Published on July 7th, 2010 | by Eli Clifton
26The People Behind ‘Keep Israel Safe’ and ‘Stop Iran Now’
The Weekly Standard’s blog has been the go-to source for those of us who follow the various astroturf groups springing up to hype the looming Iranian nuclear threat.
First, there was the end-of-April launch of Keep Israel Safe. Keep Israel Safe is a joint project of Tom Rose, the former publisher of The Jerusalem Post and current contributing editor at The Weekly Standard, and Gary Bauer, a major player in the Christian right, long-time Kristol buddy, and charter member of The Project For a New American Century.
During his tenure at the The Jerusalem Post, Rose gained notoriety for pushing the paper’s editorial stance hard to the right and alienating his staff.
After Rose was fired from the paper in 2004, Bret Stephens, a former editor in chief at the Post and current Wall Street Journal columnist and editorial board member, wrote:
So many of us have been waiting for this day, and fighting for it, that we may be forgiven for thinking that Tom’s departure brings our problems to an end. It does not. It will be some time before we can undo the damage he wrought: To our finances, to our reputation, to our business relationships, to our morale, to the quality of our editorial product …. What we can say is that, with Tom gone, we can begin to address our problems in a rational and purposeful way.
Rose responded with a $2 million defamation lawsuit against Stephens. The case was dismissed by the trial judge, whose disposition was upheld by the appeals court.
Rose is also a right-wing radio talk show host who also founded America’s Voices for Israel, “… a US based not-for-profit organization that brings American radio and television talk show hosts broadcast [sic] their programs live from Israel for a week,” according to his agent’s website.
On Tuesday, The Weekly Standard’s blog was at it again, pushing the freshly minted Stop Iran Now, complete with its first (and perhaps only) ad.
Of course, that insufficiently bellicose presidents, particularly Democrats, should be compared to Neville Chamberlain has, over the past 40 years or so, become a neo-conservative cliche, but that didn’t stop the folks at Stop Iran Now from running it yet again (and again and again and again ad Hitlerum). If Obama doesn’t “stop Iran now,” then he obviously will be responsible for a world war and a new Holocaust.
So who is Stop Iran Now? It is a project of Citizens United, a conservative group which appears to specialize in producing documentaries and was immortalized earlier in January by the Supreme Court’s extremely controversial 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling that the First Amendment permits corporations to fund independent political broadcasts in elections to federal office.
The group’s list of productions includes: Nine Days That Changed The World; Generation Zero; Rediscovering God In America II; Perfect Valor; Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny; We Have The Power; The Path to 9/11; Hype: The Obama Effect; Hillary: The Movie; Gingrich: Rediscovering God In America; Border War: The Battle Over Illegal Immigration; ACLU: At War With America; Broken Promises: The UN at 60; and Celsius 41.11: The Truth Behind the Lies of Farenheit 9/11.
It’s clear that Stop Iran Now is the latest in a long series of politically motivated campaigns produced by Citizens United.
Director of Citizens United, David Bossie, has an impressive history of far-right partisanship and a bad habit of crossing the line into unethical territory.
In 1992, CBS News reported that Bossie harassed the family of a young woman in Arkansas, Susann Coleman, in an attempt to prove that she had committed suicide as a result of an affair with Bill Clinton.
Bossie was subsequently hired as an investigator by Sen. Lauch Faircloth and then by Rep. Dan Burton during the Whitewater hearings, but his willingness to cut corners resulted in his firing by then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, which is saying something.
SourceWatch writes:
“Bossie was fired from his job as an investigator working for Representative Dan Burton (R-IN) on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee in 1998″[11] while “investigating Clinton-Gore campaign finances.”[12] According to a May 7, 1998, front-page article published by the Washington Post,[13] Bossie was fired “after overseeing the release of recordings of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s phone conversations with [imprisoned] Whitewater figure Webster L. Hubbell. The tapes were edited to create the impression that Clinton was involved in billing irregularities at the Arkansas law firm where she and Hubbell worked.”[14]
While The Weekly Standard keeps promoting groups like Keep Israel Safe and Stop Iran Now as grassroots movements, they appear instead to be the organizational expressions of fiercely partisan individuals with substantial means at their disposal (like Kristol himself). And they are trying hard to move the United States closer to war with Iran.
