The news that the family of Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry owned a ranch known by the name "Niggerhead" has sparked outrage. But both Perry--and Mitt Romney, who is leading the Republican presidential pack for now--have no shame and have faced little scrutiny when it comes to their courting of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian activists and advisers.
Perry, who says that his support for Israel derives from God, is close with an ardent backer of Israel who is tied to the viciously anti-Muslim movie "Obsession," as investigative journalist Wayne Barrett reported earlier this week in the Daily Beast. And one of Romney's "special advisers" in his "shadow National Security Council" is Walid Phares, an Islamophobe featured in the Center for American Progress report, Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.
Barrett writes that Rabbi Irwin Katsof, who has taken Perry to Israel twice, is a "singularly important bridge between Perry and Israel’s supporters in the U.S." Barrett also uncovers details that link Katsof to the Islamophobic film "Obsession," which was sent to mailboxes in swing-states during the 2008 presidential election.
Perry's ties to Katsof should come as no surprise, given that Perry surrounds himself with other "violent Jewish extremists," as Max Blumenthal reported for Al Akhbar English. These revelations about those close to Perry should cloud the image of Perry as a friend to the Muslim community--which might be a good thing politically for Perry, who is seeking the support of a party whose base is not friendly to Muslims.
Romney, whose tack in the campaign has been to be the moderate, responsible Republican who can beat Barack Obama, is courting advisers with similar views on Israel/Palestine and Islam. While his "shadow" national security team includes neoconservative stalwarts like Dan Senor, the most alarming member of the team is Phares. Phares was a member of the Lebanese Front, the Christian militia that took part in the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon.
Here's the Center for American Progress profile of him in their Fear, Inc. report:
Walid Phares is currently a senior fellow and the director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C. Phares, age 53, also acts as an “expert” lecturer on “Islamist Jihadism” for the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies. Phares is touted as an authentic expert on Muslims and political Islam despite being a former militiaman and foreign affairs spokesman for the mostly Christian Lebanese Front, which was responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacres of Muslims during the September 1982 Lebanese Civil War.
Phares promotes the conspiracy theory of mainstream Muslim organizations posing as radical Islamist cells. He warns that “jihadists within the West pose as civil rights advocates” and patiently recruit until “[a]lmost all mosques, educational centers,and socioeconomic institutions fall into their hands.” He was originally scheduled to testify at Rep. King’s criticized hearings on the alleged radicalization of the Muslim American community but was dropped at the last moment after his sordid history with the Lebanese Forces was uncovered.
When Phares was asked about his connection to the leadership that allowed the atrocities to occur, he simply replied, “Everybody did silly stuff, on both hands… but amazingly enough, the Guardians of the Cedars [a right-wing Christian religious group within the Lebanese Forces] have been the most moral fighters."
The inclusion of Phares as one of Romney's advisers should put lie to the notion that there exists a "moderate" GOP. But the most frustrating thing of all is that Obama won't make an issue out of Islamophobia and a candidate's views on Israel. Obama runs away from any contact with Muslim groups and will spend a big chunk of his re-election campaign defending his record as a great ally of Israel. Meanwhile, no matter who is president in 2012, Palestinians will continue to suffer under a U.S.-backed occupation and Muslims in America will continue to deal with systematic rights violations and bigotry.
Alex Kane, a freelance journalist based in New York City, blogs at alexbkane.wordpress.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.
Looks like you guys are voting Obama again. How about using the hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted on the flotillas to support a political candidate? How about winning in ONE district? Why not prove your theory about educating Americans by focusing on ONE district and educating them there? That you won’t do these things show that you know also that your theory’s are just wrong.
Incoherent utterly random assertions. Maybe you are scared cause you see what the increasingly informed WORLD feels about Israeli policies. Including American Jewry, which is also getting facts, logic, and morality.
cough Ron Paul cough cough.
I second that cough.
Although he’s probably a more devout Christian than both Perry and Romney (oh wait the latter is Mormon :-)), Paul is never making nice with the anti-Muslim, all hail-Israel crowd.
