today, the BIS have taken the first few steps in bringing gold back to its rightful place.

No matter how hard the central bankers and China try to prevent the sovereign debt bubble blow-out, they will not succeed.

Sooner or later, China has to make the decision of the 21st century – to dump the dollar and allow global economies to suffer severe pain in the short term, five to ten years, or commit mass suicide together with the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and Japan.

China at this moment in time is the only country that can survive the coming financial devastation with the least pain as it will be relatively easy to transform its economy from being export-driven to that of a domestic-based economy – tapping the limitless potential of its 1.5 billion citizens. China can do in one short year, maybe at the most two, what would take a generation for the other developed economies to do.

A marginal increase in the purchasing power of its citizens will take up whatever downturn in the export markets.

The fact that the Yuan is propping up the dollar means that it is the Yuan and not the dollar that is the undisputed global reserve currency. If China revalues drastically upwards the Yuan, every fiat currency would head for an uncontrolled free fall.

Let us not be naive and kid ourselves. It is pure pantomime for the US to demand from China to revalue the Yuan and for China to resist a revaluation. This so-called currency tug-of-war is a smoke screen to lend credence that the dollar is not junk but AA, albeit down one notch from AAA.

The fact that so many western-trained economists have not addressed and or exposed this issue can mean only two things – either they are truly ignorant or they are part of this grand charade, blowing smoke into our eyes.

Be patient. Invest in Gold. Prepare for Act II of the financial Armageddon!




Matthias Chang is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Matthias Chang

quicksilvercrescendo wrote:The Anglo-Saxon Mission, explained by Bill Ryan : a Project Avalon video

In January 2010, Project Camelot received 11 pages of information from an insider who was physically present at a meeting of Senior Masons in the City of London in 2005. What was discussed is chilling to the bone.

What our source reports is this:

* There is a planned Third World War, which will be nuclear and biological. Our source believes that this is on track to be initiated within the next 18-24 months.

* It is planned to begin with a strike by Israel on Iran. Either Iran or China will be provoked into a nuclear response. After a brief nuclear exchange, there will be a ceasefire. The world will be thrown into fear and chaos - all carefully engineered.

* The extreme state of tension will be used to justify heavy social and military controls in all western first world nations. Plans are already in place for that.

* During the nuclear ceasefire, there is planned to be a covert release of biological weapons. These will initially be targeted against the Chinese. As our source chillingly told us, "China will catch a cold". Biological warfare will spread further, to the west. Infrastructure will be critically weakened.

* This is intended to be just the beginning. After this, a full nuclear exchange would be triggered: the "real" war, with widespread destruction and loss of life. Our source tells us that the planned population reduction through these combined means is 50%. He heard this figure stated in the meeting.

This horrific scenario has been planned for generations. The first two world wars were part of the set-up for this final apocalypse - as is the centralization of financial resources that was precipitated with the equally well-planned financial collapse of October 2008.

As if all this were not enough, our source speculates this is all set against the backdrop of a coming "geophysical event" - the same kind of event as was experienced by our ancestors approximately 11,500 years ago. If this event occurs - not necessarily expected in 2012, but sometime in the next decade - it would destroy civilization as we know it, dwarfing even the effects of a nuclear war.

I asked the question to our source: If there's an expected catastrophe, then why initiate a Third World War? His answer, for the first time to me, made terrible sense.

The real goal, he explained, is to set up the post-catastrophic world. To ensure that this "New World" [note the term] is the one the controllers want, totalitarian control structures need to be in place when the catastrophe occurs - with an excuse that the populace will accept and demand them. Martial law in the right, carefully chosen countries before the catastrophe occurs will enable the "right" people to survive and prosper in the post-catastrophic world, and the beginning of the next 11,500 year cycle. What may have been carefully planned on a covert global scale, for the last several generations, is nothing less than who will inherit the Earth.

Who are the "right" people? The white Caucasians. This may be why the name of this project is The Anglo-Saxon Mission. Hence the justification for the planned genocide of the Chinese people - so that the New World is inherited by "us", not "them".

Our source was not informed about the planned fate of the second and third world countries such as those in South America, Africa and Asia. But he presumes that these would be allowed to fend for themselves and probably not survive well - or maybe not at all. The totalitarian military governments of the western, white, people are set to be the inheritors.

This is a plan so evil, so racist, so diabolical, so huge, that it almost defies belief. But it all aligns with what many commentators, researchers and whistleblowing insiders have been identifying for some years now. For me personally, it's the clearest picture yet of why the world is the way it is, and why the secrets are protected so fiercely: it may be all about racial supremacy. The Fourth Reich is alive and well.

Astonishingly, our source was not pessimistic. He stressed, as do we and many others, that consciousness is awakening rapidly all over the planet and that THESE PLANNED EVENTS ARE NOT INEVITABLE. If ever there was a reason to work closely together to raise awareness of the real threat to us all, this is it.

Watch this video, listen carefully to the strong message of hope and encouragement, and spread it far and wide. We stand for the potential magnificence of a united humanity that knows no racial boundaries or distinctions. Whether or not the catastrophe occurs - and many, including ourselves, maintain that it will not - we must co-create our own future, claim our power, and do whatever we can to alert people to the dangers around us... so that we can be stronger together, for the sake of our descendants and for the heritage of all living beings on Planet Earth.

Transcript and article of above video...
http://projectcamelot.org/lang/en/anglo_saxon_mission_presentation_transcript_en.html

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/iran-nuclear-weapons-israel/2010/10/05/id/372644
Iran Admits It Could Pull Nuke Trigger on US, Israel
Tuesday, 05 Oct 2010 12:11 PM Article Font Size
By Ken Timmerman

For the first time since the expansion of Iran’s nuclear program was exposed in 2002, the Iranian government is dropping the pretense that it is developing nuclear technology purely for peaceful purposes. Iran has developed nuclear war plans to deter U.S. and Israeli aggression and retaliate against it, a top adviser to Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi announced in a strategic analysis.