About the Author
Eli Clifton is a reporter at the American Independent News Network. He formerly wrote on U.S. national security at ThinkProgress.org and reported on U.S. foreign policy as well as trade and finance at the Washington bureau of IPS. His articles have also appeared on Right Web and in the South China Morning Post. Eli has a B.A. in Political Science from Bates College and an MSc in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics.
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I can’t believe we keep making the Hitler comparisons. Hitler commanded the most powerful military in the region, if not the world; invaded neighbors and occupied their lands. How does this apply to Iran? These shoes fit much more clearly American and Israeli feet.
The propaganda of these people is so stupid and it targets so basic instincts:hate,racism, that not leave a room to comment.People like Rose,Kristoll,Krauthammer,Boot,Tom Friedman deserve only to be despised.They created the bigger confusion in the minds of the people converting the sense of the words:victim-oppressor,peace-war,racism-anti racism.
Since when is it America’s responsibility to ‘keep Israel safe”? When did America become Israel’s mommy?
Is Israel a basket case unable to take care of itself? Or does it want to be able to bully its neighbors without having to worry about consequences since Big Mommy s there to protect it?
Israel needs to grow up and learn how to look after itself. That means learning how to co-exist with its neighbors. And America needs to learn how to stop being such a sucker.
Israel will be safe if it withdraws to its borders that are recognized internationaly as well as in UN, and if it gives back all natural resources that it has stolen from it’s neighbours.
It will be also safe if it stops exporting force, disrespect and criminal activitie, AND WHEN IT STOPS BEING DANGER FOR THE REGIONAL AND WORLD PEACE.
Zionist regime will be wiped out from the histories pages,(Like USSR wiped out not Russia) Thats what he said and thats what Ayatullah Humeyni said it 30 years ago.
This is misleading and insult to intelligence of American public.
It is real urgency that middle east countries should get Nuclear Bomb as soon as possible to avoid Israel atrocities.
North Korea with a Nuclear bomb is more fanatic then everybody and because of the Bomb they are surviving under great pressure thanks to the bomb.
America sending bad message to the world because of Israel.
Turkey Egypt Iran Saudi will get the Nuclear Bomb because they see whats happened to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thats the reality.
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”
– Bertrand Russell
These lunatics don’t give a crap that their position is illogical, immoral and illegal, they have a sick blood lust, they love the fact they have been responsible for millions of deaths since 2001, and they want more, they are psycopaths. How else can one explain the flawed logic they use in their arguments:
“If Obama doesn’t “stop Iran now,” then he obviously will be responsible for a world war and a new Holocaust.”
So how do you stop Iran? Bombing them and causing…a world war and a new Holocaust, this time Muslims.
These people are mentally ill and seriously so.
Israel can be safe with friendly relations which don,t harm common man. Israelis are their own enemy killing, foltering, occupying and settelments.
If they change their mind set then muslims will forget all the atrocities committed by Jews. I know the safety of Israel is due to conflict otherwisehey will fight each other but time is changing rapidly.
Yeah Hitler was a great man who was saving Germany from the evil communists.
The stop Iran now ads are irresponsible. It assumes that if Chamberlain had not given into Hitler, this would have stopped Hitler. Britain and France were quite unprepared for war at the time, Chamberlain did buy a years time to rearm. Chamberlain’s giving in to Hitler was not responsible for WWII, that would parobably have happened anyway. Pat Buchanan makes the case that had Britain not supported Hitler’s request, which all considered reasonable at the time, for the Polish corridor, then Hitler’s attention woud have been centered on the east and Russia. But that is conjecture, what is fact is the way Germany was treated after WWI and this is what enabled the rise of Hitler. Then too, we appeased Communist Russia several times. We did not go to war over the Berlin Blockade, we did not go to war when Russia retook Hungary. Should we have used those occasions to “stop Communist Russia now?” We didn’t and look how well that turned out for us. These people who want another war are insane.
