Obama nutmegs Romney with Netanyahu condolence call referencing ‘the Jewish people’

by on May 2, 2012 24
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From the Office of the Press Secretary, the White House, this morning at 9:35:

Readout of the President’s Call with Prime Minister Netanyahu

President Obama called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel today from Air Force One to express his personal condolences on the death of his father, Benzion Netanyahu. In the call the President noted Benzion Netanyahu’s remarkable legacy of service to the Jewish people and deep friendship with the United States.

Let's see Romney beat the president on Benzion's death, by two days. But he didn't talk about the Jewish people! Oh and quick question: How's Sarkozy's father? What about David Cameron's? Do we even know?

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in American Jewish Community, Israel Lobby, Media, US Politics

{ 24 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Fredblogs says:
    May 2, 2012 at 10:36 am

    I haven’t heard about either man’s father, but then, until he actually died, at the age of 102 (IIRC), I hadn’t heard about Netanyahu’s father either, although apparently he was a distinguished scholar.

    A quick googling shows that Sarkozy’s father abandoned him. And Cameron’s father (a stockbroker) died in 2010. At which point I have no doubt President Obama called to offer condolences.

    • lysias says:
      May 2, 2012 at 12:15 pm

      At which point I have no doubt President Obama called to offer condolences.

      Actually, he did not. Cameron’s father died on Sept. 8, 2010. The White House Web site records a call Obama made to Cameron on Sept. 7 of that year, to congratulate Cameron and his wife on the birth of a daughter. It records no such call after Cameron’s father died. (The next call to Cameron is on Sept. 30, and it makes no mention of Cameron’s father.)

      • lysias says:
        May 2, 2012 at 12:42 pm

        Turns out Cameron has some Jewish forebears:

        His great-great grandfather Emil Levita, a German-Jewish financier who obtained British citizenship in 1871, was the director of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China which became Standard Chartered Bank in 1969.[17] His wife, Cameron’s great-great grandmother, was a descendant of the wealthy Danish Jewish Rée family, whose ancestors originated from Altona, Hamburg, Germany and Głogów, Poland.[18][19][20][21][22] One of Emile’s sons, Arthur Francis Levita (d.1910) (brother of Sir Cecil Levita),[23] of Panmure Gordon stockbrokers [in which firm Cameron's father Ian was later senior partner], together with great-great-grandfather Sir Ewen Cameron,[24] London head of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, played key roles in arranging loans supplied by the Rothschilds to the Japanese central banker (later Prime Minister) Takahashi Korekiyo for the financing of the Japanese Government in the Russo-Japanese war.

      • flyod says:
        May 2, 2012 at 6:12 pm

        they should have kept benzion in a permanent vegetative condition like the evil scheinermann until after the u.s. elections. spare us all the fawning

    • Annie Robbins says:
      May 2, 2012 at 2:05 pm

      until he actually died, at the age of 102 (IIRC), I hadn’t heard about Netanyahu’s father either

      really? i find that hard to believe. he’s rather well known for his racism and extreme views. goldberg channeled him repeatedly.

      • Fredblogs says:
        May 2, 2012 at 2:19 pm

        Do you mean the guy that shot up the mosque in Hebron, or some other Goldberg?

        Also, you are welcome to your beliefs, but you are wrong in this case. I am not saying he wasn’t famous, just that I, a Jew in America paying a reasonable amount of attention to Israel don’t recall having heard of him before. I have heard of Netanyahu’s brother, if that makes you feel any better.

        • traintosiberia says:
          May 3, 2012 at 8:58 am

          The people who matter in shaping Israeli policy to Arabs/Irans have heard him .Read the first 120 pages of the book by him on Inquistion, you come out livid . The guy unknowingly ( or knowingly but in that case it would be an example of audiacity,arrogance,and entitlement) comes out justifying the validity of the reasons of the existence of antisemtism from its inception in Egypt ( according to this erudite scholar where it all began in the Egyptian Elephant Point )

        • AllenBee says:
          May 3, 2012 at 12:25 pm

          Ben zion Netanyahu is the architect of the global war on terror.
          He made the keynote speech at the 1979 conference at the Yonathan Institute International Terrorism: Challenge and Response