Defense Ministry analyst Alireza Saeidabadi’s detailed analysis, published last week on a website that Iran’s intelligence ministry runs, examines several scenarios in which Iran could become embroiled in a shooting war with the United States or Israel.

One of the scenarios Iranian military planners must consider is a strategic nuclear U.S. strike on Iran, he writes. If that occurred, Iranian planning documents call for attacks against U.S. interests “on the world stage,” his analysis says.

The Iranian military should “prioritize its air force and ballistic missile fleet” in dealing with a conventional attack from Israel, Saeidabadi writes.

But in the event Israel uses unconventional weapons against Iran, “then Iran should employ a nuclear strategy.”

Similarly, if Iran and the United States get engaged in naval clashes in the Persian Gulf, Iran should “use its sea power for hit-and-run attacks, commando attacks, and use anti-shipping missiles” against U.S. naval vessels.

“But if the United States launches an unconventional attack, Iran needs to respond with a nuclear strategy,” the Iranian defense ministry analyst contends.

The meaning is clear to former Revolutionary Guards officer Reza Kahlili. “He means that Iran should be prepared with the capability of nuclear weapons to respond” if an enemy were to launch a nuclear strike against Iran, says Kahlili, author of a recent memoir, “A Time to Betray.”

“The use of nuclear technology for peaceful means is just a front,” Kahlili told Newsmax. “They are prepared to go to war and will not give up the bomb project, which they feel is very close to being able to arm their ballistic missiles with nuclear war heads.”

This is the first time that a senior Iranian government official has made an authorized public statement acknowledging that Iran has developed the military doctrine needed to employ nuclear weapons on the battlefield.

Although both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei insist that Iran has the right to enrich uranium and to develop nuclear technology, both have stated consistently that Iran has no interest in nuclear weapons, and that Islam even forbids the use of such weapons.

Defense ministry officials’ talking openly about a nuclear war fighting doctrine turns on its head the long-stated public position of the Islamic Republic that Iran “couldn’t possibly want a nuclear weapon because their ideology and the religious rulings of Ayatollah Khomeini prohibited it,” says Kenneth Katzman, a former CIA analyst who is the top Iran expert at the Congressional Research Service.

Many U.S. experts have been skeptical of such Iranian disclaimers for years. But these latest Iranian statements give added weight to the view that Iranian officials say one thing in public, while doing exactly the opposite behind closed doors.

Former Assistant Secretary of State Paula DeSutter, who tracked nuclear weapons proliferation and verified arms control treaties with the Russian Federation and others for the Bush administration, believes that these latest Iranian statements “can only mean that Iran would target Israeli or U.S. nuclear facilities, or that it would employ nuclear weapons.”

“This language appears to take Iran from nuclear weapons acquisition planning into nuclear weapons employment doctrine, and is therefore quite serious,” DeSutter told Newsmax.

The article, which appeared at intelligence ministry website alef.ir, carried a blaring headline with a quote from the deputy chairman of Iran’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“Iran could get involved in a military conflict in the future,” the vice chief said.

While the deputy chief of the joint staff was not named in the article, a brief item on Iran’s state-run television network in July noted that Ayatollah Khamenei has just named Rear Admiral Saleh as deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with specific responsibilities for planning and budgetary affairs.

The brief television announcement gave no further information about the new vice chief and in the article last week his quote ran with his title and a picture with a blank face.

The article also states that Iran should be prepared to launch attacks against the continental United States, against economic targets, with the aim of “weakening the morale of the people,” language similar to that used by Osama bin Laden to justify the 9/11 attacks.

The Defense Ministry analysis is not a fiery propaganda document, but rather a measured examination of the real-world environment, and this is why it should be taken so seriously.

Regarding Israel, for example, the author refrains from polemics.

The Islamic Republic authorities “need to examine more closely what war with Israel would mean,” he states. “To do so, we first need to analyze Israel’s military capabilities. Israel has an estimated 200 nuclear warheads, as well as chemical and biological weapons. So if there is a conflict, one must first determine whether it will be a conventional war, or a nuclear war.”

Israel believes that Iran “threatens its existence,” and is therefore worried about Iran’s steadily improving relationships with its neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, the Iranian Defense Ministry analyst writes.

To counter Iran’s regional influence, “Israel is expanding relations with Russia, Georgia, and some Central Asia states,” he writes. “Iran must keep Israel’s intentions in mind and therefore should pursue friendly cooperation with its neighbors, especially its Arab neighbors, to reduce Israel’s influence in the region.”

The analyst also argues that the United States is over-extended militarily because of its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The only way the United States could attack Iran would be after a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq,” he states.

“Thus, the more the United States withdraws its forces from Iraq, the greater the chance of a military conflict with Iran.”

http://21stcenturysocialism.com/article/israel_and_the_west_a_nuclear_romance_01922.html
by Noah Tucker / October 27th 2009
Israel and the West: a nuclear romance
Only one Middle Eastern country possesses nuclear weapons. The atomic material for its 200 or more nuclear warheads was produced by means of assistance from the West; and the military aircraft, submarines and cruise missiles which are the delivery systems for those warheads are supplied by the West.

Its name is Israel.

The announcement on 25th September by US president Obama, flanked in person by Britain's prime minister Brown and Sarkosy of France, and by German chancellor Angela Merkel via a video-link, of the alleged discovery of a 'covert' nuclear enrichment plant near the Iranian city of Qom, which was accompanied by the usual pressure on Russia and China to agree to increased sanctions and followed by the usual hints of possible military strikes, calls to mind the insightful words of a figure who is regarded in the Muslim religion as one of the great prophets: "Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

In historical order, the countries responsible for Israel's possession of a nuclear strike capacity are France, Britain, the United States and Germany.

Serial deception

The affair of the 'secret' Iranian site was itself a curious one. The announcement by the Western leaders that they had discovered the plant was made four days after the Iranian government had made an official notification to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the existence of the facility. The plant is still under construction, and it will be many months before any enrichment of uranium can be commenced there.