America is the greatest occupied terriroty, unless it gets liberation, Palestanians cannot. By the way, Iran never attacked any country in 500 years. Its nuclear program is the most transparent in the history of mankind. The president of Iran never said Israel will be wiped out, he however said, Zionists will be wiped out. Tell me one week, just one, where Israeli leaders did not threaten to attack Iran. Not one week. Who are saying all options are on the table. Not Iran. My friends, everything was cruising according to the plan. Zionists were about to go to moon. Then the curve took place. They found Iran and its proxies challenging the atrocities of Israel from nowhere. All the master plan of 200 years seems to be shattering. What happened? The dream of taking over the planet on the platter is crumbled. The defeat in Lebanon in 2006, complimented by American defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan is the turning point. Wheels are turning. The days of nuclear age, the age of fighter planes are gone. Assymetrical warefare has removed all the military superiority. That is the problem.
America has become a fascist regime far worse than anything created by Hitler. During my lifetime we have repeatedly invaded other nations resulting in the death, directly and indirectly, of more than five million human beings. Our government operates in secret, refusing to disclose its operations, and punishes those severely who would dare to provide actual meaningful information to the citizen public. Witness the imprisonment of the military personnel who dared to release a video of the murder civilians recently. We torture, assassinate, manipulate governments and economies, all for the wealthy and powerful. Obama is only the most recent Ivy League Idiot impressed with his ego and authority but possessing neither principles nor morals. He is directly and openly manipulated by the Zionists in his administration and claims the US has a “special relationship” with the radical Zionist regime in Israel, despite that country’s repeated murderous and criminal conduct. “Chosen people” with a “promised land”? Who believes that crap? Why are eight billion of our tax dollars going to a regime which has been characterized as a religious entity and which is openly bigoted, rascist, violent and criminal? The only good thing that has occurred lately is that the Supreme Court has ruled that we have a RIGHT to have weapons AND it has been recognized that at times the public must use violence to take back their government. I do not even possess a firearm, but there may become a time when I feel it is necessary to fight for my country against its rogue government.
Yes, probably the US is worse than Germany. Washington, for one thing, owns the world media, something the Third Reich never achieved. Thus, they have perverted the meaning of words and have manipulated the minds of millions to such an extent that an average intelligent professional in the US really believes the crap that Iran is so irrational they will use the bomb once they get it.
How about ” Keeping Iran safe and stop Israel and US ”
all i know now is that i am living in a facist state called USA, owned and operated by Zionist Israel
The U.S. is worse than the Third Reich? Really? That’s the one problem with this site. It gets more than its fair share of looney-tune commenters.
U S of A & the Israeli State…together… aka the Axis of Chutzpah… “We have met the terrorist and the terrorist is us.” (Thanks for the lift Pogo).
To Mr Harrison I would reply, “No the USA is not worse than the Third Reich, but it is most certianly equal to it in its stench and infamy.”
I would respectfully ask this gentleman how he would categorize a country that murders innocent people abroad for no reason other than to act at the behest of a foreign nation, that shoves the crimes of sodomy and abortion down our throats, that employs confiscatory taxation, that attracts the most shocking bunch of ward-heelers and idiots into political life, that wants to allow weird doctors to practice Frankenstein experiments on unborn children, that is more and more taking away the most basic liberties from its citizens in the name of a bogeyman who may or may not even exist, that allows and encourages the most evil, rapacious form of capitalism imaginable, that publicly honors disgraceful men and actions and, among other things, that has greatly contributed to the utter bankrupting of its citizens?
What would you call a country that does all that and more?
@Jon Harrison:”The U.S. is worse than the Third Reich? Really? That’s the one problem with this site. It gets more than its fair share of looney-tune commenters.”