Dan Crowther: very tepid ron paul supporter, uggh
im sure shingo will also be suprised/ecstatic to read this
eee – do you learn disrespect for the idea of democracy in israel, or is this something you just come by naturally? arrogance on the part of israel and it’s zionist advocates will be it’s downfall… your post is testimony to this..
1) Most American Jews are Zionists, therefore you view them as racist. You think they will support your position?
2) Ron Paul is a Republican, not a cough cough progressive
3) I have the utmost respect for democracy, it is you that doesn’t. You keep making claims about the US public but cannot back it up even in one congressional district. When democracy talks, it shows that what you are saying is nonsense.
eee, who said anything about racism? The older generations of American Jews are primarily Zionist but the younger generation seems to be mostly anti-Zionist. American Jews are nearly split over Israel.
Ron Paul is a libertarian. His party affiliation means absolutely NOTHING. Democrats and Republicans alike might as well be the same when it comes to foreign policy. Ron Paul is a constitutionalist who has never changed his position (except on a couple minor things), wants to minimize big government in favor of the state, abolish income tax, audit and potentially abolish the FED, cut off foreign aid, among other things that would actually benefit the ‘right’ and ‘left’ so long as they are American and not the >1% who make up the ruling class.
Democracy is an illusion. The people who destroyed the economy got off freely with their fortune (and some with their jobs) in tact instead of jail time. Ben Bernake prints money to give to his friends. The elite wine and dine in luxury, have Eyes Wide Shut-style orgies, pay off the police and lawyers, and go about business as usual believing they are above the law. Wall Street controls the economy here and abroad.
These people are in charge. We live in a financial theocracy and unless we have something of value to these people (odds are better of dying in a plane crash) we will never be among their ranks for most of it is blood ties. They own the media. They lobby and pay for politicians. They make it expensive to run so only the candidates they pay to back will be in the running. They smear candidates they don’t like and have their media not talk about them (like Ron Paul). When push comes to shove they can throw an election (hanging chads come to mind).
There is no democracy. NYPD in riot gear using brute force on non-violent Wall Street protesters. Yep, what a great democracy. Hey did you know the ADL trains police? What are they training them for? To look out for antisemites? In North Dakota? Are there even any Jews there? If Rupert Murdoch is paying off UK police, what’s to say he isn’t doing it here? The ADL and Murdoch love each other. And the ADL used to be on the FBI watch list for being communists.
This isn’t rocket science, the game is easy to figure out. It’s just impossible for us to play. Thank god for the Internet though. They though they could control it but they can’t. So they use trolls (like you probably) to spread disinfo. Eventually a good portion of the sheeple will know what is up and we outnumber these pigs. And there will come a time to take the pigs out to the slaughter.
I don’t believe in guilt by association, personally. The only Jewish Americans that need to be put on trial are the ones who are actively selling out US interests to Israel.
eee, thanks for putting words in my mouth.. you have so many of your own, i guess you need someone elses real estate to use up…
1) the younger generation of jews are not zionists.. it might frighten you to consider this.. the way of the future is away from zionism and towards something else.. phil and adam are 2 good examples of this… the fact you spend so much time here at mondoweiss is interesting for a number of reasons, not the least your desire to change the direction of the conversation to one of your liking, but one that is not on the side of the future..
2) i don’t remember bringing up ron paul here in any conversation, but you are welcome to cough as much as you want in a post in response to me..