Even when the plant comes into operation, it will, according to the Iranians (and like their currently functioning nuclear facility at Natanz) be equipped to process uranium-235 to an enrichment level of 5% - suitable only for civilian purposes. Because Iran- unlike Israel- has signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), this is a claim which can be verified by the IAEA. The first visit to the Qom site by IAEA inspectors began on 25th October.

The production of material for nuclear weapons requires an enrichment level of 90%.

To cover the paradox of revealing a nuclear site which the Iranians had already officially declared to the relevant international body, and to promote the idea that the Iranians are engaged in "serial deception" over their allegedly military nuclear ambitions, the USA and its allies claimed that they had known about the Qom facility for several years. But this merely raises a further paradox: why, if the Western powers were aware of this facility and that it was intended for military nuclear production, did they not make this information public at the time? It is difficult to imagine that Obama's predecessor George W. Bush would have passed up such an opportunity to ratchet up the campaign against Iran.

An article in The Times on September 26th attempted to grapple with this conundrum:

The Western allies kept quiet as the evidence mounted, determined not to disclose that they knew of the Qom plant until their case was watertight. The fiasco over intelligence leading to the Iraq invasion contributed greatly to their decision.

But that suggestion, that the Western case in regard to Qom was not watertight until the Iranians themselves notified the IAEA of the new facility under construction, is contradicted by the Western claim that their information about the Qom facility was so detailed and reliable that they can assert with confidence that the plant is designed for military, not civilian, purposes:

Obama announced that “the size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful nuclear program.” In a briefing, senior White House administration officials clarified that the facility is designed to hold about 3,000 centrifuges. Although, this number is not large enough to “make sense from any commercial standpoint, […] enough for a bomb or two a year, it’s the right size.”

It is useful, however, that The Times reminds us of the 'Iraqi WMD' allegations. But that was no "fiasco over intelligence". It was a deliberate falsification, at the behest of the US and British political leaders, in order to justify international sanctions, and eventually military invasion, against a Middle Eastern country which was seen as an obstacle to the foreign policy goals of the United States.

Beyond hypocrisy

A week before the Western powers launched their latest allegation against Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency took a decision on the issue of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East which, by contrast, received no publicity whatsoever in the US and British news media. On Friday 18th September, the general conference of the IAEA, which is the nuclear 'watchdog' of the United Nations, adopted a resolution which expressed concern about Israel's nuclear capabilities, called for Israel (which is the only Middle Eastern country which is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) to sign up to the NPT, and proposed that Israeli nuclear facilities should be placed under "comprehensive IAEA safeguards".

The resolution was sponsored by the Arab states and supported by the bloc of Third World nations in the Non-Aligned Movement, along with Russia and China. It was opposed by the USA and the EU countries.

Among the most informative commentaries on the issue before the IAEA, written three weeks before the vote took place, was written by the Spanish muslim community leader Yusuf Fernandez and published on the website of the Lebanese television station Al-Manar TV. Fernandez noted that:

A report complied by a Washington-based military think tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), claims Israeli nuclear warheads have both air and sea capabilities. The study, authored by former US Defence Department strategist Anthony Cordesman, disclosed that Israel is currently “in possession of 200 nuclear warheads” and has produced nuclear weapons with “a yield of one megaton”. The Zionist state also has low yield neutron bombs able to destroy troops with minimal damage to property...

The existence of a nuclear-armed Israel shows the hypocrisy of Western powers [...] At a White House press conference on 18 May 2009, US President Barack Obama expressed “deepening concern” about "the potential pursuit of a nuclear weapon by Iran.” He continued: “Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon would not only be a threat to Israel and a threat to the United States, but would be profoundly destabilizing in the international community as a whole and could set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.”

In his speech, Obama 'forgot' to mention the Israeli nuclear arsenal, which is considered by Middle East Muslim nations as a threat. US officials never speak about the Israeli threat to Muslim nations because, according to their view, Arab and Muslim nations do not have the right to live in security. Only Israel and the US do. Actually, the US policy in the Middle East seeks to preserve Israel´s nuclear monopoly and its ability to threaten and blackmail Arab and Muslim nations. Israel thinks that if it attacks any Muslim country of the Middle East, the latter will hold back from retaliating due to fears of Israel's nuclear weapons. This nuclear power feeds Israel’s superiority sentiment and sustains its peace “rejectionism” to paraphrase US political activist and author Noam Chomsky, by giving it a false sense of invincibility.

Unlike Israel, Iran has signed the NPT and their installations are opened to IAEA inspectors. Despite many years of inspections, the agency has found no evidence that Iran has, or ever had, a nuclear weapons programme, although Western media is giving the opposite impression...

Yusuf Fernandez also remarked:

The Islamic Republic of Iran has never attacked or invaded its neighbors. The only war in which Iran has been involved since the Islamic Revolution, the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s, was initiated by Saddam Hussein’s regime. When Iranian forces were attacked with chemical weapons by Saddam’s troops during that war, Iran did not retaliate against the Iraqis due to religious and political considerations.

In contrast, Israel is currently occupying territories of three Arab states, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, and has launched bloody wars against its neighbors, including against Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008-2009. In these wars, Israel illegally employed weapons, such as white phosphorus, against civilians and committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity, some of which have been reported by UN commissions of inquiry...

The Western demand for Iran to stop the uranium enrichment process is unacceptable for any sovereign nation. The uranium enrichment process is allowed by the Article IV (1) of the NPT, so long as it is for civil nuclear purposes. Actually, the US/EU, which continue ignoring Israel’s nuclear arsenal of more than 200 warheads, are demanding Iran to renounce a legal right, which does not contradict the peaceful nature of its programme. The IAEA has testified that only low enriched uranium suitable for a power generation reactor is being produced in the Iranian Natanz plant and that none of it has been diverted from the facility for other purposes.

Free of charge from the West: bombers, subs and missiles

In accusing the Western nations of "ignoring" Israel’s nuclear arsenal, Yusuf Fernandez was being extremely restrained and moderate. The West- led by the USA- provides the diplomatic support for Israel's covert nuclear weapons programme; the West- mainly the USA and Germany- currently provides Israel with the advanced military delivery systems for its nuclear arsenal; and it was the West- specifically France and Britain- that originally provided Israel with the means to create its nuclear warheads.

