The crisis triggered by Israel’s assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the Iranian nuclear scientist, continues, and more truths emerge:
* Israeli analysts are arguing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not order the killing to protect Israel — but partly to distract attention from the multiple corruption scandals that surround him and to improve his chances in a likely upcoming election.
* More evidence emerges that Iran did not have an active “nuclear weapons program,” despite anonymous assertions in the New York Times and elsewhere.
* News coverage in the West continues to be tarnished by disgusting, inhumane language, such as describing the murder of the Iranian scientist as a “dazzling piece of work.”
* Some newspapers have editorialized against the assassination, but so far the New York Times is silent — five days after the attack.
Chuck Freilich is a hard-headed former deputy Israeli national security adviser. He analyzes the killing at length in Haaretz, and contends that it was not in “Israel’s” interest, but
It may, however, be in the political and legal interest of the prime minister, who has already used it to at least partially divert attention from his alleged misdeeds in the submarine affair and is engaged in a no-holds-barred effort to remain in office, and stay out of jail, at all costs.
Israeli analysts believe that Netanyahu’s involvement in “the submarine affair” is the most dangerous of the multiple corruption scandals swirling about him. He may be investigated for bribery associated with the multi-billion purchase of military submarines and naval boats from Germany. Israelis who might overlook his other transgressions will draw the line at corruption involving the nation’s military.
Meanwhile, the U.S. press has finally started to report the statement that Dan Coats, the then Director of National Intelligence, gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee on January 19, 2019 about Iran’s nuclear weapons capability:
. . . we do not believe Iran is undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device. . .
This statement by Coats, a former Republican senator, is in the public record, but New York Times reports on the assassination chose to ignore him and instead let anonymous “U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials” insinuate that Iran was still secretly working on a bomb and that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was involved.
Mainstream press reports continue to be marred by inhumane language. The Washington Post used the Orwellian “take out” instead of “kill” to describe the assassination. The Financial Times, which should know better, called the Israeli attack a “hit,” as though this was a B-movie about the Mafia. The New Yorker, which should also know better, said the killing “played out like a blockbuster thriller.” And the Washington Post, in an editorial, said, to its discredit:
The operation that killed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was a dazzling piece of covert work by the standards of that shadow world. . .
Let’s pause for a second. This was not a film. Israel ordered the murder of a 60-year-old noncombatant inside a country it is not at war with. John Brennan, the former CIA director, said, accurately, that the attack was “criminal” and “a flagrant violation of international law.”
At least the rest of that Post editorial did argue that:
Killing scientists won’t stop Iran’s nuclear work. Diplomacy can.
So far, the Financial Times and Haaretz have also both editorialized, also calling for restraint. But from the New York Times editorial board: not a word. What are they afraid of?
I don’t know where or when diplomacy has been Israel’s policy. Certainly not now, with Palestine, with Iran. It was policy early on,to take what was available and maneuver on the rest later. Avoiding diplomacy will brings Israel to either apartheid or equality under law. Palestinians will determine that. With luck, another nation will not in the meantime undergo destruction. Imagine the nuking of Persia as some want to do..
One would have to be unobservant not to recognize public broadcasting intentionally conflates Iran’s nuclear energy program with a nuclear weapons program. Wonder why? With public radio and TV, we get the coverage we deserve.
This was also an attack on the USA, with the likely connivance of the outgoing US administration, to make it as difficult as possible for the incoming administration to achieve any diplomatic rapprochement with Iran.
1 of 2
The Assassin’s Creed: Murder As Israeli State Policy – American Herald Tribune (ahtribune.ca)
“The Assassin’s Creed: Murder As Israeli State Policy” American Herald Tribune, Nov. 30/20 by Jeremy Salt.
“If our dreams for Zionism are not to end in the smoke of assassins’ pistols & our labor for its future to produce only a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany, many like myself will have to reconsider the position we have maintained for so long in the past.” — Winston Churchill, November, 1944, from his address to the House of Commons on the murder of Britain’s Resident Minister in the Middle East, Lord Moyne, by two members of the Zionist terrorist organization, Lehi.”
EXCERPT:
“Israel’s crimes against Iran in the past decade include the sabotage through the Stuxnet virus of the centrifuges in its nuclear development program, the killing through missile attack of its militia members in Syria, the sabotage of its Natanz nuclear plant in July this year & the murder in recent years of five of its leading nuclear scientists, most recently, a few days ago, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
“Each of these attacks would have been carried out at least with the approval of the US government, if not the active involvement at some level of both the US & its puppet Iranian terrorist organization, the MEK (Mujahedin e-Khalq). In reverse, Israel would have been closely involved in the US assassination of Qasim Suleimani in Iraq in January this year.
“These murders might be state operations but are no different in their brazen nature, their illegality and their brutality from hits organised by Mafia gangs. In the case of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a distinguished physicist, he was apparently dragged from his car during the attack & finished off in the middle of the road. The crime was so heinous that even voices usually hostile to Iran (including the New York Times & former CIA director John Brennan) were appalled.” (cont’d)
.
2 of 2
“Each of these attacks is a casus belli for war. Two can play at this game, which means that by these attacks, Israel is virtually inviting the assassination of its own political leaders & military commanders, or its senior representatives abroad. That Iran does not strike back, in the same way, is not necessarily a sign that it does not have the capacity to organise such retaliation. Apart from the criminality & violations of international law that such actions represent, Iran is never going to strike back at a time of Israel’s choosing.”
“Regime Change Wars.”
Consequences of US-led Regime Change Wars in the Greater Middle East (the Muslim World).
By Majid Sharifi, Ph.D.
https://youtu.be/kd53MqN6-Kk