          “k $23.23 $9.97 $3.95
          Book Description
          Publication Date: January 1, 1982 | ISBN-10: 0878558942 | ISBN-13: 978-0878558940

          In 1979, several world reknowned politicians, ambassadors, academicians, and journalists met at the Jerusalem Conference on Terrorism to discuss the origins, nature, and future of terrorism and to propose measures for combatting and defeating the international terror movements. This conference marked a turning point in the world’s understanding of the problem of terrorism and what has to be done about it. This excellent collection of articles expressing a broad range of political opinion on terrorism makes available for the first time the contents of that conference.
          Special Offers and Product Promotions

          Buy $50 in qualifying physical textbooks, get $2 in Amazon MP3 Credit. Here’s how (restrictions apply)

          Editorial Reviews
          Review

          “The Soviet Union is being depicted at a conference on international terrorism as the patron, armorer and strategist for most of the extremists who have left a trail of blood across the Western world. This theme was introduced by U.S. Senator Henry M. Jackson and developed in detail by the meeting’s star participants, all prominent in the research and analysis of terrorist operations.”

          —Chicago Sun Times

          “Most of the participants would have agreed that the first political task at hand on the issue of terrorism is to cut the idea of terrorism loose from the connection it now has in many Western liberal minds with notions of national liberation and social justice; only then can terror be viewed plainly as a crime and a threat. But their second task is to establish another kind of connection, and make people see terrorism not as just a random occurrence but as a tactic in the Soviet war against the West.”

          —The Wall Street Journal
          About the Author

          Benjamin ** Netanyahu is professor emeritus of Judaic studies at Cornell University and currently director of The Jonathan Institute. He is author of numerous books and studies in the field of medieval and modern Jewish history.”

          **note the mistake.

          who else presented at that conference:

          Shimon Peres
          Paul Johnson
          Scoop Jackson
          Menachem Begin
          Chaim Herzog
          Richard Pipes
          George Will
          Midge Decter
          Ben Wattenberg
          Ambassador George Bush

          attendees comprise an even more interesting list — in a hurry right now, believe attendees included George Schultz, maybe John Kyl

          link to democraticunderground.com

          and

          ” The concept of a ‘‘war on terror’’ pre-dates 9-11 by 22 years. Its seeds were first planted in 1979 at the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism (JCIT) organized by Benjamin Netanyahu (future Israeli Prime Minister). JCIT kicked off a campaign for a ‘‘war on terror’’ against ‘‘international terrorism’’. It featured: pre-emptive attacks on states that are alleged to support ‘‘terrorists;’’ an elaborate intelligence system apparatus; slashed civil liberties, particularly for Palestinians targeted as potential terrorists, including detention without charge, and torture; and propaganda to dehumanize ‘‘terrorists’’ in the eyes of the public. George H.W. Bush Sr. and (…) George Schultz, Reagan’s Secretary of State enthusiastically endorsed this concept. Bush Sr. gave a speech at JCIT advocating precisely the type of ‘‘war on terror’’ that his son implemented in 2001. But he acknowledged that such a policy would be highly unpopular:

          … I must urge drastic surgery as the only reasonable course – and by that I mean determined action, firmness under the duress of blackmail, and swift and effective retribution. … The problem for the open society is how to have, build up and preserve this essential tool of defence – which in the long run is indispensable for the protection of ordinary people – and not so outrage the liberal conscience that the legitimate exercise of state power is frustrated.(4)

          Also addressing the JCIT was Prime Minister Begin, who helped to set the tone for the conference, legitimizing some forms of violence as “a fight for freedom or liberation, on one hand, and terrorism, on the other hand”. Clearly, Begin is putting a liberal dose of Vaseline on any lens to be trained on bombings by Irgun, as opposed to bombings by the P.L.O.

          At the time, the JCIT was about framing International Terrorism as a construct of Communist intrigue. Exaggerating the threat and reach of the Soviet menace was the chief pastime of Team B, a U.S. government project approved by Bush Sr. when he was head of the CIA in 1976. So, at the JCIT, Bush appears to be extending the Team B theme. A more appropriate name for Team B would have been Team B.S.