In a background paper for the US Council on Foreign Relations, the writer Lionel Beehner concedes:

One estimate, by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), puts its arsenal at around 200 nuclear warheads, which would make Israel the sixth-largest nuclear power. These warheads can be launched by air (F-16s and F-15Es), by ground (intermediate-range ballistic missiles like the Jericho II), or by sea (U.S.-made Harpoon missiles based on diesel-powered submarines or ships). Experts say Israeli missiles can reach Libya, Iran, or Russia.

In its currently operational air force fleet, Israel has 97 Boeing F-15s and 345 Lockheed-Martin F-16s; it is presently negotiating to obtain up to 100 of the USA's new 'stealth' F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, which can evade radar detection and are also capable of carrying a nuclear payload. All of Israel's combat aircraft, along with the Harpoon cruise missiles and many other weapons systems, are provided free of charge by the USA under its military aid programme.

The Israeli submarine fleet is comprised of Dolphin-class U212 submarines manufactured by the German firm ThyssenKrupp. Because it produces no exhaust heat and very little engine noise, the U212 is very difficult to detect, allowing it to arrive in unexpected places in order to launch its missiles.

Three of these submarines are currently in operational service in the Israeli navy; in September 2009, an un-named Israeli military source informed the media that a further two had been delivered. UPI reported:

Israel has taken delivery of two German-made submarines capable of launching missiles with nuclear warheads.

"We have received two Dolphin-class submarines built from Germany," Israel and Arab media reported quoting an anonymous Israeli military spokesman.

Called U212s, the submarines were upgraded in Germany by Israeli technicians and engineers in order to enable them to carry nuclear warheads.

Initially in 2006, when the sale was confirmed, the German government said the two vessels were not equipped to carry nuclear weapons.

The submarines were ordered in 2005, and delivery was originally scheduled for 2010.

With the latest delivery, Israel now holds five state-of-the-art U212s, designed for a crew of 35 and capable of launching cruise missiles that carry nuclear warheads to a distance of 2,810 miles.

Possibly in response to German government embarrassment, Israeli officials later issued a denial of the reports, and asserted that the two new submarines will be arriving on the contractual delivery date in 2010. Israel has also indicated that it will order a sixth U212, as it is entitled to under the contract.

The first two of Israel's ThyssenKrupp submarines were donated free by the German government; the third was provided at 50% of the cost of construction; and Germany is providing a 33% subsidy on the price of the fourth and fifth U212s. Citing information published in the German magazine Der Spiegel, UPI reported on 8th October:

Now [submarine] No. 6 is ready to be ordered, and Israel is due to ask Berlin to shoulder at least part of the estimated $750 million price tag. In Germany, critics of the Israeli submarine deal fear that the vessels could be used to fire nuclear warheads. Observers nevertheless expect Berlin to subsidize the order.

The French connection

Israel's Jericho II and Jericho III multi-stage ballistic nuclear missiles are manufactured by the Israelis themselves, based on technology and prototypes which were provided by France in the 1960s. The website of the French aeronautical firm Dassault Aviation blandly records the company's role in the production of the first Jericho missile, also known as the MD 620:

In 1962, the French government approached Dassault to develop a ballistic missile on behalf of the State of Israel. That sparked work on the MD 620 Jéricho. The MD 620 needed to transport a warhead over 500 km.

The first shot of a single-stage missile took place on February 1, 1965, in the Mediterranean sea, from Levant Island. Tests on a dual-stage missile in March 1966 proved successful.

According to an article on the website Les fusées en Europe, the French-Israeli contract specified that:

Twenty-five experimental missiles MD 620 (5 vehicles with dummy second stage and 20 two-stage missiles) had to be manufactured as well as the launching and control equipments. At the end of the tests, the series produced missiles had to be manufactured in Israel.

The lead contractor of the MD 620 program was Dassault company with, as main subcontractors, Nord Aviation (with SEPR and Service des Poudres) for the solid motors and SAGEM for the guidance. The missiles production was achieved - from May 1964 to January 1969 - in the Dassault factory in Martignas-sur-Jalle in presence of an Israeli team.

The 6.7 t missile, 13.4-m long and 0.80-m in diameter, was composed of two solid stages. The motors (NA-804 and NA-805) were derived from the NA-803 motor of the VE 111 Topaze rocket. The first stage, piloted by four revolving nozzles, was identical to the Topaze one. The second, equipped with a fixed nozzle only, was piloted by four aerodynamic control fins. During the powered phase, steering was controlled by an inertial navigation system combined with a digital computer that allowed reaching a precision of 1/1000 of the range.

Although the French government terminated work on the programme in January 1969, the completed missiles and components produced thus far were nevertheless provided to Israel:

Dassault delivered the missiles that were finished and the spare parts for other missiles that were assembled in Israel. On May 2 1969, the Dassault company and the government of Israel signed a memorandum stopping the research and test program. Israel pursued the development of this missile under the name Jericho 1, of which about a hundred units would have been manufactured between 1970 and 1980.

Before and during the Jericho / MD 620 programme, the French were also working to equip Israel with the means to create nuclear warheads. In the period of the 1950s to the late 1960s, Israel's main military sponsor was not yet the United States but France; one of the two major declining European colonial powers, both of which were deploying every means of trying to maintain their power and influence in the Middle East. Some extracts from a paper by Colonel Warner D. Farr for the United States Air Force Counterproliferation Center illustrate the relationship between France and the Zionist state during this period:

France was Israel's principal arms supplier, and as instability spread through French colonies in North Africa, Israel provided valuable intelligence obtained from contacts with sephardic Jews in those countries.

The two nations collaborated, with the United Kingdom, in planning and staging the Suez Canal-Sinai operation against Egypt in October 1956. The Suez Crisis became the real genesis of Israel's nuclear weapons production program [...] Six weeks before the Suez Canal operation, Israel felt the time was right to approach France for assistance in building a nuclear reactor...

