If Obama Can't Pick Friends? How is He Going to Pick US Allies?

Trust But Verify-Ronald Reagan

In the end, foreign policy is based on building trust. After all is said and done, after all of those lower level meetings, when the President of the United States finally meets with a foreign leader, he has to look in the leader's eyes and believe what they are saying, and believe that their personal relationship will be good for America.

Barack Obama isn't very good at that. Jim Johnson is just one more example of Obama's lack of skill in this area. You can add people like Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko to the list also. The issue really is if Obama cannot pick his FRIENDS? How is he going to pick allies for the US?

Obama’s Naiveté
Can the U.S. afford a president who can’t recognize anti-Americanism?

By Ion Mihai Pacepa

Finally, Barack Obama saw the light and broke with Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. It took him 20 years to realize that its leaders, its in-house publications, and even its guest preachers were anti-American. If elected president, he will not have so long a grace period to make his decisions.

Another vulnerable point for Senator Obama is his changing policy toward Cuba. A few days ago he announced that, if elected president, he would promote a much friendlier policy toward that country. It was a rousing speech. Even Fidel Castro rose from his sickbed to praise this oration by “the most progressive candidate to the U.S. presidency,” in a hand-signed piece published — in English, of course — in Cuba’s official Granma.

Senator Obama is smart, well-spoken, charismatic, and charming. But I have reason to doubt he can bring Raúl Castro’s corrupt mind back to normal just by meeting him, even “at a time and place of my choosing,” and by waving the American flag-pin of liberty at him. When we sift the wheat from the chaff in the senator’s flamboyant speech, little remains in his new policy toward Cuba — or toward Iran, Syria, and Chávez’s Venezuela, for that matter.

As national security adviser to Romanian president Nicolae Ceauçescu, I dealt with many tyrants, and I learned that being nice to them never succeeds in making them nice to you. On April 12, 1978, I was in the car with Ceauçescu as he drove away from a meeting in the White House. He took a bottle of alcohol and splashed it all over his face, after having been affectionately kissed by President Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office. “Peanut-head,” my boss whispered disgustedly. Afterwards, two other American presidents went to Bucharest to pay Ceauçescu respect. None was ever able to twist his arm — or charm him.

Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military philosopher whose Art of War is still the bible of military strategists worldwide, has credibly demonstrated that knowing the enemy is crucial for winning any war. I do not know how well Senator Obama knows Raúl Castro. But in my former life, I established a fairly close relationship with Raúl. We even raced each other in our identical Alfa Romeos. In all those years, I could not find any hole in his armor to persuade me that by just meeting a U.S. leader — even one as eloquent as Barack Obama — Raúl would follow in my footsteps and switch from tyranny to democracy.

Raúl is a Cuban Ceauçescu. Like Ceauçescu, Raúl supervised his country’s political police before becoming president. Like Ceauçescu, Raúl also desperately dreamed of becoming his country’s president. Sergio del Valle, my Cuban counterpart and Raúl’s closest associate — going back to their early days in the Sierra Maestra — used to call him “Raúl the Terrible.” That was a friendly allusion to Ivan the Terrible, the first Russian to crown himself tsar. Also like Ceauçescu, Raúl wanted to build his country into a monument to himself.

In 1971, on Ceauçescu’s advice, Raúl started transforming Cuba’s party leaders and the top government officials into undercover intelligence officers secretly subordinated to Cuba’s political police, the Dirección de Inteligencia (DI), which the younger Castro built and led. During that same year I traveled to Cuba, Raúl told me he had already sworn in as undercover intelligence officers most members of Cuba’s government, the deputy ministers of foreign affairs and foreign trade, and the majority of Cuba’s ambassadors. Those new undercover officers swore secret allegiance to Raúl’s intelligence community, which remunerated them with salary supplements under the table. They had to follow intelligence discipline and carry out intelligence tasks to keep their privileged jobs.



A couple of weeks after I was granted political asylum in 1978, the Western news media reported that my defection had unleashed the greatest political purge in the history of communist Romania. Ceauçescu had demoted four politburo members, fired one-third of his cabinet, and replaced 22 ambassadors. All were undercover intelligence officers whose supplementary pay vouchers I had regularly signed off on. And all were electronically monitored by a super-secret bugging department I supervised.

By that time, Raúl already had the whole of Cuba in his vest pocket.

There is perhaps one other lesson Raúl learned from my previous boss: If you blink, you die. In December 1989, Ceauçescu relinquished his unchecked power, and a few days later his own people, some of them close subordinates, executed him for genocide. Raúl is also a political assassin whose hands are stained with the blood of many thousands of innocents. And his Cuba is far more isolated from the real world than Ceauçescu’s Romania was.

By 1990, the Soviet bloc had collapsed. But in faraway Cuba, isolated from the revolutionary wave that swept the Kremlin’s viceroys from power in Eastern Europe, little changed.

In August 1991, the Soviet Communist Party was disbanded, and nobody within Mother Russia really missed it. But somehow, the KGB survived — as secret police often do. Today, some 6,000 former KGB officers are running Russia’s federal and local governments, and 70 percent of Russia’s leading political figures have some connection to the intelligence services of the old regime. Vladimir Putin proves how difficult it is to teach an old dog new tricks — particularly when that old dog is rolling in oil dollars.

Raúl Castro’s police state may also flourish thanks to oil money — from Hugo Chávez, South America’s new oil tsar, who attended Raúl’s coronation. Chávez needs Raúl’s tested political police to help him keep the disgusted Venezuelan people quiet, and Raúl needs Chávez’s money to embellish Cuba’s crumbling façade — by creating a network of Western-style tourist attractions run by his intelligence machinery, a dream Raúl discussed with me long ago.

Former Russian president, now prime-minister, Putin has declared the demise of the Soviet Union a “national tragedy on an enormous scale,” and last June he announced a new Cold War against the West. Now he is quietly building a new anti-American axis, Moscow-Tehran-Beijing.

It may not be long before the former KGB officers now ruling Russia will ask their old subordinate, Raúl Castro, to accept Russian nuclear rockets in Cuba once again.

Indeed, the U.S. needs a new policy to deal with Cuba — just as it badly needs a new one to deal with today’s Russia. That policy should be based on thorough, realistic assessments of these leaders and their strategic interests.

From what we know of Barack Obama — from what the entire world now knows of Barack Obama — is he the man America wants across the table from the likes of Ahmadinejad, Castro, and Putin?

— Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa is the highest official ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc. His latest book is Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the KGB, and the Assassination of President Kennedy

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UN "Watchdog" Caught Diverting Funds

This one gets filed under "why am I not surprised" Guido Bertucci, director of the U.N. Division for Public Administration and Development Management (the UN's Good Governance division) diverted funds donated by the Greek government to improperly pay contractors and mismanaged a $2.8 million trust fund meant to foster transparency and accountability. This is just another example of how the United Nations is Corrupt both Morally and fiscally. Ladies and gentlemen your tax dollars at work. More on the story below:

Report: U.N. official diverted funds Head of "good governance" division
Betsy Pisik

NEW YORK | An internal U.N. investigation has sharply criticized the head of the organization's "good governance" division, finding he has diverted funds donated by the Greek government to improperly pay contractors and mismanaged a $2.8 million trust fund meant to foster transparency and accountability.

The report by the Procurement Task Force of the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) suggests that Guido Bertucci, director of the U.N. Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM), personally reimburse the trust fund for misused funds and be reprimanded for favoritism and other violations in hiring consultants.

The Washington Times obtained a copy of the report, which was completed in April.

Mr. Bertucci, 60, is scheduled to retire from the United Nations in six weeks. U.N. officials familiar with the case say he is unlikely to receive any punishment stronger than a note in his personnel file.

"The Task Force recommends that appropriate disciplinary action be considered against Mr. Bertucci, [and two others] for the violations identified herein, including ... gross negligence in managing the Trust Fund Agreement, and failing to meaningfully cooperate with the investigation," said the authors of the 91-page report.

The investigation was ordered in December 2006 by then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in response to investigations by The Washington Times and other news outlets.

The investigation was delayed for months, the authors write, because Mr. Bertucci refused to share his personal financial information with investigators.

The resulting report was never publicly released and is still considered "strictly confidential" by the United Nations.

It was given to The Times by a person who feared the critical findings would be "buried."

Contacted by telephone over the weekend, Mr. Bertucci said, "I have been completely cleared." All the accusations against me are proven false."

When read some critical passages of the task force report, Mr. Bertucci replied that he could not comment.

"I have only seen preliminary versions, and that cleared me completely."

U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said the organization could not comment because the report is not yet finalized.

Technically, OIOS reports are not considered final until their recommendations are accepted or challenged by those involved.

The funds in question were donated by the Greek government to finance the Thessaloniki Centre for Public Service Professionalism. The center was set up in 1999 to guide newly independent former Soviet states in developing transparent government procedures to hold officials accountable to voters.

However, the center's mission overlapped with a similar U.N. program already operating in Naples.

Because of the competition, the Thessaloniki program never really got off the ground, according to people who worked in the office. Concerns over the fate of the program's money were raised as early as 2002, the OIOS report points out.