          Team B’s lies are examined in part in Adam Curtis’s brilliant documentary, The Power of Nightmares, where it is revealed that Team B would conjure high-tech weapons systems from thin air as required. This same casual approach to the truth was employed at the JCIT, as Nafeez Ahmed shows;

          …the JCIT’s own literature and use of source documentation was profoundly flawed. It heavily cited, for instance, statistics purporting to demonstrate a drastic ten-fold increase in incidents of international terrorism between 1968-78—but as (Phillip) Paull shows, these figures were deliberately concocted and inflated, contradicting original CIA data illustrating a decline in terrorist incidents for the same period. It also routinely relied on techniques of blatant disinformation, misquoting and misrepresenting Western intelligence reports, as well as recycling governmentsponsored disinformation published in the mainstream media. Paull thus concludes that the 1979 JCIT was:

          “… a successful propaganda operation… the entire notion of ‘international terrorism’ as promoted by the Jerusalem Conference rests on a faulty, dishonest, and ultimately corrupt information base…. The issue of international terrorism has little to do with fact, or with any objective legal definition of international terrorism. The issue, as promoted by the Jerusalem Conference and used by the Reagan administration, is an ideological and instrumental issue. It is the ideology, rather than the reality that dominates US foreign policy today.”

          The new ideology of “international terrorism” justified the Reagan administration’s shift to “a renewed interventionist foreign policy,” and legitimized a “new alliance between right-wing dictatorships everywhere” and the government. “These military dictatorships and repressive governments have long used the word ‘terrorist’ to characterize the opposition to their rule.” Thus, the administration had moved to “legitimate their politics of state terrorism and repression,” while also alleviating pressure for the reform of the intelligence community and opening the door for “aggressive and sometimes illegal intelligence action,” in the course of fighting the international terrorist threat.

          The primary architects of the JCIT’s “international terrorism” project were, reports Paull, “present and former members of the Israeli and United States governments, new right politicians, high-ranking former United States and Israeli intelligence officers, the anti-détente, pro-cold war group associated with the policies of Senator Henry M. Jackson, a group of neoconservative journalists and intellectuals…, and reactionary British and French politicians and publicists…”(5)

          Netanyahu has been busily keeping the dream alive. Carrying the Begin torch, he reinforces the “Arab terror evil, our terror justified” paradigm in this excerpt from a speech from July, 2006;

          “It’s very important to make the distinction between terror groups and freedom fighters, and between terror action and legitimate military action…”(6)”

          Note that the initial boogey man of GWOT was communism. The Iranian revolution, Israel’s pact w/ Egypt, and, imo, Benjamin’s ongoing difficulty dealing with the death of Yoni, came together to shift the focus of GWOT to Iran — since the Iran revolution, Iran has been the premier or ultimate target of GWOT, driven along, (in my opinion) in Bibi’s mind, by his need to prove his manhood. Bibi’s identity is intricately involved in destroying Iran.

        • Djinn says:
          May 5, 2012 at 6:41 am

          Baruch GoldSTEIN slaughtered people at prayer in the Ibrahimi Mosque, not Goldberg and if you weren’t aware that Bibi’s father was a hardcore supremacist then the attention you’ve been paying is cursory at best.

      • lysias says:
        May 2, 2012 at 2:30 pm

        Ha’aretz has been reporting for years on the relationship between the elder Netanyahu and his son.

  2. Steve Macklevore says:
    May 2, 2012 at 10:41 am

    Benzion Netanyahu was an extreme right wing bigot. No crocodile tears please.

  3. pabelmont says:
    May 2, 2012 at 11:03 am

    Obama’s call was short and pro forma. World Leaders (note capitals!) do that sort of thing. Like “bread and butter letters”.

    • Djinn says:
      May 5, 2012 at 6:43 am

      Don’t recall any Persidential calls to bereaved Australian leaders either and we’ve obediently sent our sons to fight in all of the US’s recent wars of aggression. It is definitely not a run of the mill thing for US presidents to do.