—Did hitler committed systematic-SUCCESSFUL&FINAL genocides,ethnic cleansings and holocausts against HUNDREDS of native nations? The entire 230 years lousy history of “US”,is nothing but genocides, ethnic cleansings, holocausts, slavery and then spreading its crimes all over the world,with the results of creating a shopping mall the size of a continent! How long did the criminal hitle r last? He did his deeds during a WORLD WAR, which was declared on Germany by another two greatest colonist murderers in the world: Britain and France!
there is no question that israel has right to security. what i wonder if anyone can define what is the special relation between israel and usa . is been reffered to many times and everytime reminds to me of the brotherly relations between the former ussr and the other socialist states today nato members. whoever compare hitler to ahmadinejad is either stupid or amateur. the whole idea about lying and manipulating is to be credible to be succesful. is true a lie gains veridicity by repetition but there is always the reverse of the coin . that is that all these israel lovers may one day with their stupidity and narrowmindness turn the whole world against israel and let s not forget the history has a funny way of repeting itself given the right actors( read imbecils)
As I said, the one problem with this (otherwise excellent) site is the superfluity of looney-tune commenters. The additional comments directed at me illustrate the point. There are some excellent, thoughtful commenters as well (thank goodness), but some pieces really seem to bring the troglodytes out. There’s no apparent rhyme or reason to this; maybe it has something to do with the phases of the moon.
Here we go again, it’s WWII all over again, the war we can never get enough of. What would we do without it ? Hitler, the Nazis, the death camps, and most of Neville Chamberlain. If ever we try to make peace with anybody Neville Chamberlain rises up from the dead like Banquo’s ghost. Thank God for Neville Chamberlain. What would our politicians do without him. Why they’d all look like warmongers, but he makes heroes out of all of ‘em. Yes they’re just dying to save us from the Nazis for the thirteenth hundredth time this decade.
I wonder what word Harrison would use for those who say that all options are on the table, meaning that they are willing to use nuclear weapons on countries who just don’t want to obey the Empire. Aren’t they loonies? Surely, in Harrison’s view, they are the best example of common sense and rationality.
Now, now, you mustn’t put words in my mouth. By the way, who in the U.S. government is advocating nuclear strikes anywhere? Only people with power can talk seriously about what options are on the table. So, is Obama or Biden or Gates or Mullen or Petraeus or anybody else threatening to nuke some country for “failing to obey the Empire?” Please cite your evidence and refrain from emotional displays of unsubstantiated opinion.
This sort of nonsense is the washout from the sad turn America has taken since Dallas. The undoubted failures of the American system have overwhelmed the psyches of the weaker sorts among us, who must resort to monomania, exaggeration, and hysteria to form a picture of the world. They become near-crazy to avoid true insanity. Coping skills for the pathetic, one might say. And one must sympathize with these poor souls, for indeed the government has been nore than a bit crazy these last 47 or so years.
My advice: seek professional help, or a monastery.
Actually jon, not only do you have holes in your logic, but you need to read more. The US in it’s strategic assessment/whatever under Bush stated that we WOULD use nukes in a first strike capacity against our enemies. At that very same time Bush coined the term Axis of Evil.
That demonizing of Iran set back the reform movement, essentially bringing Ahmednijhad (sp) to power. Moussavi was president of Iran at the time, they were and even still continued to cooperate with US and NATO in Afghanistan.
There was one other nuclear threat, these were nuclear tipped bunker busting bombs which were said to be specially designed for Iran’s underground nuclear program.
These events VOIDED the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The first and principle article of the Nuclear NPT is that Nuclear armed powers would not threaten non-Nuclear armed countries with nukes. Israel’s inclusion or rogue status regarding NPT is irrelevant. Nuclear threats justify nukes. We’ve done as much as possible to undermine this principle without openly and clearly threatening to turn Iran to glass.
As to loony-toons commentors and faulty logic, you ad hominem attack(s) certainly prove your claim.
It seems, Harrison, you are one of those who believe everybody is like you: brainwashed. Are you ready to eat your words? http://warnewsupdates.blogspot.com/2010/06/gates-all-options-on-table-to-prevent.html If you care, this link precisely shows Gates saying all options are on the table regarding Iran. Perhaps, despite the evidence, you will refuse it. So maybe you should read an Israeli publication http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3716807,00.html In the age of Internet, people cannot afford being fools with information; however, some never learn, right Harrison?
israel is america/america is israel..jews now controlling america..so whats the different between two of it?america is israels proxy..
Iran had better be stopped and stopped soon. If Iran gets the bomb nobody will be safe.