November 2-3, 2015 – Merkel’s weapon of mass migration borne out of Pentagon plan

By

The current invasion of Europe by migrants escaping civil war in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan and economic ills in North and sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia was planned by an adviser to the U.S. Defense Department, Ford Foundation, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

In 2010, Kelly Greenhill, an adviser to the U.S. government; chair of the Conflict, Security and Public Policy Working Group at Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center; former Senate aide to John Kerry; and associate professor of political science at Tufts, wrote a book titled, “Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy.” Greenhill’s book has become as much a template for creating social disorder through forced mass migration as retired University of Massachusetts professor Gene Sharp’s books on “themed revolutions” have become road maps for causing government coups through the use of social media.

Unlike Sharp’s methodology of relying on synthetic social and political movements created from outside a targeted country, which can have mixed results as seen in Egypt, Greenhill views weapons of mass migration as the most effective method to achieve sure results.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel began implementing the main tenets of Greenhill’s book after its publication in 2010. In addition to the arrival of new bodies for Germany’s work force, Merkel saw a mass influx by refugees as a way for her to enable the German military, security, and intelligence services to take a more active role in domestic German affairs.

The anti-terrorism forces of the German Special Operations Command (Spezialeinsatzkommandos or SEK) have already swung into action against jihadist “refugees” who have initiated mass violence inside German migrant shelters. It is only a matter of time before the SEK and other security forces begin to take action against newly-arrived jihadist troublemakers in German cities and towns like Hamburg, Leipzig, Cologne, Munich, and Berlin.

Merkel’s government has mobilized the “Regional Backup and Support Staff” (Regionale Sicherungs- und Unterstützungskräfte or RSUKr), a “homeland security” force of military reservists. Since 2012, the RSUKr has had the authority to engage in domestic law enforcement inside Germany. If the RSUKr evokes memories of the Gestapo, it should. Currently content with conducting “anti-terror” raids on mosques and suspected jihadist homes in Germany, Merkel does not seem concerned about putting this counter-terrorism “genie” back into the bottle after it takes care of the jihadist threat.

According to various media reports named W2EU (Welcome to European Union). Migrants in Greece are handed a booklet written in Arabic and published by W2EU that instructs new arrivals in Germany how to travel to Germany and ask for asylum, food, housing and the much-prized Hartz IV unemployment benefits.

Another NGO assisting the migrants is MigrationAid Hungary, which has coordinated Twitter messages to a surprisingly large number of young men with iPhones who are neither refugees nor Syrians. Twitter, the favorite tool of Soros NGOs in coordinating the Lotus Revolution in Egypt and the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, assists migrants to transit the designated corridor from Turkey into Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, and, ultimately, Salzburg, Austria where the German government runs countless special trains into Germany.  European media has reported that trucks have been discovered at various refugee collection centers with cargos of blank Syrian passports for sale. In addition, thousands of fake Syrian passports have been issued by human trafficking operations organizing massive streams of migrants from Asia and Africa into Germany.

Soros- and U.S.-engineered mayhem at the borders of Europe. Above, migrants at a Croatian-Serbian border post.

Merkel’s open door policy for migrants, has, at its roots, the desire by large German corporations to produce new ranks of cheap labor to offset the population reduction within the European Union, especially with the first major wave of retiring “baby boomers.” The German Labor Ministry reports that only ten percent of the migrants are employable and many are noticed by German immigration and security authorities to be Salafists. Essentially, Merkel is receiving more Salafists than potential laborers among the new arrivals.

While the policy of importing fresh workers into Germany has the support of Merkel loyalists within her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and her coalition partners, the Social Democrats headed by Sigmar Gabriel, who is willing to sacrifice German workers for Asians and Africans in their own country, it has faced opposition from Merkel’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union of Bavarian Minister-President Horst Seehofer.

In a traditional display of Bavarian independence from Berlin, Seehofer has made common cause against Merkel’s migrant “welcome wagon” with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a one-time political acolyte of Soros, and the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party headed by Heinz-Christian Strache. A supranational “Danube Alliance” of Hungary, Bavaria, and the Austrian Freedom Party has emerged to oppose further mass migration of Syrian, Iraqi, and other refugees into central Europe.