In 2006, the Greek government complained that Mr. Bertucci's agency failed to submit financial reports and statements of expenditures, and that most of the Thessaloniki Centre's objectives remained unfulfilled five years after its inception.

UNITED NATIONS An investigation concluded that Guido Bertucci mismanaged a $2.8 million trust fund.

The Thessaloniki center was rarely fully staffed and, according to former chief technical adviser Panayiotis Liverakos, its work was simultaneously "neglected and obstructed" by Mr. Bertucci's organization.

For example, Mr. Bertucci's organization would hire international consultants without the knowledge of program officers in Thessaloniki, Mr. Liverakos told investigators.

Ultimately, the OIOS investigators found, the Greek-funded trust fund for the Thessaloniki Centre was used to pay at least $184,000 to consultants who did little significant work or were chosen without a proper review of their credentials or qualifications.

The report says the consultants themselves are not accused of wrongdoing, but recommends that Mr. Bertucci's organization reimburse the Greek government for at least $34,000 in misspent fees.

Additionally, the 91-page report asks the U.N. Department of Management to decide "whether Mr. Bertucci should be held personally accountable and financially liable" for financial irregularities in his organization.

"Mr. Bertucci consistently failed to provide meaningful cooperation with the Task Force investigation and did not provide specific documents requested by the Task Force at various stages of the investigation," wrote the authors of the report, which noted that the burden of proof shifts to the employee once there is a likelihood of wrongdoing.

Mr. Bertucci, an Italian national who has run the U.N. Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM) since 1993, has been accused by former employees of intimidation and favoritism.

The Office of Internal Oversight Services, the U.N. watchdog that compiled the latest report, has undertaken at least three inquiries of his division in the last three years.

The latest investigation finds that Mr. Bertucci and John-Mary Kauzya, chief of the public administration branch of DPADM, and program officer Jose Manuel Sucre-Ciffoni had often subverted published guidelines on the hiring of consultants with money from the Thessoloniki center's fund.

Democratic Stupidity on Drilling Threatens Our Economy

The Number ONE economic issue in this election season should be energy, specifically tapping America's incredible domestic energy resources.Its time for America to wake up and smell the gas fumes. TODAY the US is sitting on an estimated 115 billion barrels of oil and 633 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, if tapped it would be enough to drive down the price of oil, lower the cost of producing food cutting down those costs, and free the United States from the grip of the Oil Producing countries, many of which use their petrodollars to fund terrorism. Sounds Cool right? Lets Go DO IT !!! Well we can't.

U.S. Federal government and various states ban drilling in thousands upon thousands of square miles off the U.S. Coast. So we are at the mercy of both OPEC and the overreacting environmentalists. Yesterday our friends in the Democratic Party blocked a bill that would allowed off shore drilling between 50 and 200 miles from shore. In other words far enough away from shore to protect the coastline. The Bill's Sponsor Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa, told Fox News:

"There is no valid reason for Congress to keep the country from energy resources it needs."... "I'm disappointed. I did not expect a partisan vote today. I felt we had a chance of winning this. A lot of Democrats have been talking favorably about my amendment. They know we have to do something. But today was an absolute show of Pelosi power, it was dealt from the top down," Peterson said later, speaking with FOX News, adding he was open to other energy solutions, including wind and solar power."

Politics, DEMOCRATIC Party Politics, is keeping Oil Prices high. YOU HEAR THAT AMERICA? Let me rephrase that.If you think that gas prices should go from 4 dollars a gallon to 6 or more, or if you want to drive this almost recession into a depression ...Please feel free to vote Democratic for President and Congress this November.

Drilling will help the economy in so many different ways. First of all the Democrats are correct in saying that it will take 10 years to start seeing oil from any new wells. (that also means that If Bill Clinton didn't veto a measure to open up more US Land in Alaska for drilling ten years ago we would be seeing that oil today) BUT if you believe that part of the reason for the higher oil prices is speculation, allowing drilling will immediately start a downward pressure on long term speculation. Any downward pressure on prices will help lower the costs on just about everything else. It would be the equivalent of another tax break because it will free up money in all of our pockets. By the way can someone explain to Nancy Peolosi's Jokers that wind, solar, biofuel, nuclear and other alternatives should be developed at the same time (and probably wont reap rewards any sooner than drilling).

Along with the cooling off speculation, reviving the drilling and refining industries in the US will create JOBS. More than just the jobs on the platforms or refineries, but in supporting industries--everything from construction helmets to McDonalds.

And I haven't even mentioned that we can stop sending our hard earned cash to countries that support terror.

How's that for an economic plan, uses industrial capital to rebuild an industry, create jobs, lower prices, increase disposable income (especially for the "little guy"). Sounds like a plan right? Well you see our democratic party controlled congress is too tied up in its underwear to make it happen. They are too busy wasting time on an politically inspired impeachment resolution, or trying to de-fund the war on terror, to actually think rationally about the United States economy.

Newt Gingrich has created an online petition which he asks congress to allow drilling, as of this morning 614 THOUSAND have signed it, Please help get it to a million. Click HERE to get to Newt's petition Sign today!!!

Pat Buchanan-a PUTRID HATER

Pat Buchanan is as much of a Bigot and hater as Jeremiah Wright, only he does it from the right side. Buchanan's track record of putrid hate mongering goes way back and hits all groups. Buchanan is a Racist, a Holocaust denier and an anti-Semite and that's just for a start.

THE IRAQ WAR IS THE JEWS FAULT: Take for example, Buchanan’s essay, “Whose War” where he blames the Iraq war on a bunch of mostly Jewish public figures such as Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Max Boot and Richard Pearled. Buchanan has charged those public figures with” colluding with Israel to ignite those wars and destroy the Oslo Accords. We charge them with deliberately damaging U.S. relations with every state in the Arab world that defies Israel or supports the Palestinian people's right to a homeland of their own” he goes on to say, “For whose benefit these endless wars in a region that holds nothing vital to America save oil, which the Arabs must sell us to survive? Who would benefit from a war of civilizations between the West and Islam? Answer: one nation, one leader, one party. Israel, Sharon, Likud."

Of course that belies the fact that ISRAEL ADVISED AGAINST INVADING IRAQ.

The Holocaust: Buchanan has challenged the historical record that thousands of Jews were gassed to death by diesel exhaust at Treblinka: "Diesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody." -New Republic, 10/22/90

Hitler was a Good Guy "He (Hitler) was also an individual of great courage, a soldier’s soldier in the Great War, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him. But Hitler’s success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path." - St. Louis Globe – Democrat, Aug 25, 1977"

Racial Segregation “In the late 1940’s and 1950’s…race was never a preoccupation with us, we rarely thought about it…. There were no politics to polarize us then, to magnify every slight. The ‘Negroes’ of Washington had their public schools, restaurants, bars, movie houses, playgrounds and churches; and we had ours.” - Right From the Beginning (1990)

Back in 1991 he accused David Duke of Theft. "David Duke is busy stealing from me. I have a mind to go down there and sue that dude for intellectual property theft." - Manchester, NH Union Leader, December 15, 1991

Now this hater has outdone himself.

Source LGF Now at Pat Buchanan’s American Conservative magazine, an article that suggests the Mossad had a hand in perpetrating the attacks on 9/11: The Spy Who Loves Us.

And then there are the movers. Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, New Jersey was largely staffed by Israelis, many of whom had recently been discharged from the Israeli Defense Forces. As has been widely reported, three movers were photographed celebrating in Liberty State Park against the backdrop of the first collapsing World Trade Center tower. The celebration came 16 minutes after the first plane struck, when no one knew that there had been a terrorist attack and the episode was assumed to be a horrible accident. The owner of the moving company, Dominik Suter, was questioned once by the FBI before fleeing to Israel. He has since refused to answer questions.

Whether the movers and the art students had jointly pieced together enough information to provide a preview of 9/11 remains hidden in intelligence files in Tel Aviv, but the proximity of both groups to 15 of the hijackers in Hollywood, Florida and to five others in northern New Jersey is suggestive.

In this era of PC, Buchanan the Hater, regularly appears on FOX and MSNBC as political commentators, my Question is why? MSNBC threw Imus off the air for less. Why do they include this putrid hater as one of their gaggle of talking heads.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad (or his likeness) Does Commercials On Israeli TV !!!

Ah Marketing. An Israeli Satellite Company called yes is using Iranian President Ahmadinejad (OK a likeness of him) in one of its TV commercials. He is telling the Iranian Parliament that it is Goodbye to Israel, and they object because they will miss their favorite TV Shows (Video below) and it takes off from there. I guess marketing trumps all. Story Below:

Israeli satellite television has a new star - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (H/T Lisa Goldman)

By Sara Miller

Israel's satellite company YES has adopted a new ally in its war on cable rival HOT - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A new commercial for the company shows Ahmadinejad - who in real life has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel - addressing the Iranian nation.

"My brothers," says the mock Iranian president in a speech broadcast through loudspeakers across the country, "the uranium is in our hands and after Monday it will be goodbye to Israel."