For the United Kingdom and France, the Suez operation, launched on October 29, 1956, was a total disaster. Israel's part was a military success, allowing it to occupy the entire Sinai Peninsula by 4 November, but the French and British canal invasion on 6 November was a political failure. Their attempt to advance south along the Suez Canal stopped due to a cease-fire under fierce Soviet and U.S. pressure...

On 7 November 1956, a secret meeting was held between Israeli foreign minister Golda Meir, Shimon Peres, and French foreign and defense ministers Christian Pineau and Maurice Bourges-Manoury. The French, embarrassed by their failure to support their ally in the operation, found the Israelis deeply concerned about a Soviet threat. In this meeting, they substantially modified the initial understanding beyond a research reactor. Peres secured an agreement from France to assist Israel in developing a nuclear deterrent. After further months of negotiation, agreement was reached for an 18-megawatt (thermal) research reactor of the EL-3 type, along with plutonium separation technology. France and Israel signed the agreement in October 1957. Later the reactor was officially upgraded to 24 megawatts, but the actual specifications issued to engineers provided for core cooling ducts sufficient for up to three times this power level, along with a plutonium plant of similar capacity. Data from insider reports revealed in 1986 would estimate the power level at 125-150 megawatts. The reactor, not connected to turbines for power production, needed this increase in size only to increase its plutonium production.

In his paper, Colonel Farr asks, and answers, a pertinent question:

Why was France so eager to help Israel? DeMollet and then de Gaulle had a place for Israel within their strategic vision. A nuclear Israel could be a counterforce against Egypt in France's fight in Algeria. Egypt was openly aiding the rebel forces there. France also wanted to obtain the bomb itself. The United States had embargoed certain nuclear enabling computer technology from France. Israel could get the technology from America and pass it through to France.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

The French government's motivations in the origination of Israel's nuclear weapons programme were also considered in secret discussions among the security elite in the United States, soon after the USA became convinced of the military purpose of the Israeli reactor. A CIA National Intelligence Estimate presented on 8th December 1960, which was subsequently partially declassified and released (with many lines blacked out) in March 2009, was entitled 'Implications of the Aquisition by Israel of a Nuclear Weapons Capability'. The CIA report began:

1. Recent information confirms that Israel is engaged in the construction of a nuclear reactor complex, in the Negev, near Beersheba. A number of interpretations of the function of this complex are possible [...] On the basis of all available evidence, including the configuration of the complex, we believe that plutonium production for weapons is at least one major purpose of this effort. There may be other purposes, eg power, but the secrecy surrounding the project and the location of the installation suggests that it is intended for the production of weapons grade plutonium, whether or not generation of electric power is involved.

2. We have extensive evidence that France is supplying plans, materials, equipment, technical assistance, and also training Israeli personnel.

Following several lines which, even almost half a century afterwards, the US government deleted because they are still considered too sensitive to be read by the public, the report continues:

The Israelis have obtained about 20 tons of heavy water and possibly other assistance from Norway.

3. We estimate that Israel will produce some weapon-grade plutonium in 1963-64 and possibly as early as 1962.

Then, after another eleven blacked-out lines, the report proceeds to consider the underlying reasons for France's policy; firstly, the particular imperial interests of France in the Middle East:

4. French Motivations. We have no direct evidence of French motivations for providing nuclear assistance to Israel. However, regardless of whether French planning laid primary emphasis on the military or the peaceful aspect of the project, their decision was consistent with their policy of bolstering Israel as the only reliable long-term French ally in an area swept by influence hostile to France.

And secondly, France's interest as a member of the group of Western capitalist powers, while defining its independent and 'unilateral' role in the NATO bloc; seeking to strengthen both Israel, and France's connection with Israel, as a means of opposing the states and forces in the Arab world that wished to assert their independence from the West and could potentially influence the region to develop in a non-capitalist direction:

France has repeatedly contended that vigorous and, if necessary unilateral action, was necessary to prevent anti-Western nationalist, neutralist and Communist forces from outflanking NATO in the Near East and North Africa.

To gain an insight into the motivations of the United States in its developing relationship with Israel during the subsequent decades, one needs only to replace 'France' with 'the USA' in that December 1960 analysis by the CIA.

Heavy water, deep secrets

As a June 2009 article in the Washington Post by Walter Pincus has observed, other passages in the CIA's 1960 National Intelligence Estimate have also stood the test of time; notably, the section on the effect of nuclear weapons aquisition on the behaviour of the Israeli state. The CIA analysts wrote:

Possession of a nuclear weapon capability, or even the prospect of achieving it, would clearly give Israel a greater sense of security, self-confidence and assertiveness...

Israel would clearly make the most of any such achievement in terms of impressing its Arab enemies - and other Afro-Asian states - with Israel's technological capacities, military potential, and political prestige [...] they would also, as time goes on, make plain that henceforth Israel is a power to be accorded more respect than either its friends or its enemies have hitherto given it...

And, as the CIA suggested, a nuclear-armed Israel would be able to increase pressure on the Arabs to make concessions; while Israel, on the other hand, would become ever more ambitious and intransigent. The CIA's 1960 National Intelligence Estimate predicted:

Israel would emphasise that Arab hopes of solving the Palestine problem by boycott, blockade and military means were now unrealistic and that Arabs had no recourse but to negotiate with Israel for a peaceful settlement. At the same time Israel would be less inclined than ever to make concessions and would press its interests in the area more vigorously...

There was, however (at least so far as can be gleaned, given that many lines are deleted in the de-classified version of the report) a significant omission in the information ascertained by the CIA in 1960. The 20 tons of heavy water- also known as deuterium, an essential ingredient for the production of plutonium- had been produced in Norway. But those 20 tons had been sold by the Norwegians to the UK in 1956. As is shown by documents in the British National Archives, uncovered by the BBC in 2005, it was Britain that provided Israel with the heavy water required to begin the creation of its nuclear arsenal.

Other official papers, which came to light the following year, reveal that Britain continued during the early and mid 1960s to provide Israel with key materials for its military nuclear programme. As the Guardian reported in March 2006:

The documents also show how Britain made hundreds of shipments to Israel of material which could have helped in its nuclear weapons programme, including compounds of uranium, lithium, beryllium and tritium, as well as heavy water.