The danger of Germany and other European countries being swamped by mostly Muslim refugees is backed up by real numbers and statistics. Merkel approved one million refugees from Syria, Iraq, and other countries.  The German government estimates that number may soon increase to 1.5 million because a large number of arriving migrants are made up of family units. German government statistics reveal that each approved asylum seeker brings into Germany an average of 4.5 relatives, which means the current estimate of 1.5 million may soon increase to 6 to 7 million. Currently on foot and other means of transportation are between 500,000 to 700,000 additional migrants who have recently set out for Europe from Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.  The UNHCR and the EU are now estimating that 3.7 million migrants will arrive in Europe “within several months.”  Such a demographic change for Europe will irrevocably change the face of Europe as we now know it.

At a migrant camp in Leipzig, several hundred radical Afghans attacked another group of secular Syrians, resulting in a number of injuries. Rapes of migrant women in the camps and Germans in nearby neighborhoods outside the migrant camps have skyrocketed. According to media reports, migrant women and children are pimped out by migrant gangs for 10 euros for sex inside camps. Many German women are now avoiding leaving their homes and walking alone out of fear of rape from their new foreign “neighbors.” There are also increasing evidence that pedophiles are now preying on young migrant children. Recently, a four year-old Bosnian boy named Mohamed was abducted, raped, and murdered by a pedophile. The boy was stolen from his mother at a migrant processing center in Berlin. The police discovered that the murderer, who has been arrested, hid the body of the boy in the trunk of his car and used kitty litter to suppress the odor caused by decomposition.

There is a definite difference between jihadist agitators in the migrant camps and the normal migrant populations of women, children, and the elderly. The radicals are young men, many in possession of iPhones, which the jihadists in Syria, Iraq, and other countries have used to coordinate their attacks with great success. These Salafists and jihadists  routinely challenge Germans about their Christian religion, consumption of alcohol, apparel deemed “un-Islamic,” and acceptance of homosexuality. The highest number of male radicals are from Afghanistan, followed by Iraqis, Syrians, Bangladeshis, and West Africans. Merkel’s government is working with Facebook owner Jeffrey Zuckerberg to identify and incarcerate not jihadist migrants who are using social media to plan violent acts but Germans who post what are considered “hateful” Facebook messages about the criminal nature of the jihadist hooligans. The German government is guiding the street protests by restricting anti-immigration protests to “free speech zones.” Authorities are also permitting pro-immigration protests in separate designated free speech zones. These opposing protests, with a heavy police presence, feature the far-right and neo-Nazi anti-immigrant PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident) on one side and protesters representing the Soros-funded Green Party and anti-Nazi ANTIFA (anti-fascists), as well as the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB) who have turned out to be more disruptive and violent than the neo-Nazis themselves. Also arrayed against Merkel’s policies is the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right Euro-skeptic party that has seen increasing popularity.

Merkel, who was rumored to be a strong candidate to succeed Ban Ki-moon as Secretary General of the United Nations, now may be run out of Berlin on a political rail. In 1529, the seventy-year old Count Nicholas of Salm commanded the Viennese troops who defeated the invading Muslim Turks in the first siege of Vienna. Merkel now stands ready to reverse Nicholas’s achievement at the gates of Vienna almost 500 years ago.

Syed R. Farook & Tashfeen Malik

By

Who were Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik? Was Farook a good ole ‘Murrican boy from the Midwest? Was Malik a devout Muslim from Pakistan? Were they radicalized? If so, how? Were they terrorists? If so, why?

There are more unanswered questions. Did the two ever meet? If not, how did Malik get a K-1 Fiancé(e) Visa which requires a face to face meet up? Were they married in Saudi Arabia? If so, how did Malik get classed as a fiancée? Were they ever in Saudi Arabia at the same time? Did Malik submit a Saudi police report, since she had lived there for at least 6 months over the age of 16, another K-1 visa requirement. I am an immigration attorney and I find the entire matter incomprehensible.

No one seems to know much about anything. News reports from the mainstream media change frequently. The Farook family seems to have an outspoken attorney whom some media outlets castigate as a “truther” (without defining what that means) and as a “massacre denier”. The latter charge seems to rise out of his supposedly questioning the opaque backgrounds and surprising similarities in the inexplicable, increasingly frequent mass shootings occurring during the Obama Administration.

One of the attorneys, David Steven Chesley, said at a press conference: “When an incident happens like this, when a Christian goes to shoot up a Planned Parenthood, or an extreme Catholic goes and bombs an abortion clinic, all the headlines don’t say ‘extremist radical Christian’ ‘Christian catholic’ … just like right now every headline is saying ‘Muslim’ and attaching Muslim to it.” This outraged Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), who asserted: “The statements made at this press conference were preposterous and offensive.” Continuing, she said: “…the truth is that radical, violent Islam remains the single greatest threat to the American way of life.” She seems to have forgotten about the effects on the United States about America’s Forever War against Arabs and Muslims.

