Mondoweiss
Powell emails expose depth of media self-censorship re Israeli nukes
US Politics
Philip Weiss on September 20, 2016 11 Comments
Man about town Jeffrey T. Leeds, from youtube
The most exciting revelation in the Colin Powell emails, broken by Eli Clifton
after the emails were hacked and published by people calling themselves
DCLeaks, is that the former secretary of state chatted openly about the fact
that Israel has nuclear weapons pointed directly at Iran to socialite/financier
Jeffrey Leeds.
Powell, who is surely richly rewarded to sit on the board of Leeds’s financial
firm, gabbed about the nukes last year after Leeds prodded him, “Did you see
Netanyahu’s speech [to Congress]?” and said the speech was “strong… stuff.”
Powell didn’t buy that:
Negotiators can’t get what he wants. Anyway, Iranians can’t use one if they
finally make one. The boys in Tehran know Israel has 200, all targeted on
Tehran, and we have thousands. As Akmdinijad (sp) “What would we do with one,
polish it?” I have spoken publicly about both nK and Iran. We’ll blow up the
only thing they care about—regime survival. Where, how would they even test one?
It is of course an open secret of nearly 50 years standing in Washington that
Israel has nuclear weapons. But a hypocritical American policy was also set 50
years ago: the White House would repeat Israel’s promise not to introduce
nuclear weapons into the Middle East. Behind the scenes the U.S. cooperated
with the nuclear program, and urged Israel to sign the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty, but publicly, our government would parrot the claim
of “nuclear ambiguity.”
President Obama has continued the charade.
And meantime Colin Powell states the fact openly to a man-about-town business
partner (who has given a ton of money to Democratic and Republican
establishment candidates and was married by Rudy Giuliani and gossips about
Hillary Clinton’s health issues).
The most important element of the Powell revelation, though, is the context. A
friend points Powell to Netanyahu’s speech (to a dual loyalty Congress) against
the Iran deal; and this is Powell’s very first argument. “Iranians can’t use
one if they finally make one.” Because Israel has a ton of nukes. Not even the
old Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine that preserved peace between the U.S.
and the F.S.U. — but self-destruction.
The context is important because while it is, to repeat, the very first
argument Powell makes for the deal, no one was making that argument openly at
the time. Powell himself went on Meet the Press a few months later, and didn’t
dare say a word about Israeli nukes. Neither did President Obama in pushing the
deal, which he did by making countless assurances about Israel’s security to
wavering Congresspeople. Neither did any of the Democratic leaders who pushed
the Iran deal.
Even worse, though, is the press silence about Israeli nukes. Jim Fallows was
among the most eloquent defenders of the deal, in long pieces here and here.
Not a word about Israeli nukes. He couldn’t make what he had to know was the
strongest argument. The New York Times ran a long editorial in favor of the
deal last summer. But again, it did not mention the foremost argument for the
deal in the eyes of Colin Powell. “Iranians can’t use one.”
Only realists made this argument, and they marginalized themselves by doing so.
Steve Walt addressed Israeli nukes frankly in this Foreign Policy piece, but of
course he’s out as an Israel critic.
Bottom line: The most important foreign policy decision of the last eight
years, and Americans are having a false conversation about it.
The ultimate question here is, Why the self censorship? Why do smart people
abide by an official lie when it is plainly in the public interest for them to
tell the truth?
The simple answer is that Israel doesn’t want people to say it has nukes, and
the Israel lobby enforces that discretion inside the mainstream media. James
Fallows does not state baldly that Israel has nukes because to do so would be
to endanger his own perch in the media. On Meet the Press, Colin Powell holds
his tongue on what he believes is the strongest argument in favor of the deal
because he would violate the mainstream rules by doing so, and thereby endanger
his access to the press, along with his $75,000 speaking fees (the usual
traffic in all those hacked emails).
No doubt there are a lot of undercurrents/beliefs/propaganda working here —
Jewish fears about annihilation after the Holocaust (which Netanyahu played
like a violin), the Jewish presence in the U.S. establishment, and the belief
among members of the establishment that Israel needs nukes in order to preserve
its security in a tough neighborhood and Jews are responsible with the bomb.
But again we are still left with the fact that on a matter of the greatest
concern to the American public, our leaders could not tell the truth, and
Israeli concerns trumped the American national interest. That’s a real problem.
And the mainstream press is deeply implicated.