The UK also supplied Israel in 1966 with 10mg of plutonium; a very small amount, but according to British defence intelligence officials, that 10mg had "significant military value" and could enable the Israelis "to carry out important experimental work to speed up its nuclear weapons programme."

In the reports of these revelations in the UK media, it was emphasised that the British assistance to Israel in its aquisition of atomic military capacity was carried out covertly by non-elected officials in the British state; who not only managed to conceal the UK's programme of nuclear aid to Israel from Britain's main ally the USA, but also- to at least some extent- from the the elected politicians in Britain.

In one explanation for the actions of the UK officials involved, the suggestion is made that their intention was to earn money (presumably for the British state, not themselves) - this can be regarded with skepticism, given that the sale of the heavy water to Israel yielded a trivial £1.5 million. Another explanation concentrates on the fact that one of the officials involved in the provision of plutonium to Israel was Jewish, and therefore allegedly had 'dual loyalties' between Britain and Israel. And the article in the Guardian contains a claim that in 1961, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan "made a failed attempt" to get Israel to return the UK-supplied heavy water back to Britain.

But the UK's supply of nuclear assistance to Israel continued. No measures have ever been taken against the senior state employees who organised Britain's provision of materials for the Israeli atomic weapons programme, although their actions contradicted the public policy of the British governments of the time, which was to sell conventional (but not nuclear) war equipment to the Israelis.

Tanks, nukes, and secret deals

During the 1960s, while the zionist state advanced steadily towards its achievement of the capacity to produce and deploy nuclear warheads, a switch of roles took place between the major capitalist power centres on either side of the Atlantic. For their own strategic and economic reasons, the Americans had originally been wary of becoming identified as Israel's military and political sponsor, preferring this role to be taken by the West Europeans. David Rodman recalls in an article in the Middle East Review of International Affairs:

Ever since its birth in 1948, Israel had sought to obtain arms, as well as an explicit security guarantee, from the United States. The Truman and Eisenhower administrations [1945 to 1961], though, steadfastly refused Israeli pleas for arms and a security guarantee as a result of Cold War pragmatism. The United States, both administrations reasoned, had to keep Israel at arm's length in order to protect American access to Arab oil and military bases in the face of perceived Soviet expansionism.

As Rodman notes in his article, which focusses on the provision of American tanks to the Israelis, this US concern persisted under Kennedy and through the early years of the Lyndon Johnson presidency:

NSC, DoS, DoD, and CIA experts all believed that supplying Israel with tanks now [ie, in the early 1960s] would undoubtedly inflame Arab opinion against the United States and would quite possibly lead to serious setbacks for American national interests in the area. These experts especially feared that American oil concessions would be jeopardized and that Soviet influence among the Arabs would grow.

Furthermore, American officials preferred to adhere for the time being to their traditional stance with regard to arms transfers to the Middle East--that is, the United States should avoid becoming a prominent supplier of weapons to either the Arab states or Israel [...] American officials, in short, did not want to create a 'polarized' Middle East, with the United States identified as Israel's benefactor and the Soviet Union identified as the Arabs' benefactor.

The Johnson administration, therefore, decided to adopt a middle ground on a tank sale to Israel. While the United States would still refuse to sell tanks directly, it would employ its considerable influence in Western Europe to ensure that either Great Britain or the Federal Republic of Germany met Israel's requirements.

David Rodman adds that US officials at this time sought to use the prospect of direct provision of tanks to the Israelis in order to encourage the latter to cease their nuclear warhead and nuclear missile programmes:

American officials, quite simply, implied to their Israeli counterparts that a tank sale would be made contingent on an Israeli agreement to forgo SSMs [surface-to-surface missiles] and nuclear weapons.

And just as simply, the Israelis carried on regardless with their nuclear programmes. They had good reasons not to take the American 'implication' too seriously; among these reasons was the fact that the USA was already covertly supplying Israel with a stream of US-made weapons via the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). As the US pro-Israeli lobbyist Mitchell G. Bard notes:

...the United States had been indirectly supplying arms to Israel through West Germany since 1962 under the terms of a secret 1960 agreement.

And, irrespective that Israel was pressing on with its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, in 1964 the USA procured a further covert deal with West Germany, through which the Israelis would be provided with 150 M-48 Patton tanks.

A nuclear romance

But the US-FRG-Israeli tank deal was leaked to the press within a few months; and in February 1965 the Federal Geman government (fearing an Arab backlash which might even involve Middle Eastern states giving diplomatic recognition to West Germany's socialist rival, the German Democratic Republic) abruptly cancelled the deal. Although the West Germans continued their covert military collaboration with the Israelis, large-scale provision of major weapons systems from Germany to Israel was not resumed until after the abolition of the GDR in 1989.

The US government moved with alacrity to fill the breach. West Germany's abrogation of the secret tank deal in 1965 was followed immediately by a new 'Memorandum of Understanding' between Israel and the USA, in which the United States agreed to provide the Israelis directly with the 110 M-48 tanks that had not yet been delivered.

In this new agreement, signed on March 10, 1965 Israel's only concession was Clause II:

II. The Government of Israel has reaffirmed that Israel will not be the first [state] to introduce nuclear weapons into the Arab-Israel area.

Israel's interpretation of this clause was a rather peculiar one: that Israel would continue its drive towards possession of nuclear weapons capability, but would keep that fact secret and not make any officlal announcement that it had aquired such a capacity. To a naive observer, that the government of the United States was willing to go along with this Israeli interpretation might also be seen as rather peculiar.

Having determined the principle that it would become Israel's direct supplier of arms, with no requirement in practice that Israel had to change or even moderate its policies, the United States began to ship large quantities of modern war machinery directly to the Israelis. In 1966, a further consignment of 200 M-48 tanks was agreed; and the US announced that it would re-equip the Israeli Air Force with Skyhawk jet bombers.