One issue which the mainstream media (and dim-witted politicians) seem to ignore is the role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Malik’s obtaining a visa and permanent residence. Their job, frequently carried to extremes, is, among other things, the scrutiny of K visa seekers’ backgrounds and their examination of permanent residents’ personal history. Those agencies begin with evaluating answers to the extensive questions posed to applicants. They then move on to examining fingerprints taken at several steps in the requests for visas and permanent residence. State Department consular officers, who may or may not be CIA officials, personally interview K visa applicants. (In my book, Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked The World, I recount CIA hanky panky with the visa process during my time as a diplomat at the Jeddah, Saudi Arabia consulate. CIA officials comprise too-large a portion of the State Department’s Foreign Service.)

CIA and FBI investigations can take years to conclude. They frequently engender lawsuits compelling them to do their jobs. I myself have handled cases wherein the clients had perfectly clean backgrounds yet could not get their paperwork through the system because of the security services. In one instance, the client had lived half her life in the U.S. and had worked for a high-security company. In another, the client, married to an American citizen in the United States, faced years of delays in getting permanent residence and citizenship. The problem? He had gotten a $40 ticket for being in a federal park after closing hours. And he had a Qur’an in his car. Another client had spent hours in FBI interrogations and endured great delays in becoming a citizen because he had once let a friend sleep on his couch. The Secret Service had previously arrested the friend for taking pictures while Muslim in Lafayette Square, across from the White House.

Is there a pattern and practice to this?

On December 24, 2015, the Washington Post ran a story headlined “British Muslim family bared from airline flight to U.S.” Minutes before the group’s departure for a trip to Disneyland (and after passing through a security checkpoint), U.S. Homeland Security Department officials canceled the UK citizens’ visa waivers. The Customs and Border Protection agents at the airport did not give a reason for their actions, other than to say “orders from Washington”. The $13,000 ticket costs are non-refundable. What the newspaper did not say was that the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California had previously published a 5 megabyte pamphlet titled Muslims Need Not Apply. It discussed official U.S. government policy of delaying or denying immigration benefits to Muslims.

That said, how did Tashfeen Malik, an admitted Muslim, sail through the K visa and permanent residence processes? There seem to be several possibilities: 1. She had help (like the Nigerian underwear bomber). 2. The CIA and FBI and Department of State (which issued the visa) are more incompetent than anyone believes possible. 3. She (and her husband) were not radicals. 4. She (and her husband) were patsies.

There seems to be little concrete evidence linking the couple to fanaticism. Farook had a short beard but it was not the full facial covering of extremely religious types. He dressed in Western clothing and not the Pakistani long shirt and trousers (salwar khamis). Malik wore a hijab, but then many Muslim women do. The media place great emphasis on Malik’s Facebook posts about swearing allegiance to ISIL—but then, I know two women with Facebook pages they never created but which somehow appeared on the Internet. They have absolutely no idea how that happened.

The whole affair is beginning to resemble the case of Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist and alleged Al-Qaeda gun moll with 3 children under the age of 5. After leaving the U.S. after FBI harassment, she disappeared off the streets of Karachi in 2003. At the time, the FBI derided her in almost daily TV reports, completely ignoring the mysterious items her then-husband purchased on the Internet.

Then, a family member contacted me for assistance in helping find Aafia.

Originally attempting to cooperate with the FBI and the vast alphabet soup of American agencies, the client quickly learned that efforts to help the United States locate Aafia and her three very young children were not welcome. Instead, clumsy, obnoxious, arrogant policemen appeared at her place of work and her dwelling places, at all hours of the day and night, ostensibly seeking information on the whereabouts of Aafia (but not her children). An Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Weinstein, seized the client’s hospital pager and my emails. Government agents relentlessly interrogated her aged and unwell mother after an 18-hour flight from Pakistan to New York and then shockingly harassed her, her daughter, her son-in-law, and their children in Ellicott City, Md.. Pounding on the apartment door, the FBI, with the full knowledge of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Maryland, acted as if the family, represented by legal counsel, were dangerous criminals instead of people who might be willing to help locate Aafia. Her brother, in Texas, home of terrorist-fighting family man George Bush got similar treatment.

What did we learn?