Unexpectedly, the Iranian leader's supporters - dressed in Shiite religious garb - take exception to the speech, dismayed at the prospect of missing their favorite Israeli television series.

"What are you talking about?" asks one of his followers. "It's the last episode of Danny Hollywood on Monday."

The declaration of Iranian president's intent to destroy Israel is met with riots, and the police are deployed to control protests which suddenly take the form of a big budget musical.

The commercial, produced by advertising company McCann Erickson, is entirely a parody of "Cazablan," a hit Israeli musical of the 1960s.

al Qaeda Iraq->Can't Recruit Bombers

Are you looking for a job where you receive glorification? Travel to exotic locations? Get 72 brown-eyed virgins? Do you want a guarantee that you will lose those excess pounds without dieting ? If you are looking to blow yourself up , well then al Qaeda NEEDS YOU! Oh,it sounds like a Dead End Job, but trust us, would we lie to you?

If al Qaeda in Iraq had TV commercials they might sound just like that. According to US intelligence sources, al Qaeda is having a tough time convincing people from all of the Muslim world, to come to Iraq with the purpose of blowing themselves up. I guess no one likes to blow themselves up for a loser:

Suicide recruits dropping in Iraq

The United States is seeing a sharp drop in the number of foreigners entering Iraq to become al Qaeda suicide bombers, according to intelligence and Bush administration sources.

An administration official and a military adviser to Iraqi commanders attribute the decline to a fairly new phenomenon: Al Qaeda's call for mass killings in the name of Islam is losing some of its appeal with young Arabs in North Africa and Saudi Arabia, where most of the bombers originate.

The decline also parallels the battlefield losses al Qaeda has suffered in the past 12 months in Iraq's Anbar province and the greater Baghdad region. This has made it more difficult for al Qaeda in Iraq to facilitate the secret movement of foreigners from the Syrian border to safe houses where they are trained and assigned a target.

"There has been a sharp decline in the amount of suicide bombers coming into Iraq," said a senior intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It's harder for suicide bombers to get into the country. The al Qaeda in Iraq is a shadow of what it once was. And Iraq is a more hostile area for suicide bombers to operate."

The senior official said al Qaeda suicide attacks averaged 50 per month last year, but are as low as 20 a month now.

"They are still cause for concern," the official said.

According to the latest Pentagon report on stability in Iraq, the number of all attacks in Iraq dropped from 1,500 a week in February 2007 to 450 a week in February 2008.

Last year, U.S. military officials say, Sunni Arab Iraqis in large numbers began rejecting al Qaeda's harsh ways and started aiding allied troops in ridding terrorists from their neighborhoods.

A Bush administration official who monitors Iraq confirmed the sharp decline. This official depicted it as a long-running trend that began last year and continues today, rather than just brief dip. "There is no question there are fewer suicide bombers inside Iraq," the official said.

A military intelligence officer previously has told The Washington Times that interrogations of captured foreign fighters showed that most bombers came from Saudi Arabia and North Africa.

This source said al Qaeda operated three main routes: ferrying recruits from Syria into Mosul in the north, into Baghdad in the heart of the country, and into Anbar province in the west.

The senior intelligence official said that "the al Qaeda in Iraq network that would have supported bringing these people in, [is] a shadow of what it once was. They lost a lot of their key people."

Perhaps the most telling blow was the U.S. air strike in 2006 that killed Abu Musab Zarqawi, the founder of al Qaeda in Iraq whose persona in the Arab world helped coax disaffected youth to heed his call for jihad and martyrdom.

Today, the U.S. thinks the last al Qaeda bastion is greater Mosul, where Iraqi and American troops have been conducting counterterrorism strikes since the winter.

"I think they have been operationally defeated since the end of 2007," said retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, an adviser to top commanders in Iraq who toured the country in March.

"The command doesn't want to say that, but they cannot muster complex operations like they used to do in the past, nor sustain a level of operations like they have done in the past," he said. "The effort in the north is to bring this to a culmination. I call it, 'finish the al Qaeda.' "

However, he added that being a terrorist organization, al Qaeda "will never go completely away."

In the current edition of the New Republic magazine, terrorism experts Paul Cruickshank and Peter Bergen, who has written a biography of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, document what they think is a pronounced shift by Muslims away from al Qaeda.

"Why have clerics and militants once considered allies by Al Qaeda's leaders turned against them?" the two writers ask.

"To a large extent, it is because Al Qaeda and its affiliates have increasingly adopted the doctrine of takfir, by which they claim the right to decide who is a 'true' Muslim," they write.

The authors note that al Qaeda's suicide bombers have killed more than 10,000 Iraqis, most of them targeted simply for being Shi'ite.

"Recently, Al Qaeda in Iraq has turned its fire on Sunnis who oppose its diktats, a fact not lost on the Islamic world's Sunni majority," the authors wrote.

They argue that a significant event in the burgeoning anti-al Qaeda movement was the defection last year of Noman Benotman. A Libyan Muslim extremist, Benotman once worked to overthrow secular Arab governments, but now seeks peace in his home country.

In November, he sent a public letter to Ayman al-Zawahri calling on the al Qaeda No. 2 man to end terrorism operations around the world.

In raids this year, coalition forces have discovered kidnapped pre-teenage Iraqis being programed by al Qaeda for suicide bombings - perhaps a sign that it is more difficult to recruit foreigners.

"Foreign suicide bombers have fallen off in 2008 compared to 2007 rather significantly," Gen. Keane said. "Motivation to come to Iraq is down in the Sunnis Arab states because many believe the [al Qaeda] operation in Iraq is a lost cause. Also it is well known that it is far more likely they will not accomplish the mission because [al Qaeda's] capacity to receive them and protect them is diminished greatly.

Time for Obama to Throw Code Pink Under the Bus

That famous baby-boomer generation, as teens and young adults they were the "Change Agents" of the 1960s and 1970s. They were the ones that forced the end of the Viet Nam war, and showed the world not to trust anyone over 30.

Research has shows that the Boomers still believe that they are those change agents from the 1960s. Today's Boomers, now aged 45-65 are older but still see themselves wearing tie-dye and peace symbols. Some of them have gone to new causes such as protecting the environment, or helping the poor. Others are still protesting the war, but as that old saying goes, you can't go home again. That famous baby-boomer generation, as teens and young adults they were the "Change Agents" of the 1960s and 1970s. They were the ones that forced the end of the Viet Nam war, and showed the world not to trust anyone over 30.

It is the right of every American to protest the War in Iraq. But there are limits to every right, once you start infringing on the rights of others, you have crossed the line. Code Pink Crossed the line a very long time ago. They not only harass wounded soldiers, but THEY HAVE DONATED $600,000 TO THE TERRORISTS IN IRAQ. Senator Obama has accepted over $50,000 from this group and its leader. Why is it that haters of America always flock around Barack Obama, there has got to be something more there:

Code Pink 'Bundles' for Barack
by Catherine Moy

The co-founder of the radical anti-war group Code Pink has “bundled” more than $50,000 for Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and pro-troops groups are demanding that he return the money.

Jodie Evans, a Code Pink leader, gathered at least $50,000 from friends and associates and donated it to Obama’s presidential campaign, according to information compiled by the nonpartisan watchdog group, Public Citizen.

Evans and her son, a student who lives at her Southern California address, each also gave the maximum individual allowable donation of $2,300 to Obama’s campaign.

The donations have raised questions about Obama’s association with the more radical elements of his base. Code Pink has harassed, vandalized and impeded military recruiters across the United States in a campaign it calls “counter-recruitment.” The group also gave $600,000 to the families of Iraqi terrorists in Fallujah, whom it called “insurgents” fighting for their homes.

Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission, Move America Forward,
Military Families Voice of Victory, The Band of Mothers and FreeRepublic.com, issued a statement this week saying Obama should cut ties to his radical bundler.

"Barack Obama's judgment to be commander-in-chief is seriously in question because of his association with Code Pink's Jodie Evans and her war against the American military,” the groups said in a joint statement. "If Sen. Obama wants to earn the trust of the American people to send their sons and daughters in harm's way, he should immediately renounce Evans and return all contributions associated with her."

Obama’s campaign did not respond to repeated attempts to get comment on the latest controversy to hit his campaign.

“As somebody who has stood toe-to-toe with Code Pink, I am sickened that Senator Obama would accept large donations from the leader of the hateful, anti-American group,” said Melanie Morgan, chairman of Move America Forward, the nation’s largest pro-troop group.

Code Pink has also waged a campaign of psychological warfare against
America's wounded warriors and their families by protesting at Walter Reed
Army Medical Center, targeting them with signs bearing messages such as
“Maimed for a lie” and “Enlist here and die for Halliburton,” the joint statement from pro-troops groups said.

Evans has a long history as a political organizer for radical causes and as a Democratic operative. She also worked for former California Gov. Jerry Brown, who is now the state’s attorney general.

Evans sat on the board of directors of the Rain Forest Action Network (RAN), a coalition of capitalist-hating environmentalist groups. The cofounder of RAN also founded the violent and radical Animal Liberation Front, which the FBI listed as one of the largest domestic terrorism threats in the United States.