So, as David Rodman observes:

Even though the Johnson administration attempted to portray the [1965] tank sale as a onetime deal--as an anomaly in American Middle East policy--it represented in retrospect yet another significant step down the road to a full-fledged American-Israeli patron-client relationship. A 'special relationship' had become inevitable by the early 1960s in light of America's commitment to ensure Israel's security. The gradual loss of the IDF's traditional sources of arms, particularly France and West Germany, combined with the Soviet Union's large-scale weapons transfers to the Arab world, meant that the United States was bound to become Israel's benefactor [...]

Israel's policy of nuclear 'opacity'--that is, its policy of keeping its bomb and missile capabilities almost entirely hidden in the shadows--can be traced to America's decision to supply arms.

Thus Israel would no longer go to war (as it had done in 1956) at the behest of West European powers. Appreciating the source of its main supply of sophisticated weaponry, diplomatic support, and also the turning of a 'blind eye' towards its advancing nuclear capabilities, Israel would henceforth allow only one country to give it either the 'red light' or the 'green light' to launch military attacks on its Arab neighbours. The first practical test of this re-structuring of the Israeli relationship with the West was passed in 1967. Rodman recounts that:

...the [US] administration thought that, if the United States sent arms to Israel, the [Israeli] Eshkol government would be morally obliged to take America's national interests into account before unleashing the IDF. The validity of this belief would be amply verified by the train of events leading up to the 1967 Six-Day War. The Eshkol government refrained from embarking on war until the Johnson administration had tacitly given it a 'green light' to do so--after the United States had failed to achieve a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

It was in 1968, shortly after this vindication, that the USA under President Lyndon B. Johnson agreed to provide Israel with the USA's most potent supersonic fighter-bomber at that time, the McDonnell Douglas Phantom. Dr Mitchell G. Bard, who is a prolific spokesman for the pro-Israeli lobby in the USA, describes President Johnson's attitude to the zionist state in the following terms:

Like most U.S. presidents, Johnson's support for Israel was based on a combination of realism, romanticism, and cold political calculation. Viewed realistically, Israel was a relatively powerful, pro-Western democratic nation in a region of strategic importance where Communism and Pan-Arabism were seen as serious threats to U.S. interests. Although the United States did not yet perceive Israel as a strategic ally, it recognized that a strong Israel was a deterrent to the forces of radicalism in the Middle East.

Viewed romantically, Israel was the nation of pioneers who had turned malarial swamps into a land of milk and honey. "We live by the faith that what has been wrought there," Johnson wrote to one Jewish leader shortly after becoming President, "someday will be achieved in all the lands where men aspire to live in freedom, under peace, enjoying justice as a right and prosperity as a result of their labors."

This flattering and mythical view of Israel, it must be remarked, resonated strongly with the historical self-perception of the United States itself: a nation of European colonists who, having arrived uninvited by the native population, proceeded to subdue, massacre and drive out those local inhabitants from their lands; and, on the basis of that victory, built their society of 'freedom, democracy and prosperity'.

On the significance of the provision of the Phantom jets to Israel, Dr Bard remarks:

...the Phantom sale represented a shift in U.S. policy from maintaining a stance of neutrality to one of providing and maintaining Israel with the arms it needed to build and keep a qualitative advantage over its Arab neighbors.

As for the position of France, previously Israel's key arms supplier- the question of to what extent the French special relationship with Israel was usurped by the Americans, as opposed to being voluntarily ceded by the French, is debatable. Having lost its direct colonial power in the region, France under President Charles de Gaulle had begun to move away from using the threat of military force- directly and via Israel as its surrogate- against the Arab countries, and instead sought to maintain its influence through a process of rapprochement with the Arab world.

Thus the French government did not approve of Israel's actions in the 1967 war, which involved the invasion and occupation of the remaining portions of Palestine as well as Egyptian and Syrian territory; and in 1969, after Israel used French-supplied helicopters to mount an attack on Beirut International Airport, the French government suspended its military provision to Israel. Arms exports from France to Israel were not resumed until 1974.

Jets of approval

While estimates vary on the exact date of Israel's acquistion of a viable nuclear weapon, declassified documents show that by 1969, US officials had no doubt whatsoever that the Israelis were- at the very least- on the cusp of possessing such a capacity. Henry Owen, the Chairman of the US State Department's Policy Planning Council, sent a memo dated February 7th 1969 to Secretary of State Kissinger in which he made clear that:

Intelligence indicates that Israel is rapidly developing a capability to produce and deploy nuclear weapons, and to deliver them by surface-to-surface missile, or by plane. Recognising the adverse repercussions of disclosure, the Israelis are likely to work out their nuclear programmes clandestinely until they are ready to decide whether to deploy the weapons. News about Israeli progress could continue to seep out, as it has already begun to do, until it is generally taken for granted that Israel has this capability, without the government of Israel confirming or denying it.

Under the direction of Henry Kissinger, a working group was put together to consider the intelligence information and outline the options for US policy. On 7th July 1969, Kissinger reported to President Richard Nixon in a memo entitled 'Israeli Nuclear Program'. This included the information that :

Israel has 12 surface-to-surface missiles delivered from France. It has set up a production line and plans by the end of 1970 to have a total force of 24-30, ten of which are programmed for nuclear warheads.

When the Israelis signed the contract buying the Phantom aircraft last November, they committed thernselves "not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Near East". But it was plain from the discussion that they interpreted that to mean they could possess nuclear weapons as long as they did not test, deploy, or make them public.

As Kissinger also noted:

... the Phantom aircraft are potential nuclear weapons carriers.

Though written in a spirit of urgency, Kissinger's 7th July memo is little more than a re-hash of the issues and options which had already been considered and determined under the Johnson presidency. The document, which includes an account of discussions within the top ranks of the US security and policy elite- the State Department, the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staffs- takes the paradoxical approach of adopting 'minimum' positions on Israeli nuclear weapons and the USA's ability to exert leverage on the Israelis by witholding delivery of the Phantoms, and simultaneously implying that in the final analysis, the only demand that the United States should insist on is that the Israelis should keep their nuclear weapons secret.