In 2003, Harvey Eisenberg, an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, assured my client and me in the federal courthouse in Baltimore, that Aafia was fine and that family members needn’t worry. In contrast, then-U.S. ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson stated that Siddiqui was not in U.S. custody “at any time” prior to July 2008. (The U.S. had, most likely, held Aafia at the Bagram, Afghanistan detention center. I knew Anne Patterson when she was an ineffective economic officer in Riyadh. While in Saudi Arabia, she seemed to devote an inordinate amount of time in trying to get an audience with the king.)

The unfortunate affair of Farook and Malik seems to be a God-given, if not carefully-constructed, attempt to increase hatred of Muslims in the United States and link them to expanded efforts to prevent citizens from acquiring firearms. (After the Paris “terror” attacks, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein [D-Calif.] and other Democrats began pushing the concept of blocking the unknown thousands of people on the federal government’s incredibly flawed “No-Fly List” from purchasing firearms. After the San Bernadino shootings, more professional politicians began repeating this litany.)

I hear more and I see more comments about the dangers of Islam, usually linked to Arabs and the Middle East. Newspaper articles, particularly in the Washington Post, recounting these dangers invariably cite biased, Israeli-controlled sources, such as WINEP (Washington Institute for Near East Policy) and the SITE Intelligence Group. Television news, which too many Americans rely on, invariably gives an extremely biased presentation of Arabs and Muslims.

President Obama and his government seem to be talking out of both sides of their mouths in discussing such actions as the San Bernardino shootings. They deplore the violence but emphasize the “Muslim terrorist” side to them, always bringing in federal anti-terrorism “task forces”. The Obama administration also seems to manage linking them to the availability of firearms, generally ignoring applicable laws violated. Just after the San Bernardino affair, and most likely tied to it, Virginia’s Democratic Attorney General Mark R. Herring abrogated concealed carry-firearms reciprocity with 25 States, claiming it was too dangerous to let licensed citizens of those States travel with their weapons in the Commonwealth.

Adding to the confusion over the San Bernadino shootings, INTELLIHUB (an online investigative site) stated December 6, 2015: “We now know that ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives] investigators recovered police issued firearms from the alleged shooters. This key detail was leaked by 2016 GOP Presidential Candidate Carly Fiorina during a press interview after she had overheard a newsroom report that doesn’t fit the official narrative.”

“We also know that active shooter drills actually took place near the crime scene just days before and possibly even on the same day of the mass shooting…”, INTELIHUB reported. [However the Los Angeles Times stated December 2, 2015 that the Inland Regional Center conducts shooter drills monthly and that the people there thought the gunfire and police were part of the program.] INTELLIHUB added: “Additionally details from an eyewitness, [Sally Abdelmageed, an employee at the Inland Regional Center], who came forth on the day of the shooting, may have been overlooked by investigators and suggested that there were actually ‘three white shooters’ instead of the radicalized husband and wife natural-born killer team portrayed in some mainline reports.”

On December 2, 2015, the 21st Century Wire noted that there were three masked assailants and asked, if so, how Farook and Malik could be visually identified. The Wire added that the later shootout was perfectly positioned for a news helicopter to transmit video showing the police blazing away with their latest military-style police gear. However, this did not happen. No images were available, except afterwards, not even photos of police moving the bodies of the alleged assailants from their vehicle, the Wire said. There was also no closed-circuit TV footage of the shooters as they entered the parking lot and then moved into the Center, the site asserted.

Additionally, according to the site, “the speed at which so many paramilitary, police, and EMS assets were mobilized…was unprecedented.” Continuing, the Wire reported “Police announced that they had an armed response on site in only 4 minutes from their first emergency call, and managed to triage and then transport the first victims to medical facilities in only 15 minutes.”

The Wire said that “Within 90 minutes of the alleged ‘active shooter’ situation at Inland Regional, at least 12 different agencies were mobilized, including over 500 armed agents, at least 300 vehicles, over 1,000 personnel, 5 SWAT teams 3 helicopters, 3 mobile command centers, 10 armored MPRAP [sic—an MRAP is a mine-resistant ambush protected] vehicles, bomb squads with ‘tactical robots’ being dispatched.”

That’s a lot of people and hardware, even if, as the Wire said, there were two other shooter drills in the area, one on South Waterman Avenue, and one two days before at Victor Valley College Library.

The 21st Century Wire further noted that ATF and FBI agents began armed door to door searches of all houses in the vicinity of the SUV shooting scene. (No mention was made of whether warrants were used in those actions.) One TV anchor, the Wire added, claimed that “San Bernadino is now under Martial Law”. Further, the Wire asserted, many news outlets, including “the Israeli-run site Vocativ”, claimed that the San Bernadino event was an “ISIS attack on American soil”.