The FBI reported that RAN and the Earth Liberation Front committed more than 600 criminal acts and racked up $43 million in damages over seven years.

Evan’s radical ideology fit with the other founders of Code Pink, which is notorious for its attempts to shut down the Berkeley Marine Recruiting Center, occupying congressional offices, intimidating families of soldiers who gave their lives in Iraq, attacking opponents and disrupting Congress while dressed in Pepto Bismol-colored outfits.

Most of Evans’ money comes from a failed marriage with Westside financier Max Palevsky, a billionaire who cashed in on a computer business in the late ‘60s. Evans took the cash and has invested in anti-American, anti-capitalist ventures.

In federal documents relating to her donations to Obama, Evans listed Code Pink as her employer.

“After the mess with his former pastor and his other radical friends, Obama needs to distance himself from Evan and Code Pink,” Morgan said. “If he doesn’t, it is clear that he is not ready to lead the best military in the world.”

Democrats Doom US to Higher Oil Prices: Reject Drilling Again

Ladies and Gentlemen, next time you fill up your tank with $4+ a gallon gas, remember these prices are brought to you by the Democratically controlled US Congress. Today a House subcommittee voted AGAINST opening up US waters to Oil Exploration. The plan was to only drill a minimum of 50 away from the shore. The Bill's Sponsor Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa, told Fox News:

"There is no valid reason for Congress to keep the country from energy resources it needs."... "I'm disappointed. I did not expect a partisan vote today. I felt we had a chance of winning this. A lot of Democrats have been talking favorably about my amendment. They know we have to do something. But today was an absolute show of Pelosi power, it was dealt from the top down," Peterson said later, speaking with FOX News, adding he was open to other energy solutions, including wind and solar power."

These Democratic goofballs just put party politics ahead of the United States of America and they should ALL be impeached, starting with the most powerful woman in the world, Queen Nancy Pelosi, the story continues below:

House Subcommittee Rejects Plan to Open U.S. Waters to More Oil Exploration Wednesday, June 11, 2008

WASHINGTON — A House subcommittee on Wednesday rejected a Republican-led effort to open up more U.S. coastal waters to oil exploration.

Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., spearheaded the effort. His proposal would open up U.S. waters between 50 and 200 miles off shore for drilling. The first 50 miles off shore would be left alone.

But the plan failed Wednesday on a 9-6, party-line vote in a House appropriations subcommittee, which was considering the proposal as part of an Interior Department spending package.

With record oil prices and gas prices projected to hover around the $4 mark for the rest of the summer, Republicans have ratcheted up their efforts to open up oil exploration along U.S. coastline. But the long-sought change has so far been unsuccessful.

Most offshore oil production and exploration has been banned since a federal law passed in 1981.

"We are kidding ourselves if we think we can drill our way out of these problems," House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., said during the bill mark-up session.

For his part, Peterson said: "There is no valid reason for Congress to keep the country from energy resources it needs.",,,,

"I'm disappointed. I did not expect a partisan vote today. I felt we had a chance of winning this. A lot of Democrats have been talking favorably about my amendment. They know we have to do something. But today was an absolute show of Pelosi power, it was dealt from the top down," Peterson said later, speaking with FOX News, adding he was open to other energy solutions, including wind and solar power.

According to Peterson's office, the U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates that 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas can be found along the U.S. outer continental shelf, the area affected by the ban.

Peterson is not alone in his desire to open up the shelf. An effort to unlock the resources has been underway in Congress in recent years, and several interest groups are backing the effort, too.

"Tapping America's huge reserve of deep ocean energy helps us fight terrorism and increases our domestic energy supply, which will help put downward pressure on gasoline prices," Greg Schnacke, President of Americans for American Energy, said in a news release, adding: "With Americans suffering at the gas pump and with higher energy bills, it's a no-brainer that the OCS should be developed."

But the proposal has faced staunch opposition from environmental groups from states where the shorelines are under consideration for drilling, like Florida.

Sierra Club lands program director Athan Manuel told a House committee Wednesday that drilling has been unsuccessful in driving costs down.

"The disappointing part about some of the energy policies being promoted (is) that it calls for more drilling when drilling really is the problem. And all we've got to show for pretty aggressive (domestic) drilling for the last 35 years is, again, $4 for a gallon of gas," Manuel said, adding "since the first Arab oil shock in the 1970s, the U.S. has produced almost 90 billion barrels of oil since then, so we've tried drilling our way out of the problem and it just hasn't worked."

Environment Florida spokeswoman Holly Binns told the Media General news group that offshore drilling has no immediate impact on prices.

"It would take anywhere from seven to 10 years to bring those resources to shore — to have any measurable impact on supply,” Binns said, advocating renewable energy sources.

Democrats held their own series of events on Capitol Hill Wednesday to focus attention on global warming and energy independence, but drilling is not on the agenda. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Tuesday ongoing calls for more drilling "is the Johnny One-Note of the Republican Party."

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., dismissed the need for oil explanation, speaking with FOX News Wednesday.

"There are 68 million acres right now that is available for exploration right now that the oil companies have — an area the size of Illinois and Georgia. We ought to be focusing on doing that," Blumenauer said, adding that a legal gap he referred to as the "Enron loophole" exempts energy trading from oversight of the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

And not surprisingly, the issue has spilled into the ream of presidential politics as well.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., criticized Democrats, including fellow Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., over recent comments Obama made regarding gas prices.

The comments that McConnell referred to were given during an interview with CNBC. Discussing rising gasoline prices, Obama said: "I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing.

Obama also said that "if we take some steps right now to help people make the adjustment, first of all by putting more money into their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more quickly, particularly U.S. automakers, then I think ultimately, we can come out of this stronger and have a more efficient energy policy than we do right now.

McConnell, honing in on Obama's referral to "gradual" price increases, said Obama's remarks are evidence that Obama believes "rising gas prices aren't the problem. The problem, he suggested, is that they've gone up too fast. He said he would prefer a gradual adjustment."

He continued: "Whether it's shutting down domestic exploration in large areas both onshore and offshore, instituting a moratorium on oil shale development, increasing the gas tax, or refusing to pursue coal to liquids, Democrats long ago implemented a 'gradual adjustment' on gas prices that's reflected today in the $4.05 Americans are paying for a gallon of gas."

ILLEGAL: Practicing Non-Muslim Religion Without a License

For those who think Islamo-fascism is an Israeli problem, a Jewish problem or even just an American Problem, let me remind you that it is also a Christian problem. We have looked at the ethnic cleansing of Christians in Egypt and in Gaza. In the past we have seen examples of bigotry in the "moderate" country of Saudi Arabia, today's example comes from Algeria, where a 37- year old Christian made a major mistake, "practicing a non-Muslim religion without authorization. MEMRI has more about the religion of peace in Algeria (and how they treat their Christian minority) below:

Algerian Dissident Journalist Arezki Ait Larbi: Stop "Witchcraft Trials" For Christians in Algeria

In the western Algerian city of Tiaret, a 37-year-old convert to Christianity is currently on trial for "practicing a non-Muslim religion without authorization," under a 2006 law regulating the religious practice of non-Muslims. The charges were brought against her after police found copies of the Bible in her possession. [1]

In a May 27, 2008 article in the Algerian El-Watan daily, Algerian dissident and journalist Arezki Ait Larbi called the case a "witchcraft trial" and described a tightening alliance between the government and Islamists in the country. He argued that the only way out of the impasse was the formation of a popular movement that would confront intolerance and reaffirm respect for liberty of religion and conscience.

Arezki Ait Larbi, currently a correspondent for the French daily Le Figaro, is a well-known civil rights activist who has been imprisoned several times since he first became active in public affairs, during the "Berber Spring" of 1980. He was recently acquitted of charges of defamation brought against him for an article he wrote documenting torture in Algerian prisons. [2]

The following are excerpts from the article: [3]

The Crime - Christianity; The Evidence - Bibles

"The recurring violations of liberties [in Algeria] have lately reached an intolerable level. The most recent of these is the witchcraft trial that took place on the stage of the courthouse in Tiaret. The victim, a 37-year-old woman, is in danger of being sentenced to three years' imprisonment for the crime of Christianity.

"That was the punishment demanded on May 20, [2008,] by the prosecutor representing the Republic (sic), who accused her of 'practicing a non-Muslim religion without authorization.'

"The trial of Habiba [Kouider] has revealed humiliating persecutions for crimes of religion, based solely on official arbitrariness sanctified by holy incense.

"At the Olympic Games of bad faith, the Minister of Religious Affairs would win the gold medal. To foreigners, he lauds a discourse of openness, swearing that 'freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Constitution.' He just forgets to add: 'so long as it is not exercised!'

"For national [public] opinion, he dusts off the good old conspiracy theory. With their pens standing at attention, the national-Islamist press reports here and there on [a phenomenon of] American evangalical attack squadrons moving through mountain villages and converting wayward youth with dollars and visas - thus laying the groundwork for intervention by [American] GIs!

"In truth, the reality is more mundane. In Tiaret, they arrested a frail young woman with formidable incriminating evidence in her possession: Bibles.

