BOOK: “War Crimes in Gaza and the Zionist Fifth Column in America” by James Petras 2Jul10 July 6, 2010

FROM THE PREFACE

The Report published by the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza
Conflict, better known by the name of its head, as the “Goldstone Report” was
a major breakthrough in three senses.   In the first place the Report was the
most systematic, detailed study of Israeli violations of international law in its
wars against the Palestinian people. Secondly it caught the attention of the
broadest sections of world opinion and ignited a firestorm of disapproval of
Israel from almost all of the worlds’ leaders.

On the negative side the publication of the Report and the vehement rejection
by all of the mainstream American Jewish Organizations, revealed their utterly
craven disregard for human rights on the one hand and their absolute power
and control over Washington’s policy toward the Middle East on the other. The
US Congress voted by a margin of over ten to one to denounce the Report and
instead support Israeli war crimes, as did the White House.

The texts and illustrations in this book provide graphic accounts and visual
evidence of why Israel has provoked a worldwide ‘Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions’ campaign by human rights activists, trade unions and a multitude of
other groups, including individuals in Israel and Jewish organizations in
Europe and North America. The Goldstone Report is an in depth case study of
Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, including the blockade of such essential goods,
as food and medicine, the systematic and deliberate targeting and destruction
of civilian targets, including the murder of civilians in homes, schools and UN
facilities; the use of weapons designed to inflect maximum pain and death to
civilians (white phosphorous bombs); the gratuitous destruction of the
foundations of civilian life including food production, water installations and
sewage treatment facilities. Like their Nazi predecessors, the Israeli forces
used Palestinian civilians as “human shields”, rounded up thousands of
civilians, including women and children who were forcibly detained, humiliated
and tortured. The Report concludes that the actions of the Israeli Government
could lead to a “competent court finding that crimes against humanity have
been committed.” The Report was approved by a vast majority in the United
Nations General Assembly …

While it was beyond the mandate of the UN to discuss other Israeli war crimes,
the Goldstone Report did give fleeting reference to Israel’s use of the same
methods during its invasion of Lebanon in 2006.

What the Goldstone Report described with regard to Israel’s savaging of Gaza
has a long and ignoble history, which needs to beaddressed, especially in light
of what some liberal Zionists charge as “picking on” Israel.

Most critics especially on the Left condemn all brutal acts of war and torture
whenever they are committed, so this charge is a phony cover-up of Israel’s
especially brutal conduct from the founding of the state. .Israel holds ‘world
records’ in the number of towns and villages ethnically cleansed (over 500 and
counting); number of refugees deported (4 million and counting); number of
homes demolished (60 thousand and continuing); and has imprisoned more
civilians per capita than any other country (250,000 and growing). Israel is the
country with the highest number of protective US Security Council vetoes (over
100) preventing the world body from condemning Israeli war crimes.

Here is the great political and moral challenge. How do we explain the US
governments’ sustained complicity with Israeli war crimes in the face of
worldwide reprobation? How do we explain the utterly depraved conduct of the
Obama White House and nearly 90% of the US Congress in denouncing the
Goldstone Report? These and other related questions are addressed in the
chapters discussing the political, economic and cultural power of the
Presidents of the Major American Jewish organizations, including but not
confined to AIPAC.

Even as I write these lines, April 25, 2010, the news from Washington is that
Congress has passed a new war-sanctions act, by a 95% majority imposing a
virtual blockade of Iran, authored by AIPAC and backed by all the major
Americans Jewish organizations. With the exception of a handful of writers and
anti-Zionist Jewish activists, the vast majority of the progressive leftist, Marxist,
anti-war and Palestinian organizations and intellectuals, even those critical of
the Congressional vote, in fear and cowardice, refuse to name the intellectual
authors and political promoters of this vile act of Congress.

The Goldstone Report energized many, especially young Jews who were
reticent to criticize Israel, to speak out against Israeli war crimes. A few cracks
appeared in the Zionist monolith, as liberal lobbyists like J Street, condemned
the Jewish State’s excesses in Gaza. Hopeful signs, alas which were, in great
part, dashed when it came time to raise a hue and cry about AIPAC and
mainstream Jewish-organized backing for the war-sanctions act against Iran.
The silence was deafening. The saying that the Jewish left’s opposition to
Israel war policies ends when a war begins, applies to the present war-
sanctions bill.

The terrible power of the Zionist Power Configuration has run amok: the Jewish
Congressional lobby, the liberals, progressives and neo-cons all together
signed and promoted an act of Congress signed by over 330 Congress people
rebuking Obama for publicly disagreeing with Netanyahu over the land grab in
Arab Jerusalem. This book not only provides a detailed account and illustration
of Israeli war crimes in Gaza but equally important it provides a comprehensive
analysis of the reasons why more and more people are recognizing that the US
Congress and White House are zionized occupied territory.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface / 11

The Goldstone Report: Executive Summary / 13

The Destruction of Gaza (photographs) / 45

On Bended Knees:
Zionist Power in American Politics / 69

Trashing America for Israel: The Zionist Lobby
Kisses Dual Loyalties Goodbye / 105

Mossad’s Murderous Reach: The Implications
of the Dubai Assassination / 120

Israeli War Crimes:  From the U.S.S. Liberty
to the Humanitarian Flotilla / 127

AUTHOR

James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at
Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 64 books
published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional
journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal
of Sociology, Social Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and
Journal of Peasant Studies.  He has published over 2000 articles in
nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian,
the Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left
Review, Partisan Review, Temps Moderne, Le Monde Diplomatique,
and his commentary is widely carried on the internet.   His publishers
have included Random House, John Wiley, Westview, Routledge,
Macmillan, Verso, Zed Books and Pluto Books. He is winner of the
Life Time Career Award, Marxist Section, of the American Sociology
Association, the Robert Kenny Award for Best Book, 2002, and the
Best Dissertation, Western Political Science Association in 1968.
Some recent titles include Unmasking Globalization: Imperialism of
the Twenty-First Century (2001); co-author The Dynamics of Social
Change in Latin America (2000), Unmasking Globalisation (2001),
System in Crisis (2003), co-author Social Movements and State
Power (2003), co-author Empire With Imperialism (2005), co-author)
Multinationals on Trial (2006).  His most recent titles are The Power of
Israel in the United States and Rulers and Ruled in the United States,
(acquired for Japanese, German, Italian, Indonesian, Czech and
Arabic editions), Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power, and
Global Depression & Regional Wars. He has a long history of
commitment to social justice, working in particular with the Brazilian
Landless Workers Movement for 11 years. In 1973-76 he was a
member of the Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Repression in Latin
America. He writes a monthly column for the Mexican newspaper, Le
Jornada, and previously, for the Spanish daily, El Mundo.  He received
his B.A. from Boston University and Ph.D. from the University of
California at Berkeley.