John Rappoport recounted in GlobalResearch.ca on November 21, 2015: “Whether mass shootings are approached as the mainstream reports them, or as false flags, staged scenarios, or outright hoaxes, there is a common thread which runs through some of them: official training exercises held just prior to, or at the same time as, the shootings.” As examples, he cited:

• The November 13, 2015, Paris attacks
• The Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting, June 17, 2015
• Boston Marathon attack, April 15, 2013
• Sandy Hook school shooting, December 14, 2012
• The July 20, 2012, Aurora, Colorado, “Batman” shooting
• The Oslo bombing/shooting attack, July 22, 2011
• The 7/7/2005 bomb attacks on the London underground
• 9/11/01 attacks on [World] Trade Center and the Pentagon

As Rappoport asks, what are the odds of this happening so frequently?

COMMENT: There are far too many loose ends and unanswered questions. Many people allege that “crisis actors” (people who pretend to be shooters or victims) take part in events like San Bernadino. They overlook the idea that it would take an army of these (with attendant leaks and bragging) to cover just one of these happenings. It’s far more likely to have a handful of individuals inserted as real police or military to control and direct one of these shooting events. Ideal candidates for such would be personnel from the many intelligence services.

Other possibilities, as the 21st Century Wire suggests, would be to use mass shootings by “crazed Muslims” to whip up popular support for Barack Obama’s sending more soldiers, sailors, and Marines into the Middle East. This would end the ISIL “threat” once and for all. There would be the added political advantage of the alleged “indecisive” Obama acting “presidential” and more warlike.

Then there is the suggestion, advanced by a number of observers, that these mass shootings (although actually few in number) can be used to disarm the American people, just as was done in Australia and Great Britain. Certainly, rich and well-connected people like Michael Bloomberg and George Soros are funding anti-gun programs. The Obama Administration has a definite problem with the American Constitution’s Bill of Rights: searches and seizures of letters, faxes, and emails as well as jailing people on secret evidence are but a few of his transgressions. He and his peeps know that many Americans do not revere the Bill of Rights. The all-news TV station RT recently ran a story about Yale University, with actors easily getting students there to sign a petition abolishing the First Amendment (Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.)

It’s past time for all of us to ask the mainstream media some hard questions about why they don’t report what is really happening. And to give us some real, fact-based analysis of current events.

Israel: America's Oldest Enemy, America's Greatest Debtor

By

Really? Yes, really.

Enemy At The Gate

Throughout most of Israel’s existence, it has mounted terrorist attacks on United States government property and United States citizens. Here are some examples:

• EGYPT. On July 14, 1954, Israeli intelligence officials exploded fire bombs at U.S. Information Service libraries and U.S. Consulate offices in Cairo and Alexandria. The object was to poison relations between the United States and Egypt by depicting Muslims as being responsible. The Egyptian government caught and tried a number of Egyptian Jews involved in the attacks. Eventually, due to great outcry, Pinhas Lavon, Israeli Defense Minister resigned.

• U.S.S. LIBERTY Eastern Mediterranean . On June 8,1967, after nine hours of regular reconnaissance of the National Security Agency’s signals intelligence ship, Israeli armed forces, with full knowledge of the Liberty’s nationality, attacked the vessel without warning. The Liberty, steaming in international waters, suffered 34 Americans murdered, 174 maliciously wounded out of the ship’s 294-man complement. The $40 million ship was deemed unsalvageable and sold for scrap.

• RACHEL CORRIE–Rafah, Palestine. On March 16, 2003, an Israeli soldier drove a 54-ton Caterpillar bulldozer over the 23-year old U.S. citizen—twice–crushing her skull, chest, and spine. She had been attempting to protect the home of a Palestinian family from being demolished. The peace activist, wearing a blaze orange jacket with reflective stripes, was clearly visible to the soldier driving the equipment. While her parents were attempting to seek justice for the murder of their daughter, an Israeli military leader told the Haifa court that “During war there are no civilians.” As part of a policy that is still in effect, the Israeli military and police do not investigate complaints of attacks against civilians in “closed military zones.”

• MAVI MARMARA, Eastern Mediterranean. On May 31, 2010, Israeli armed forces stormed the six ships of the Palestine aid flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Movement, an activist organization with members from numerous countries. During the assault in international waters, Zionist commandos murdered nine people, including U.S. citizen Fulkan Dogan—shot five times in the head, legs, and back. The Israelis then falsely imprisoned 629 activists from the ships, including former U.S. ambassador Edward L. Peck.