"Were it not for the perversion that has transformed republican institutions into an armed wing of the Inquisition, this colorful police arrest would make one smile.

"At court, the trial turned into farce, revealing once more the underbelly of a subservient justice at the beck and call of the fantasies of the seraglio [i.e. the government]. A judge's role is to speak the law - but here the judge metamorphosed into a director of the conscience, lancing fatwas of indignation and preaching to reconversion [to Islam].

"To prevent journalists from witnessing this ignominy, the judge decided, at the prosecutor's request, to confiscate their notebooks. Such was the pathetic reaction by of provincial notables who saw that their bungling was threatening to wash their promising careers down the drain."

"These Times Demand… Mobilization… for Fundamental Liberties in Place of Fascist Tendencies"

"In this climate of ideological surrender, which has consecrated the triumph of obscurantism in the name of an impure reconciliation [with the Islamists], [4] even the 'enlightened elites' ended up abdicating their duty of vigilance to repeatedly genuflect before the new rules of the game.

"When it comes to forcefully reaffirming the liberty of conscience, the exegetes of the cafes invoke 'Islam's tolerance for the People of the Book' so as to accord the practitioners of 'non-Muslim religions' some back-row seats as second-class citizens. Approaching the grotesque, they present Habiba [Kouider], whom they have never met, as a geostrategic menace, a Mata Hari of the aspergillum who draws her salary from the slush funds of the CIA and the Mossad and whose spiritual practice is mere camouflage for [the campaign] to weaken the Muslim peoples…

"In the name of the state of emergency, which covers much depravity, institutions are placed under lock and key, protests are banned, opposition parties crushed, independent journalists muzzled, independent union activists beaten, and spirituality made conditional on [procurement of] a license.

"This putting of society into lockstep is pregnant with dangers. It has already given birth to full-scale rioting as the ultimate mode of expression, the tragedy of the clandestine emigrants who end up in prison whenever they escape death, and even worse, inter-community clashes…

"These times demand an independent and determined mobilization to institute fundamental liberties in place of fascist tendencies, pluralism of convictions instead of uniformity of thought, and respect for our differences instead of paralyzing uniformity."

"Let Us Remind [All], Loud and Clear, that Algerian Christians Are First and Foremost Citizens"

"Rather than confront hypothetical foreign menaces, let us remind [all], loud and clear, that Algerian Christians are first and foremost citizens. And in a republic, all citizens are subject to the same laws, whether they be Muslims of the Maliki school, Ibadis, Shi'ites, agnostics, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, or atheists. They all have the same right to respect for their convictions and free practice of their religion, as long as they do not impose it on others by force.

"The 'Christianophobia' that has reduced the new converts to living their faith clandestinely is naught but a diversionary [tactic] by false devotees and true scoundrels, in an attempt to obscure the conjunction of official authoritarianism and a renewed, bloodthirsty fundamentalism. First consummated behind the scenes in the seraglio, this holy alliance is now public and in the light of day."

The PM Carried Out "A Coup d'État on a Prayer Rug"

"In front of all the national-Islamist who's-who gathered last Thursday at Martyrs' Square in Algiers, the prime minister, in the uniform of the great caliph, decreed that the Koran 'represents the Constitution of Algerian society.' [This constituted] a coup d'état [carried out] on a prayer rug, [yet] it provoked no indignation.

"In the private sphere, all beliefs are respectable. When instrumentalized for political ends, all religions are potentially fatal to liberty, and can lead to terrible tragedies and rivers of blood.

"In response to the current persecutions [in Algeria] come the noisy protests of the extreme right on the other side of the Mediterranean, who demand - with some degree of logic, it must be said - the application of a principle of reciprocity. [They say:] The Algerians banned the Bible? Let's ban the Koran. They close churches? Let's destroy mosques. They expel priests? Let's send Dalil Boubekeur, the rector of the Paris Mosque, back whence he came. Contrary to appearances, the swastikas and the swastika-crescents unite in the end in one same fight: for intolerance, exclusion, and hatred."

A Sign of Hope

"A sign of hope: The 'Appeal for Tolerance and Respect for Liberties,' published last March by a group of Algerian intellectuals, has garnered more than 2,500 signatures. [5] Overcoming their differences, they denounced the violation of democratic liberties and reaffirmed the right of all to practice the religion of their choice, or not to practice any.

"In so doing, they proclaimed their fierce desire to live together in mutual respect. Dozens of [public] figures - North African, French, and European - supported this initiative.

"While we await other forms of struggle, more determined but still pacific, all eyes are on the court in Tiaret, where the fate of a young woman guilty of having prayed without the authorization of the guardians of the temple hangs in the balance.

"Whatever the verdict, Habiba [Kouider] is already a symbol of courage and liberty."

---

[1] See: http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/7643.htm ; http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/7544.htm.

[2] See http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/1383.htm ; http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/1750.htm.

[3] El-Watan (Algeria), May 27, 2008.

[4] For more on Algeria's National Reconciliation Policy see MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 392, "Surge of Terrorism in Algeria Intensifies Debate over Government's National Reconciliation Policy," September 25, 2007, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA39207.

[5] See: http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/6317.htm

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Anti-Semitism is Embedded in British Culture

Great Britain's has a rich tradition in hating Jews. From the first Blood libel against Jews EVER during the the days of King Stephen in the twelfth century (the case of William of Norwich March 1144) all the way through Britain's complacency in the Holocaust, Anti-Semitism has always been huge in England--even bigger than Prince Charlie's Ears.

Heck, even after Jews were expelled from England, hatred was rampant (they were really into the "Jews Killed Jesus" myth)

"The story exerted its influence even in the absence of Jews... the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw the proliferation of the Host-desecration story in England: in collections of miracle stories, many of them dedicated to the miracles of the Virgin Mary; in the art of illuminated manuscripts used for Christian prayer and meditation; and on stage, as in popular Croxton Play of the Sacrament, which itself evoked memories of an alleged ritual murder committed by Jews in East Anglia in 1191."(Jeremy Cohen 2007: Christ Killers)

During WWII ignoring the dire warnings coming from Germany, Britain refused to allow Jewish refugees into their country. Even worse Jews were denied the ability to escape the Nazis and immigrate to the British-controlled Palestine. As more and more Jews were facing the final solution Britain strictly limited immigration. This limitation became nearly absolute after the White Paper of 1939 all but stopped legal immigration.
”Decades of British Government Anti-Israel positions have taken their toll. Years of the BBC and the British press promoting a moral equivalence between terrorist acts and Israel trying to protect its citizens . Years of British columnists talking about the Jewish lobby controlling foreign policy the financial institutions etc. have worked. Great Britain is no longer a safe haven for Jews (if it ever was)or as one recent victim said “There’s no future for Jews in England"

In the interview Prof. Robert Solomon Wistrich talks about how Britian has become the European Leader in Anti-Semitism:

• Antisemitism has been present in Great Britain for almost a thousand years of recorded history. In the twelfth century, Catholic medieval Britain was a persecutory society, particularly when it came to Jews. It pioneered the blood libel and the church was a leader in instituting cruel legislation and discriminatory conduct toward Jews.
• English literature and culture are drenched in antisemitic stereotypes. Major British authors throughout the centuries transmitted culturally embedded antisemitism to future generations. Although they did not do so deliberately, it was absorbed and has had a long-term, major impact on British society.
• In the new century the United Kingdom is a European leader in several areas of antisemitism. It holds a pioneering position in promoting academic boycotts of Israel. The same is true for trade-union efforts at economic boycotts. There is also no other Western society where jihadi radicalism has proved as violent and dangerous as in the UK.
• In the UK the anti-Zionist narrative probably has greater legitimacy than in any other Western society. Antisemitism of the "anti-Zionist" variety has achieved such resonance, particularly in elite opinion, that various British media are leaders in this field. Successive British governments neither share nor have encouraged such attitudes-least of all Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They have shown concern over antisemitism and the boycott movement and tried to counteract them. However, Trotskyites who infiltrated the Labour Party and the trade unions in the 1980s have been an important factor in spreading poisonous attitudes. The BBC has also played a role in stimulating pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli attitudes over the years.

Antisemitism Embedded in British Culture
Interview with Robert Solomon Wistrich


"The United Kingdom has been a European leader in several areas of antisemitism in the new century. It holds a pioneering position in promoting academic boycotts of Israel. The same is true for trade-union efforts at economic boycotts.

"Although the anti-Zionist narrative is worldwide and widespread in the European Union, this discourse in the UK probably exceeds that of most other Western societies. Thus antisemitism has achieved a degree of resonance, particularly in elite opinion, that makes the country a leader in encouraging discriminatory attitudes. Trotskyites who infiltrated the Labour Party and the trade unions back in the 1980s are an important factor in spreading this poison."

Prof. Robert Wistrich holds the Neuberger Chair for Modern European and Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since 2002 he has been director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at that university and has been vigorously involved in the struggle against its inroads.