3) it is quite clear you have a complete disrespect for democracy… i don’t make claims about the us public, and you might want to check my posts before you make anymore stupid claims about me…. nonsense is a very good word to describe your response here…
James,
You are of course wrong. The younger generation of Jews in the US are Zionists. Just look at how many more Jews there are in Zionist organizations on campuses on the US than in non-Zionist organizations. There are many more Zionist Jews than non-Zionist Jews.
eee- i don’t have the numbers, but you might be right on this 1 point.. your other comments on me personally are wrong, but i didn’t think for a moment you would have the strength of character to admit any of that..
i do know the orthodox jews are growing at a fast rate next to the non ortho ones, and i am going to guess if this is the case, they are quite okay supporting a foreign country with their tax dollars and etc so that zionism can reign supreme… if you have some info on this, share it and i will do likewise..
here is a link with some relevant info
link to en.wikipedia.org
eee, we can’t that’s why. The USA is a financial theocracy. Financial theocracies are not compatible with democracy. It means a select few uber rich elite ruling class have enough money to buy elections. They have enough money to corrupt police, lawyers, judges, buy the media, bribe, blackmail, and lobby for their pre-approved candidates.
That is a fact. Prove it wrong. This is what we live in. Is is not a democracy. Your theory is wrong along with pretty much everything that you say.
Charon,
For your theory to be right, 99% of Americans would have to be really dumb and think they are in a democracy while really being manipulated by some mysterious elite. Since Americans are just as smart as anyone else, your theory is BS. This of course is not “proof”, it is just common sense.
At the height of Jewish prominence, there were fourteen Senators out of a hundred who were Jewish, for a population that constitutes 2% of the United States.
African Americans constitute at least 14% of our population. Have we ever had even two African American Senators, simultaneously?
“The inclusion of Phares as one of Romney’s advisers should put lie to the notion that there exists a “moderate” GOP”
Chomsky said recently that the Dems are now where moderate Republicans used to be and the Republicans have shifted even further right. Into the foothills of corporate fascism I guess .
link to english.aljazeera.net
There was also a sharp change in the US economy in the 1970s, towards financialisation and export of production. A variety of factors converged to create a vicious cycle of radical concentration of wealth, primarily in the top fraction of 1 per cent of the population – mostly CEOs, hedge-fund managers, and the like. That leads to the concentration of political power, hence state policies to increase economic concentration: fiscal policies, rules of corporate governance, deregulation, and much more. Meanwhile the costs of electoral campaigns skyrocketed, driving the parties into the pockets of concentrated capital, increasingly financial: the Republicans reflexively, the Democrats – by now what used to be moderate Republicans – not far behind.
Elections have become a charade, run by the public relations industry. After his 2008 victory, Obama won an award from the industry for the best marketing campaign of the year. Executives were euphoric. In the business press they explained that they had been marketing candidates like other commodities since Ronald Reagan, but 2008 was their greatest achievement and would change the style in corporate boardrooms. The 2012 election is expected to cost $2bn, mostly in corporate funding. Small wonder that Obama is selecting business leaders for top positions. The public is angry and frustrated, but as long as the Muasher principle prevails, that doesn’t matter.
While wealth and power have narrowly concentrated, for most of the population real incomes have stagnated and people have been getting by with increased work hours, debt, and asset inflation, regularly destroyed by the financial crises that began as the regulatory apparatus was dismantled starting in the 1980s.
None of this is problematic for the very wealthy, who benefit from a government insurance policy called “too big to fail.” The banks and investment firms can make risky transactions, with rich rewards, and when the system inevitably crashes, they can run to the nanny state for a taxpayer bailout, clutching their copies of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.
That has been the regular process since the Reagan years, each crisis more extreme than the last – for the public population, that is. Right now, real unemployment is at Depression levels for much of the population, while Goldman Sachs, one of the main architects of the current crisis, is richer than ever. It has just quietly announced $17.5bn in compensation for last year, with CEO Lloyd Blankfein receiving a $12.6m bonus while his base salary more than triples.
It wouldn’t do to focus attention on such facts as these. Accordingly, propaganda must seek to blame others, in the past few months, public sector workers, their fat salaries, exorbitant pensions, and so on: all fantasy, on the model of Reaganite imagery of black mothers being driven in their limousines to pick up welfare checks – and other models that need not be mentioned. We all must tighten our belts; almost all, that is.
Don’t forget the rabid Islamaphobic arch-Zionist Cain.