• EMILY HENOCHOWICZ—Qalandia Checkpoint, Palestine. On May 31, 2010, Israeli soldiers blinded the 21-year-old U.S. artist, activist, and Jew. She had been standing at the front of a demonstration protesting the Mavi Marmara attack. She was waving a Turkish flag, when soldiers deliberately fired a tear-gas canister at her face, putting out an eye and breaking her jaw and cheekbone.

Debtor

Israel’s existence depends on massive U.S. transfers of its citizen’s money, along with tax-free handovers of funds to alleged Zionist charities. This fuels Israel’s war machine. Profits from the sales of Israeli products in the United States often go to colonists occupying Palestinian lands (and using their resources) or to units of the Israeli “Defense” Force.

Because of this, Israeli citizens have Universal Health Care while American citizens don’t.
Here are the highlights:

• Total U.S. aid to Israel since 1949 exceeds $138 billion.

• Military aid: $3 billion annually since 2007. Twenty-five percent of this can be spent on Israeli-manufactured weapons and military equipment, which are then exported for Israel’s profit.

• Israel also receives loan guarantees and free or reduced cost military equipment from the United States. Israel gets funding from American Defense Department appropriations for projects such as its Iron Dome missile shield. (The U.S. Congress has forgiven all past loans to Israel.)

• U.S. Foreign Military Funding (FMF) provides 25% of Israel’s defense budget. (FMF finances procurement of defense articles and services by foreign countries.)

• More than $1.5 billion in private U.S. funds go to Israel annually in the form of $1 billion in private tax-deductible donations and $500 million in purchases of Israeli bonds.

• Total U.S. aid to Israel is approximately one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though Israel comprises just .001 percent of the world’s population and already has one of the world’s higher per capita incomes. With that being about $14,000, Israel ranks as the sixteenth wealthiest country in the world; Israelis enjoy a higher per capita income than oil-rich Saudi Arabia and are only slightly less well-off than most Western European countries.

• Buying products like Sabra hummus and Sodastream helps fund Israel’s military control over Palestinians. Some companies have factories located in one of the 125 officially recognized colonies in occupied Palestine, which are illegal under international law. Other companies contribute to the maintenance of the occupation through cooperation with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), whose main goal is to protect illegal “settlements” and exercise dominion over the lives of millions of Palestinians.

• Sabra hummus is partly owned by an Israeli company named the Strauss Group. It gives an elite IDF unit, the Golani Brigade, a variety of food products for their training or missions, and provides personal care packages for each soldier. (The Golani Brigade played a key role in the Israeli army’s assault on the Gaza Strip in 2008-09 during “Operation Cast Lead”. That action was infamous for its murders, war crimes, and human rights violations against Palestinians.)

• Tribe hummus and Ahava beauty products all have ties to the Israeli government. Tribe uses its U.S. profits to help that government strip Palestinians of their land and keep them from leasing it back. Ahava is 37% owned by Hamashbir Holdings, tied to the Orad Group, producing electronic detection systems for use on the West Bank separation barrier.

CONCLUSION: In The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, they note that “When Israel was founded, in 1948, U.S. policy makers did not consider it a strategic asset…American policy makers recognized that embracing Israel too closely would undermine the U.S. position elsewhere in the Middle East. President Truman’s decision to support the UN partition plan and to recognize Israel was based [in part] on…an awareness that recognition was backed by many American Jews and would therefore yield domestic political benefits.”

To date, the only benefits yielded in the close relationship between the United States and Israel have been to Israel’s advantage. It appears as if only detriments have come to the United States, its citizens, and to the Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East.

But what of the future?

Considering the steady rightward drift of the Israeli government, its focus on Greater Israel, and its oppression of Palestinians and others, can we consider the ruling elites there to be stable? If they are not, should the United States continue to transfer such large sums of money to them, funding Israeli wars and state-sponsored terrorism?

Does America have any responsibility for Israel’s actions? If so, whose is it? Our political leadership? The average voter? The Religious Right? The Mainstream Media for only telling part of the story?

Since Israel possesses an unknown number of weapons of mass destruction, what happens if one or two “go missing”? Suppose some carefully-cultivated fanatics acquire and detonate a stray bomb or two? Will there be a finger-pointing tarantella or general war?

Shouldn’t someone start asking hard questions instead of bankrolling a proven enemy?