  4. Bumblebye says:
    May 2, 2012 at 11:31 am

    Cameron’s dad died about a year or so ago in the south of France – he borrowed a plane/got a lift over there which was all over our press.
    Dunno anything about Sarkozy’s papa!

  5. dimadok says:
    May 2, 2012 at 11:50 am

    Just let go it, would you? Let the man to rest. Why is this bothering you? Maybe because his life meant something in history of Israel and his works will live on?

  6. DICKERSON3870 says:
    May 2, 2012 at 12:07 pm

    RE: “President Obama called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel today from Air Force One to express his personal condolences on the death of his father, Benzion Netanyahu.” ~ the White House

    SEE – Bibi’s Father’s Answer to the ‘Arab Problem’: Hang’ Em in the Town Square, By Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam, 4/04/09

    (excerpts) Imagine, if you will, if Barack Obama’s real father was Rev. Jeremiah Wright and imagine, if you will, that Wright gave an eight-page interview to USA Today the week of Obama’s inauguration. Then you can imagine the “interest” with which such a Maariv interview with Bibi Netanyahu’s father was met in Israeli circles.
    Noam Sheizaf, who works for Maariv, has translated portions of the interview . . .
    . . . And without further ado, I give you, Ben Zion Netanyahu, the father of the man:

    . . . • Question: You don’t like the Arabs, to say the least.
    • Benzion Netanyahu: “The Bible finds no worse image than this of the man from the desert. And why? Because he has no respect for any law. Because in the desert he can do as he pleases.
    The tendency towards conflict is in the essence of the Arab. He is an enemy by essence. His personality won’t allow him any compromise or agreement. It doesn’t matter what kind of resistance he will meet, what price he will pay. His existence is one of perpetuate war.” . . .
    • Question: Is there any hope of peace?
    • Benzion Netanyahu: …No…The two states solution doesn’t exist. There are no two people here. There is a Jewish people and an Arab population… there is no Palestinian people, so you don’t create a state for an imaginary nation… they only call themselves a people in order to fight the Jews.”
    • Question: So what’s the solution?
    • Benzion Netanyahu: “No solution but force… strong military rule. Any outbreak will bring upon the Arabs enormous suffering. We shouldn’t wait for a big mutiny to start, but rather act immediately with great force to prevent them from going on…
    If it’s possible, we should conquer any disputed territory in the land of Israel. Conquer and hold it, even if it brings us years of war. We should conquer Gaza, and parts of the Galil, and the Golan. This will bring upon us a bloody war. . .” . . .

    ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to richardsilverstein.com

  7. Mooser says:
    May 2, 2012 at 12:09 pm

    When it’s all said and done, and wiped from the page of history the least significant thing about the Israeli-Zionist regime will be which religion many of the people there claimed to espouse.
    Hopefully, it won’t even get the blame.

  8. Nevada Ned says:
    May 2, 2012 at 4:05 pm

    Like father, like son….
    The father should be congratulated for his brutal honesty about his racism.
    The son is more likely to try to disguise his racism.

  9. Kate says:
    May 2, 2012 at 4:44 pm

    Thank goodness for Wikipedia – I was totally mystified by your headline, never having seen the term ‘nutmeg’ before, but then I’m no football fan.

    As for Netanyahu’s father ‘resting in peace’, why should he? He would have been the last person to want Arabs to live in peace. His influence on his son is most probably responsible for a lot of misery.

  10. Charon says:
    May 2, 2012 at 5:23 pm

    “remarkable legacy of service to the Jewish people”

    Isn’t that lumping Zionists and Israelis together with the rest of the Jews in the world? Obviously Israel wants Israeli and Jewish to be synonymous, but the growing divide is going to continue to grow. Israelis are Israelis. Zionists. Most of them anyways. Benzion didn’t have any Jewish service legacy, he was a racist Zionist.

    • wondering jew says:
      May 2, 2012 at 7:49 pm

      Besides being a racist and besides being a Zionist, Netanyahu’s father was a first class historian whose subject matter was Jews, whether you call them a people or a religious grouping or whatever, that was his subject matter.

      (I never read any of his books, but I have heard others refer to him as a first class historian.)