He adds: "There is also no other Western society where jihadi radicalism has proved as violent and dangerous as in the UK. Although antisemitism is not the determining factor in this extremism, it plays a role. This Islamist radicalism has helped shape the direction of overall antisemitism in the UK.

"Another pioneering role of the UK, especially in the area of anti-Israelism is the longstanding bias in BBC reporting and commentary about the Jewish world and Israel in particular. Double standards have long been a defining characteristic of its Middle East coverage. This has had debilitating consequences. The BBC plays a special role owing to its long-established prestige as a news source widely considered to be objective. It carries a weight beyond that of any other Western media institution.

"One characteristic of English antisemitism has been its often understated nature, in keeping with British tradition. That makes it more effective because one does not become aware of it so easily. One example among many is the British journalist Richard Ingrams, who was editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye for twenty-three years starting in the 1960s. He once wrote in the Observer that he threw away unread all correspondence he received from people with Jewish names regarding the Middle East because, he thought, they must be biased on the subject. If someone were to tell him he is an antisemite he would, of course, reject that. But would he publicly write the same thing about Arab correspondents?"


Medieval England: A Leader in Antisemitism
Wistrich observes that analyzing current antisemitism requires looking back in time. The present motifs often resemble ancient ones and have their roots there. "Nothing is ever as new as it appears. Antisemitism in Great Britain has been around for almost a thousand years of recorded history. Medieval England was already a leader in antisemitism.

"In the Middle Ages, England pioneered the blood libel. The Norwich case in 1144 marked the first time Jews were accused of using the blood of Christian children for their Passover matzot. In the twelfth century, medieval Britain was a persecutory Catholic society, particularly when it came to Jews. In this environment the English church was a leader in instituting cruel legislation and discriminatory conduct toward Jews, unparalleled in the rest of Europe.

"From the Norman Conquest of 1066 onward there was a steady process-particularly during the thirteenth century-of persecution, forced conversion, extortion, and expropriation of Jews. This culminated in the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 under Edward I. It was the first ejection of a major Jewish community in Europe. It is important to bear this in mind because it is not widely known, least of all in England. I grew up there and went to grammar school and to Cambridge University and do not recall that this was ever mentioned. On the contrary, we were taught at school about the chivalry of Richard the Lionheart, not the massacres of Jews by Crusader kings.

"Britain was not only the first country in medieval Europe to expel Jews but also one of the last to take them back. It took slightly more than 350 years for this to happen. The return of the Jews to the British Isles began very quietly and informally in 1656 under Oliver Cromwell. This was the beginning-drop by drop-of the formation a new community that over time would contribute a great deal to British society."


Antisemitism without Jews
"The long absence of Jews from the shores of the British Isles did not mean that in the intervening period, antisemitism disappeared. This is an instructive early example of how society does not need the physical presence of Jews for the potency of the anti-Jewish stereotypes to penetrate the culture.

"I grew up on English literature. When I was sixteen we had to prepare for the advanced-level certificate. In our syllabus were several of the classic English works. They included Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales from the late fourteenth century; Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta from the late sixteenth century; and William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice of the same period, which until today has remained one of the most popular plays of the English theater.

"One interesting question is how could Shakespeare draw such a portrait of Shylock probably without ever encountering a real flesh-and-blood Jew? There are many theories about that. Yet he and Marlowe before him managed to portray the Jews as major villains whom the populace would instantly recognize as the ‘antitype.' I am not, of course, saying Shakespeare was an antisemite in the ideological sense (his portrait of Shylock is more complex than that). But the force of the anti-Jewish stereotype is so powerful that this is what is ultimately retained in the ‘collective unconscious' of English culture.

"This Shylock image influenced the entire West because it fits so well with the evolution of market capitalism from its early days. Shakespeare portrayed the subject in a way that is to a certain extent realistic, reflecting the rise of a commercial society in Venice and of economic competition. But Shylock has come to embody an image of the vengeful, tribal, and bloodthirsty Jew, who will never give up his pound of flesh. Rightly or wrongly, this is what most people remember. Shylock is the English archetype of the villainous Jew. Those who talk about how humanistic, universal, and empathetic his portrait is, are ignoring not only how it was perceived at the time but its historical consequences."



Literature Drenched in Antisemitism
"We also studied Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist, from the Victorian era, in which a Jew is again the archetype of the villain. In addition, there were modern twentieth-century authors who portrayed their characters in a partly antisemitic way. Among them were Edwardian writers like John Galsworthy, H. G. Wells, and Nobel Prize winner T. S. Eliot. The latter was the major twentieth-century poet whose work we had to study. There were few authors devoid of any antisemitism. One exception was George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans), an eccentric though remarkable woman who understood the Jewish plight. Her book Daniel Deronda can be considered a pro-Zionist work, as well as being a classic Victorian novel.

"From my experience with this syllabus, all these authors, however admirable their contribution to English and world literature, were unintentionally transmitting culturally embedded antisemitism to future generations. The influence of such a process should not be underestimated. It is difficult to neutralize antisemitic images like that of Judas-the betrayer of Christ-in the Gospels.

"English literature and culture are drenched in anti-Jewish images, perhaps even more than many of the great literary traditions of Europe. Obviously, though, there are analogies in France, Spain, Germany, Romania, and Russia. One cannot understand attitudes toward Jews in Britain today without taking into account the antisemitism embedded in the national culture. It exists without even being noticed and is often silently soaked up. Many well-educated and well-meaning people fail to understand the long-term impact of such a cultural factor on their society, and are not even aware of their own latent prejudices. That was my experience during the thirty years I lived in Britain and it has got much worse because of anti-Israeli sentiment."


The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
During the nineteenth century, matters evolved more favorably for the English Jews. Says Wistrich: "The British Empire reached its pinnacle of power and influence. England had become a relatively liberal society. Jews could feel proud and self-confident in proclaiming that they were British citizens. In the Middle East, Britain was even considered a protector of the Jews. It was more tolerant than most of its rivals and more open to intervening and trying to correct the disabilities of Jews in other parts of the world. So this was a kind of ‘golden age.'

"Yet here, too, the picture is more ambivalent than is often assumed. This was particularly so in the late nineteenth century with the immigration of Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe into Britain. At that time there was strong xenophobia. This dislike of foreigners has always been a factor in the insular British mentality. There was a conservative antisemitism resistant to the Jew as an alien who could never be fully English. The Aliens Bill of 1905, directed at halting the immigration of Russian Jews, was a case in point.

"In the twentieth century, after the Russian Revolution, a linkage between Jews and communism that was intertwined with antisemitism became a pronounced theme in British public discourse. There was considerable publicity around the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This ended when Philip Graves, a London Times correspondent, exposed it as a forgery. Until then, one could read editorials in The Times that were based on the belief that Britain had spilled much blood in the First World War only to fall into the hands of a world Jewish conspiracy-a Pax Judaica!

"Similar accusations had been made before that, during the Boer War in South Africa. There were insinuations that a small clique of cosmopolitan Jewish financiers had dragged the British Empire into a futile, useless, expensive, and wholly destructive war for their own narrow financial interests. It was stressed that these ‘foreign Jews' were well-connected in the upper echelons of British politics. Such claims could also be heard from leading figures in the emerging British Labour Party and trade unions, which were promoting an antiwar sentiment resonant with anti-Semitism.

"In the literature around 1900, one often finds examples of a full-fledged left-wing conspiracy theory in which British imperialism is being manipulated and controlled by ‘Anglo-Hebraic' financiers. The entire issue was connected to the discovery of gold in South Africa. This theory was promoted by distinguished English intellectuals, enlightened journalists and writers, as well as the prominent liberal economist John Hobson.

"The entire episode shows striking similarities with trends in left-wing political circles in recent years. The radical Left asserts that former prime minister Tony Blair was led by the nose into a disastrous, neo-imperialist war in Iraq by a clique of rich British and American Jews. The so-called American neoconservative conspiracy had spilled over to Britain, serving Ariel Sharon and the Likud government that was then in power in Israel. British trade unionists, then and now, proved susceptible to this kind of conspiracy theory."


Right-Wing Antisemitism
"The theme of ‘warmongering Jews' became especially popular in the 1930s with the rise of British fascism under its aristocratic leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, who came originally from the Left. British fascism was stopped by active mobilization against it. Contrary to what would happen a few years later, the communists were among the most militant antifascists in the East End. The Jewish community, which included many working-class Jews, had a kind of unwritten alliance with the Left to stop fascism. That tradition unfortunately seems to be dead and buried today.

"In the Second World War, Britain was not willing to attempt to rescue the Jews of Europe in any meaningful way. It was not only imperial Realpolitik that made the British close the gates of Palestine. We know that officials in the Colonial and Foreign offices and people in the administration in Palestine were far from immune to antisemitic sentiment while supporting an Arab state after the 1939 White Paper.

"During the war the British government was obsessed by the fear that their fight against Hitler could be construed as a war on behalf of the Jews. To avoid ‘fighting a Jewish war' became a kind of alibi for the British authorities to do almost nothing for the Jews. Britain's solemn commitment to create a Jewish National Home in Palestine was in fact betrayed in the hour of greatest need for European Jewry. This is a serious stain on the British record, which until then had many positive sides."