“Pam Geller Linked Anti-Muslim Activist Calls For Mass Murder Of Congressmen, Muslims, Liberals And Journalists”
link to thinkprogress.org
Google cache of the offending page, October 2, 2011. Catch it while you can.
link to webcache.googleusercontent.com
“Everybody did silly stuff, on both hands… but amazingly enough, the Guardians of the Cedars [a right-wing Christian religious group within the Lebanese Forces] have been the most moral fighters.”
This must be wrong. The most moral fighters is always IDF!!! Even when they do silly stuff.
It is their trademark.
If you steal their trademark then you must be anti-IDF.
And then Dershowitz will enter the stage and prove that you are anti-something by pretending that a glove doesn’t fit or some other silly stuff.
Could occupy wall street grow into a populist movement that would be a significant force in next year’s election? Not enough time? Nonsense, didn’t the tea party make its big move during last year’s election? And doesn’t it (better, its billionaire funders) now own the republican party? And assuming occupy wall street becomes both large enough and sufficiently organized to compete in the democratic primaries, what if its candidates, in addition to the key items in the domestic progressive agenda, come out for justice in Palestine + troops out now? America isn’t ready for this? Except, considering the fact that perpetual war + global warming = doomsday, what with time running out, if not now, when?
Rumsfeld in heated conversation with Al Jazeera
link to youtube.com
you should see this…
Rumsfeld is simply being dishonest when he says that no one at the Pentagon said there weren’t enough troops to provide adequate protection for the civilian population of Iraq after the invasion. The out-going Army Chief of Staff, General Shinseki, was publicly ridiculed by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. He responded honestly to questioning by Senator Carl Levin that several hundred thousand additional soldiers would be required to stabilize the situation in Iraq after the invasion. Three years later Gen. Abizaid, the departing commander of American forces in the Middle East, testified to Congress that “General Shinseki was right that a greater international force contribution, U.S. force contribution and Iraqi force contribution should have been available immediately after major combat operations.”, e.g. link to nytimes.com
In August the Seventh Circuit affirmed a lower court ruling that former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld can be sued personally for damages by two American military contractors claiming they were detained and tortured in Iraq. So Rumsfeld is probably facing a flood of lawsuits.
RE: “Barrett writes that Rabbi Irwin Katsof, who has taken Perry to Israel twice…”
THE SECOND (MOST RECENT) OF THESE TRIPS: Governor Perry’s trip to Israel in question ~ KEYE TV, WeAreAustin(dot)com, 11/23/09
SOURCE WITH VIDEO (09:51) – link to weareaustin.com
P.S. RE: MY NEW ICON/AVATAR
RAYMOND DAVIS: GUNS, CARS, AND BAGELS – link to newyorker.com
Walid Phares and the Guardians of the Cedar were a fascist Maronite militia during the Lebanese Civil War with plenty of blood on their hands. Like many others of that ilk, Phares sought refuge in Israel after the Taif Accords in 1989 and eventually made his way to a new career in the US. Fanatic and lying Islamophobe Brigitte Gabriel is another — both popular on the profitable right-wing and Zionist lecture circuit.
Don’t worry, as of this week, Perry is firing the first anti-Mormon broadsides at Romney. This will be fun!
link to nytimes.com
WASHINGTON — A Texas pastor introduced Rick Perry at a major conference of Christian conservatives here on Friday as “a genuine follower of Jesus Christ” and then walked outside and attacked Mitt Romney’s religion, calling the Mormon Church a cult and stating that Mr. Romney “is not a Christian.”
The comments by the pastor, Robert Jeffress of Dallas, injected a potentially explosive issue into the presidential campaign: the belief held by many evangelicals that Mormons are not Christians.
Lets GET IT ON!!! Christian Fascist DEATH MATCH!!!
link to youtube.com
dan check out this video Values Voter Summit: Perry’s Anti-Mormon Endorser.
thanks annie –
Im reminded of the scene in “W” when Dubya says he “aint gonna be out christianed again!” after he lost a congressional race in Texas, cuz he wasnt religious or Texan enough.
these people are shameless.