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Powell emails expose depth of media self-censorship re Israeli nukes
US Politics
Philip Weiss on September 20, 2016 11 Comments
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Man about town Jeffrey T. Leeds, from youtube
The most exciting revelation in the Colin Powell emails, broken by Eli Clifton
after the emails were hacked and published by people calling themselves
DCLeaks, is that the former secretary of state chatted openly about the fact
that Israel has nuclear weapons pointed directly at Iran to socialite/financier
Jeffrey Leeds.
Powell, who is surely richly rewarded to sit on the board of Leeds’s financial
firm, gabbed about the nukes last year after Leeds prodded him, “Did you see
Netanyahu’s speech [to Congress]?” and said the speech was “strong… stuff.”
Powell didn’t buy that:
Negotiators can’t get what he wants. Anyway, Iranians can’t use one if they
finally make one. The boys in Tehran know Israel has 200, all targeted on
Tehran, and we have thousands. As Akmdinijad (sp) “What would we do with one,
polish it?” I have spoken publicly about both nK and Iran. We’ll blow up the
only thing they care about—regime survival. Where, how would they even test one?
It is of course an open secret of nearly 50 years standing in Washington that
Israel has nuclear weapons. But a hypocritical American policy was also set 50
years ago: the White House would repeat Israel’s promise not to introduce
nuclear weapons into the Middle East. Behind the scenes the U.S. cooperated
with the nuclear program, and urged Israel to sign the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty, but publicly, our government would parrot the claim
of “nuclear ambiguity.”
President Obama has continued the charade.
And meantime Colin Powell states the fact openly to a man-about-town business
partner (who has given a ton of money to Democratic and Republican
establishment candidates and was married by Rudy Giuliani and gossips about
Hillary Clinton’s health issues).
The most important element of the Powell revelation, though, is the context. A
friend points Powell to Netanyahu’s speech (to a dual loyalty Congress) against
the Iran deal; and this is Powell’s very first argument. “Iranians can’t use
one if they finally make one.” Because Israel has a ton of nukes. Not even the
old Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine that preserved peace between the U.S.
and the F.S.U. — but self-destruction.
The context is important because while it is, to repeat, the very first
argument Powell makes for the deal, no one was making that argument openly at
the time. Powell himself went on Meet the Press a few months later, and didn’t
dare say a word about Israeli nukes. Neither did President Obama in pushing the
deal, which he did by making countless assurances about Israel’s security to
wavering Congresspeople. Neither did any of the Democratic leaders who pushed
the Iran deal.
Even worse, though, is the press silence about Israeli nukes. Jim Fallows was
among the most eloquent defenders of the deal, in long pieces here and here.
Not a word about Israeli nukes. He couldn’t make what he had to know was the
strongest argument. The New York Times ran a long editorial in favor of the
deal last summer. But again, it did not mention the foremost argument for the
deal in the eyes of Colin Powell. “Iranians can’t use one.”
Only realists made this argument, and they marginalized themselves by doing so.
Steve Walt addressed Israeli nukes frankly in this Foreign Policy piece, but of
course he’s out as an Israel critic.
Bottom line: The most important foreign policy decision of the last eight
years, and Americans are having a false conversation about it.
The ultimate question here is, Why the self censorship? Why do smart people
abide by an official lie when it is plainly in the public interest for them to
tell the truth?
The simple answer is that Israel doesn’t want people to say it has nukes, and
the Israel lobby enforces that discretion inside the mainstream media. James
Fallows does not state baldly that Israel has nukes because to do so would be
to endanger his own perch in the media. On Meet the Press, Colin Powell holds
his tongue on what he believes is the strongest argument in favor of the deal
because he would violate the mainstream rules by doing so, and thereby endanger
his access to the press, along with his $75,000 speaking fees (the usual
traffic in all those hacked emails).
No doubt there are a lot of undercurrents/beliefs/propaganda working here —
Jewish fears about annihilation after the Holocaust (which Netanyahu played
like a violin), the Jewish presence in the U.S. establishment, and the belief
among members of the establishment that Israel needs nukes in order to preserve
its security in a tough neighborhood and Jews are responsible with the bomb.
But again we are still left with the fact that on a matter of the greatest
concern to the American public, our leaders could not tell the truth, and
Israeli concerns trumped the American national interest. That’s a real problem.
And the mainstream press is deeply implicated.