Toward Israel's Creation
"After 1945-in the three years before the creation of the state of Israel-relations between Britain and the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, reached their lowest point. For example, in 1947 the commander of British Forces in Palestine, Lt. Gen. Evelyn Barker, ordered his men to avoid fraternization with Palestinian Jews and to ‘punish the Jews in the manner this race dislikes as much as any, by hitting them in the pocket, which will demonstrate our disgust for them.'[1] Antisemitism was also very virulent in Britain at that time.

"After the Mandatory Government in Palestine executed members of the Irgun, a Jewish underground organization, the latter reacted by hanging two British sergeants. This led to anti-Jewish riots in 1947 in a number of British cities including Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, and London. No lives were lost, but it was a very nasty time. Britain was far from immune in this postwar period to the kind of antisemitism that existed elsewhere on the European Continent, in the Americas, or the Middle East.

"Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary in the Labour government of Clement Attlee, was convinced that a Jewish conspiracy existed, supposedly in alliance with the Soviet Union. A commonly held view, both in London and Washington at that time, was that ‘the Jews' were determined to bring down the British Empire. The empire did indeed crumble, though it was not due to any Jewish conspiracy but to more mundane economic and political factors. The war against Hitler had sapped British strength.

"Bevin made a number of antisemitic statements. He made remarks about Jews trying to jump to the head of the queue even after Auschwitz and the Holocaust. His attitude was also recorded by people who knew him well. The young Labour MP Richard Crossman, who was close to Bevin, emphasized that he was ‘obsessed by the Jews' and wanted to teach them a lesson they would never forget.

"Another eyewitness testimony was that of James McDonald, the first American ambassador to Israel, who had been actively involved in the refugee issue in the 1930s. In London, on his way to Israel in August 1948, he had a conversation with Bevin. McDonald mentions in his diaries how shocked he was by the antisemitism emanating from the British foreign secretary. It was hatred of Israel, of the United States and, in particular, of the Jews.[2]

"Winston Churchill's record on Zionism was, of course, far more positive. But it was not as unequivocal as we often assume. There is a discrepancy between his wonderful rhetoric and what Churchill-as a lifelong Zionist-actually did for the Jews when he was in power. He was very intransigent on key issues. The gates of Palestine were kept shut under his premiership.

"During the Second World War, Churchill was in favor of the White Paper and kept it in place, despite his strong condemnation of it in 1939 when in opposition. His wartime actions regarding the Jews were no better than those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which is to say, unimpressive. Nor, after becoming prime minister again in 1951, was Churchill's record on Israel particularly brilliant, though he had the historical vision to understand that Israel's re-creation was a major event in modern history. In expressing its meaning Churchill was at his best."


The British Roots of "Zionism Is Nazism"
"It is important to remember that in the 1940s the ‘Zionism is Nazism' libel was rather popular among highly placed Englishmen. True, the Nazi-Zionist equation was predominantly a Soviet contribution to postwar antisemitism. But it did not originate there. Indeed, a number of Britishers can claim first-class honors in this field. An example is Sir John Glubb Pasha, who was commander of the Arab Jordanian Legion fighting against Israel in 1948. He was an upper-class conservative Englishman and a lifelong Arabophile, with a special love for desert Arabs. He was also a convinced antisemite.

"Glubb was obsessed with the idea that Jews had anticipated Hitler's master race theory. Nazism, in his view, was a pale copy of the Hebrew original as revealed in Old Testament sources. In memos he sent to London he branded Jews as Nazis who combined their East European fanaticism with a narrow Hebraic cast of mind, based on biblical vengeance and hatred. He described Israel from the outset as a Nazi state, as the historian Benny Morris has demonstrated.

"Glubb was not alone. One can find in British documents similar statements from high-ranking officials in the Palestine administration. Most probably when all the papers of the High Commissioner for Palestine from the last years of the Mandate are revealed, further statements of this kind will come to light. One figure high up in the Palestine administration was Sir Edward Grigg, later Lord Altrincham. He referred to what he called the National Socialist character of what became the Israeli Labor Party (Mapai) and of the Hagana (the core of the Israeli army). He saw in the Zionist youth movements a copy of the Hitler Youth.

"The perverse theory that the Jews were not ‘Semites' or connected to Palestine but descendants of the Khazars in Asia was also very popular among important people such as Sir Edward Spears, who headed the Committee for Arab Affairs in Britain in the late 1940s.[3] Even today one can hear this theory cropping up in conversations with certain members of the British elite after a few glasses of port."


Toynbee
"In the 1950s and 1960s Arnold Toynbee, the renowned British philosopher of history, was immensely popular. I had to read him at school and as an undergraduate at Cambridge University. He came to shockingly anti-Zionist conclusions presented in the grand style of historical generalization. As an Englishman he felt superior to the German Gentile barbarians who had infamously inflicted the Holocaust on the Jews. But he also claimed that the Jews were worse than the Nazis because they had knowingly imitated their evil deeds and become ruthless persecutors. Today, a disturbingly large number of English people-misguided, intoxicated, and half-brainwashed by parts of the media-would probably agree with Toynbee.

"Toynbee ranted on about the ‘expulsion' of the Palestinians, which he considered a crime of a greater order than that committed by the German Nazis! Israeli ambassador Yaacov Herzog demolished his arguments in a debate in the early 1960s in Montreal. But the mud stuck. After all Toynbee was an elite figure of the British establishment. He promoted these ideas before they became fashionable. The Left only fully embraced these distorted views after 1967.

"In the 1970s, I was actively involved in such debates when I wrote my doctorate at University College, London. The campus war had heated up and was at full blast in 1975 after the UN ‘Zionism is racism' resolution. There were efforts to ban all Jewish societies on British campuses. This was stopped by a militant and determined campaign. The time was not yet ripe for the brazen antisemitism of the kind we find today in Britain and much of Europe, but it was certainly there beneath the surface.

"In the 1970s, the anti-Zionists in Britain-some of them Jews and expatriate Israelis-were already vilifying Israel as an ‘ethnic cleansing' and ‘racist' state. Even then there were claims that Zionism equals apartheid. Among the most extreme demagogues were Jewish Trotskyites, who were the most vitriolic in their loathing for Zionism."


Trotskyites
"It is a curious fact that Trotskyites have been influential in left-wing circles in the UK-at least in comparison to other European countries. Only in France does one find anything equivalent. There seems to be no obvious reason connected to British society or culture. Perhaps it is related to the weakness of the Communist Party, which faded quickly in the 1950s in Britain. Unlike in France and Italy, communism was never very powerful on the British Left. Trotskyism could therefore fill the vacuum. It is an alternative form of communism that bears many parallels with the Stalinism that the Trotskyites love to hate and vilify. Of course, the Trotskyites were hunted down in the Soviet Union and eliminated by Stalinist communists. This persecution had antisemitic undertones.

"Trotskyites have been characterized by an intense polemical energy and have often been in the forefront of the ‘anti-imperialist struggle.' With the collapse of official communism after 1990 in most parts of the world, they saw a chance for themselves to become what they call a ‘revolutionary vanguard.'

"In their concept of the world, Zionism has for decades been inextricably linked with global capitalism and American imperialism. These were also the hackneyed phrases of Soviet propaganda. The communist empire has collapsed, of course, but the Trotskyites are still running with the ball. Their numbers are small but they have tenacity, ideological discipline, and use clever tactics of infiltration. They have practiced these more effectively in recent decades in the UK than perhaps anywhere else. Trotskyites infiltrated the Labour Party and the trade unions in the pre-Blair era. We see the bitter fruits in boycott actions today against Israel, sparked by people who went through this anti-Zionist indoctrination and have passed it on.

"Trotskyites are organized in the Socialist Workers Party, which was very active in the 1970s. It has become a larger political factor in recent decades. I watched the huge antiwar demonstration in London in February 2003. The two main organizers were the Muslim Association of Britain-close to the Muslim Brotherhood-and the Socialist Workers Party. They formed a Marxist-Islamist alliance against the war in Iraq and on the issue of Palestine-which was a major unifying factor. In my forthcoming book on global antisemitism since 1945 I analyze this ‘Red-Green Axis' at considerable length.

"In the demonstration there were antisemitic insinuations and intonations in the slogans and catchwords used. The protest came at the time when the ‘cabal' theory that the Jews had seized control of American and British foreign policy was being widely advanced. It was crudely asserted in Britain, Europe, the Middle East-and to a lesser degree in the United States-that Bush's war in Iraq was being fought on Israel's behalf. This echoes the antisemitic notions of the late 1930s about ‘warmongering Jews' pushing the West into an unnecessary conflict with Nazism."


The Respect Party
"There is also a relatively new party called Respect led by MP George Galloway from Scotland. He was on the left of the Labour Party before he went independent. Galloway at one time received generous assistance from Saddam Hussein and defended him regularly on British television. He has always been a militant anti-Zionist, an antiglobalist, and is ferociously anti-American. The actual name of his Islamist-Marxist movement is a complete misnomer. The Respect Party shows no respect for anyone, much less for Jews or Israel, which it constantly vilifies.