Thus Kissinger asserted:

We judge that the introduction of nuclear weapons into the Near East would increase the dangers in an already dangerous situation and therefore not be in our interest.

And further:

Everyone agreed that, as a minimum, we want Israel to sign the NPT [Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty]. This is not because signing will make any difference in Israel's actual nuclear program because Israel could produce warheads clandestinely. Israel's signature would, however, give us a publicly feasible issue to raise with the Israeli government --a way of opening the discussion. It would also publicly commit Israel not to acquire nuclear weapons [...]

Israel's secret possession of nuclear weapons would increase the potential danger in the Middle East, and we do not desire complicity in it.

But while saying that, Henry Kissinger implied that the USA's actual policy should be precisely the opposite:

...public knowledge [of Israeli possession of nuclear weapons] is almost as dangerous as possession itself. This is what might spark a Soviet nuclear guarantee for the Arabs, tighten the Soviet hold on the Arabs and increase the danger of our involvement [...]

What this means is that, while we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession [of nuclear weapons], what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact.

A further State Department memo to the President dated September 19th 1969 informed:

Israel has the technical ability and material resources to produce weapons grade uranium for a number of weapons [...] Some [US experts] have reservations about whether or not Israel has produced and assembled a complete nuclear weapon, but do not dispute the likelihood that she could and soon might [...] Israel might very well now have a nuclear bomb.

By that time, the first four Phantom jets had already been delivered to the Israelis.

Pact of silence

On 25th-26th September 1969, President Nixon (accompanied by Kissinger during some of the discussions) met with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in Washington. Subsequently, the USA continued to supply the Phantom jets to Israel at a rate of four per month, and these were followed by many more US weapons systems. Israel continued its refusal to join the NPT, and the USA adopted a policy of blocking all attempts by other countries to pressurise Israel to sign the non-proliferation treaty.

Ever since, both the USA and Israel have maintained official positions of refusing to confirm or deny Israel's possession of nuclear weapons; continuing this refusal even after the public revelations in 1986 by former Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, which proved beyond doubt that Israel had manufactured a large number of nuclear warheads.

No record of the Nixon-Meir summit has ever been released. But forty years later, some information appeared in the press which threw light on the secret agreement made at that meeting and confirmed that it still forms the basis of US-Israeli nuclear policy. The Washington Times reported on October 2nd 2009:

President Obama has reaffirmed a 4-decade-old secret understanding that has allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections, three officials familiar with the understanding said.

The officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were discussing private conversations, said Mr. Obama pledged to maintain the agreement when he first hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in May.

Under the understanding, the U.S. has not pressured Israel to disclose its nuclear weapons or to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which could require Israel to give up its estimated several hundred nuclear bombs [...]

Mr. Netanyahu let the news of the continued U.S.-Israeli accord slip last week in a remark that attracted little notice. He was asked by Israel's Channel 2 whether he was worried that Mr. Obama's speech at the U.N. General Assembly, calling for a world without nuclear weapons, would apply to Israel.

"It was utterly clear from the context of the speech that he was speaking about North Korea and Iran," the Israeli leader said. "But I want to remind you that in my first meeting with President Obama in Washington I received from him, and I asked to receive from him, an itemized list of the strategic understandings that have existed for many years between Israel and the United States on that issue. It was not for naught that I requested, and it was not for naught that I received [that document]."

The chief nuclear understanding was reached at a summit between President Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that began on Sept. 25, 1969.

[...] The Netanyahu government sought to reaffirm the understanding in part out of concern that Iran would seek Israeli disclosures of its nuclear program in negotiations with the United States and other world powers. Iran has frequently accused the U.S. of having a double standard by not objecting to Israel's arsenal.

Model state

Much water has passed under the bridge since that 1969 'understanding'; the biggest change being that the USSR, whose socialist and pro-Arab influence was uppermost in the minds of Western strategists during the Cold War, was wiped off the political map eighteen years ago. Should it therefore be assumed- as some commentators have suggested- that Israel is no longer a strategic asset for the USA, and that the privileged position which the US accords to the zionist state (including the special nuclear relationship) is an anachronism sustained only by American internal politics, specifically the machinations of the infuential pro-Israeli lobby within the United States?

While nobody can deny the importance of ethnic factors and well-funded lobbies in the USA's political process, it must be noted that the US-Israel axis is one of several winning formulas developed for strategic and/or economic reasons by the United States during the Cold War period; and which, following the US victory against the Soviet Union, have remained as mainstays of United States policy.

It was imagined by some observers that those formulas, which included the NATO alliance, Western domination of the the International Monetary Fund and other global financial and trade bodies, the propensity for frequent direct or indirect military attacks on Third World countries, and the maintennance and upgrading of the USA's own massive nuclear arsenal, would be replaced by a more peaceable and equitable world order after the fall of the Soviet Union. Those fledgling hopes were dashed by the actions of successive US governments. To the extent that some small degree of global balance and equity has been restored since the 1990s, that has been achieved by the rise of China, the re-emergence of Russia, and the radicalisation of Latin America, as counterweights to the bloc of advanced capitalist countries (ie, the 'West') led by the United States.

Yet Israel occupies a special place in Western policy and ideology; and not merely because of its geographical position at the centre of the world's most important oil-producing region.

A settler state loyal to the West, and which- having driven out most of the natives- arose while the sun was setting on the period of direct European colonialism; technologically and- it believes- politically and culturally superior to its ungrateful neighbours, who it now and again attacks and massacres, to teach them a lesson; having its own 'backyard', which it colonises and whose resources it mercilessly exploits; owning a moral culture in which the lives of its ethnic majority citizens are worth far more than the lives of people in surrounding countries; arrogant in its overwhelming military might, especially its regionally unparalelled nuclear capability: Israel is a mini-Western world.

And to that extent also, citizens of the Western bloc can take a hard look at Israel; as many have increasingly done since the 2006 invasion of Lebanon and the 2008-09 massacre in Gaza: and see in that mirror- a modernised reprise of our own colonial history; and a small-scale caricature of the current mode of global domination.

The reflection is hardly flattering.