"Galloway is an intellectual lightweight and rabble-rouser. He sees a revolutionary potential in the Muslim immigrants in Britain, a kind of ‘substitute proletariat' that could help revive the lost dreams of international socialism. Being against Israel and America is what brings the far Left and radical Islamists together. They have very little in common on issues such as feminism, attitudes toward homosexuals, or secularism."


Muslim Antisemitism
"Then there is the more general Muslim contribution to antisemitism in Britain, which is growing all the time and has become a significant factor. The exploration of Muslim attitudes in the UK is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, it appears that close to half of British Muslims believe in a Jewish conspiracy that dominates UK media and politics.[4] The percentage of Muslim perpetrators of violent antisemitic acts is nearly ten times greater than the Muslim percentage of the general population. Muslims from Britain have been involved in a series of high-profile cases. One leading terrorist was Omar Sheikh, the alleged mastermind of the beheading of the American Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi. The horrific video emphasized Pearl's Jewish origins. Sheikh, an Anglo-Pakistani, was born and bred in Britain and educated at the London School of Economics.

"In 2003 Abdullah al-Faisal, a black Jamaican who had converted to Islam was tried on charges of racial hatred and incitement to murder Jews in a London criminal court. His videotapes included statements about the need to kill ‘filthy Jews.' He also called for the murder of Hindus, another target of Muslim extremists in Britain.

"Al-Faisal encouraged British Muslims to carry out bombings in Israel. One of his cassettes was prophetic. He called upon British citizens to fly into Israel and carry out mass murder as a contribution to the global jihad and to Allah. Not long afterward, two British Muslims executed a suicide bombing at Mike's Place, a bar on the Tel Aviv waterfront. I was the historical adviser for a British TV documentary that dealt with this topic in 2003.

"At the other extreme, the far-Right British National Party sees a climate emerging where it might do better than in the past. The fascists would frankly like to see a Britain without Muslims. On the other hand, they also see eye to eye with many Muslim extremists on issues concerning Israel and the Jews. These British fascists admire Osama bin Laden."


The BBC and Other Media
"Since the Second Intifada, the BBC as well as some major British newspapers have reported daily on Israel in an often tendentious, biased, and one-sided fashion. Under no circumstances will the BBC refer to any act of Hamas or other Palestinian terrorist organizations as terrorism. These killers are always referred to as militants, which has trade-union connotations in Britain. It is the term used when, for instance, shop stewards advocate a factory strike.

"Within the distorted BBC system, the reporting of Israeli civilian fatalities and Palestinian suicide attacks made them seem no more than minor pinpricks compared to the retaliations by Israel, the definitive ‘rogue state.' The BBC invariably disconnects jihadi terrorism from any notion that it is part of a hate culture and the result of ideological indoctrination. The explanation is that these murderous deeds are driven by the relentless, ‘racist actions' of the Israeli government. It is Palestinian misery and oppression that allegedly brings about suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks. I believe this is a false, simplistic, and one-sided account. Terrorism is mentioned without connection to an ideology and the issue of antisemitism in the Arab or Islamic world is virtually nonexistent."


The Jewish Lobby
"Another favorite topic of the British media is the power of the Jewish lobby. One well-publicized example occurred when the veteran Labour MP Tom Dalyell said in a 2003 interview in Vanity Fair that Tony Blair was surrounded by a ‘cabal' of Jewish advisers. Of the three people he mentioned, only one was Jewish, Lord Levy.

"A second exemplar, Peter Mandelson, did have a Jewish ancestor but never claimed to be a Jew; while the third was Foreign Minister Jack Straw, whom many Jews consider anti-Israeli. Straw, it turned out, did have a Jewish grandfather but had never advertised the fact. Dalyell claimed these people were linked up with the neocons in Washington in a pro-Israeli Jewish world conspiracy. Many others on the British Left have held virulently anti-Israeli views, including former minister Claire Short who, at one point, blamed the Jewish state for global warming!

"There are exceptions to the anti-Israeli attitude. The most important was former prime minister Tony Blair, who was as sympathetic to Israel as one can reasonably be under the circumstances. The paradox is that, while Blair and his successor Gordon Brown have been pro-Israeli and pro-Jewish, Britain is still one of the leaders of current European antisemitism. That is the sobering reality and it needs to be honestly addressed.

"There is much to be said for the claim that Blair's support for Israel during the Second Lebanon War was the straw that broke the camel's back and brought him down as prime minister. He was undefeated in elections yet had to resign under pressure from his own party. Blair and Brown fit into a line of statesmen who came out of the British Christian tradition, which has a historic affinity with Zionism. These leaders include Arthur Balfour, David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Harold Wilson, and Margaret Thatcher-individuals of vision and great political talent. In my opinion they represent the best in the British political tradition.

"Britain can also pride itself on the publication of the Report of the All-Party Inquiry into Anti-Semitism, which did a fair and thorough-though not perfect-job of investigating the rise of anti-Jewish sentiment in the UK. I gave extensive evidence to that inquiry, though for some reason the recording equipment did not function properly and hence there was only a brief summary in the final document. The Report does not contradict anything I have been saying, though it was too soft on Muslim antisemitism and lacked any historical perspective."[5]


Ken Livingstone
"Among those who have contributed to the current hostile mood is Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London until May 2008. In the 1970s, he knocked on my door to ask for my vote in a local North London election. It turned out he was a passionate admirer of Leon Trotsky and was enthused to learn that I had just written a book on the Bolshevik leader-the kind of Jew he could empathize with-a radical leftist, an international socialist, and an ‘anti-Zionist.'

"A few years later he became a coeditor of the Labour Herald, the Labour Party's paper in London. In 1982, during the First Lebanon War it published on its front page a caricature of then-Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin in full SS uniform with the skull-and-bones insignia on his head. He was standing atop a mountain of skulls. The caption was in big, black Gothic script: ‘The Final Solution.' Underneath it Begin was saying: ‘Who needs shalom when you have Reagan behind you?' This cartoon could have come straight out of Pravda.

"Livingstone always presents himself as an antiracist. He claims to be against any form of discrimination that affects minorities and outsiders. Supposedly he was the friend of gays, lesbians, new immigrants, Afro-Caribbeans, and Muslims. Yet Livingstone has often related to Anglo-Jewry as a kind of Israeli fifth column in Britain and as accomplices of its ‘racist' policy.

"Livingstone not long ago gratuitously insulted a Jewish reporter of the Evening Standard by likening him to a concentration-camp guard. Even though then-prime minister Tony Blair asked him to apologize to the Jewish community for his offensive remarks, he consistently refused to do so. On the contrary, he insisted on attacking Ariel Sharon as a ‘war criminal' and it didn't hurt him with the general public in Britain.

"Another case concerned his remarks about the Reuben brothers, who are property developers in London. They are of Iraqi Jewish origin and have lived in Britain for forty years. Livingstone was apparently exasperated by the prices they charged. He accused them of parasitic behavior and told them to ‘go back to the Iran of the ayatollahs.' At that time Iran's president was already threatening to wipe Israel off the map.

"On two occasions Livingstone gave red-carpet treatment to Sheikh Youssef Qaradawi whom he invited to London. This Egyptian sheikh lives in Qatar and has supported suicide bombings as being consistent with Islam. He was presented by Livingstone as a ‘progressive' and the kind of moderate who could positively influence British Muslims. In reality, Qaradawi is a bigot and a homophobe as well as being a blatant antisemite.

"What is interesting is that in Britain, as in much of Europe, the proclaimed antiracism of the left-wing variety often feeds the new antisemitism-which is primarily directed against Israel. Of course, if one suggests that such leftists are antisemites in disguise, they are likely to become enraged and retort that one is ‘playing the antisemitic card.' This has become a codeword for saying, as it were, ‘You are a dishonest, deceitful, manipulative Jew' or a ‘lover of Jews.' Zionists supposedly use the ‘accusation of antisemitism' to distort and silence the fully justified criticism of Israel and its human rights abuses. The word ‘criticism' in this context is misplaced. It is a euphemism or license for the demonization of Israel. And that in turn is a major form of antisemitism in our time."

Interview by Manfred Gerstenfeld

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Notes

[1] Sidney Sugarman, The Unrelenting Conflict: Britain, Balfour, and Bevin (Sussex: Book Guild, 2000), 200.

[2] James G. McDonald, My Mission in Israel, 1948-1951 (London: Gollancz, 1951), 22-24.

[3] See Rory Miller, Divided against Zion (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 23-54.

[4] The Times, 7 February 2006.

[5] Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism (London: HM Stationery Office, Ltd., September 2005).

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Prof. Robert Solomon Wistrich has held the Neuberger Chair for Modern European and Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for almost twenty years. Since 2002 he has been director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University and is editor of its journal Antisemitism International. He is the author and editor of many prize-winning books and over three hundred academic articles. His most recent published book, Laboratory for World Destruction: Germans and Jews in Central Europe (University of Nebraska Press), appeared in May 2007. Prof. Wistrich has just completed a book on global antisemitism to be published by Random House at the end of 2008.