Israel And 9-11

By Wendy Campbell

The time has come
To say fair’s fair
To pay the rent
To pay our share
The time has come
A fact’s a fact
It belongs to them
Lets give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep when our beds are burning

The time has come
A fact’s a fact
It belongs to us all
Lets give it back

- Lyrics to “Beds Are Burning” by Midnight Oil
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10BbpGKLXqk

The time has come for me to finally write about my experience with The Jewish Voice for
Peace (JVP) beginning back in 2001 shortly after the tragic events of 9-11.

I had already begun to learn the Truth about racist, apartheid Israel shortly after the
Second Intifada (uprising or “shaking off” in Arabic) in September 2000 during a lunch
break from my job at the time, while I was listening to the famous progressive
Berkeley-based KPFA radio station. What I heard mesmerized me. When I reached the
parking lot at my workplace and parked my car, I couldn’t get out of the car because
I felt compelled to listen to the entire interview between an Israeli, a Palestinian and an
American with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What I was hearing were
things the mainstream US media never really addresses nor rarely reveals to the
American public: mainly the conflict as seen from the Palestinian point of view,
as well as from an objective point of view (the American non-Zionist interviewer).

I also learned from this interview certain generally hidden facts such how the Israeli
prime minister Yitzshak Rabin, who was really going to make some important
concessions with the Palestinians in order for Israel to finally take some real steps
towards justice and peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, was assassinated
in 1995 by an extremist Zionist Jewish Israeli. That act completely halted any
genuine peace process since then, so the assassin’s motive for killing him was
achieved. Obviously this man’s ideology has a strong support base because ever
since then, the “peace process” has never seriously been revived. The “peace process”,
which is completely dominated and controlled by Israel, and backed by its supporters
in the US government, is really just a “stalling process”, while the ethic-cleansing
campaign continues unabetted. Contrary to what the Israelis claim, the Palestinians
have no “partner in peace” in the Israelis, who have not stopped stealing more Palestinian
land nor their collective punishment against all Palestinians via crippling roadblocks,
turning off electricity and water supplies at will for long lengths of time, and basically literally
starving the Palestinians in what amounts to huge open-air concentration camps.

The only thing that can stop this madness is for the USA to stop all manner of support to
Israel and for everyone to boycott apartheid Israel, just as apartheid South Africa was boycotted.

At any rate, much of my experience about this time can be found in my first ever
political article, which is entitled “Why I Am A Pro-Palestinian Activist” and at the
website for my tiny media company
MarWen Media. You can find the link at: http://www.marwenmedia.com/
articles_images/WhyIAmProPal.html

However until now, I have never written about my experience with the Jewish
Voice for Peace, which I had discovered shortly after 9-11 from a flyer I had
picked up at La Pena Cultural Center when I had attended an excellent slideshow
entitled “Face of the Occupation” which was presented by Penny Rosenwasser of
MECA (Middle East Children’s Alliance) which is directed by Penny’s partner,
Barbara Lubin, an anti-Zionist of Jewish heritage. Penny is also active in the JVP.
She calls herself a Zionist, but I think this is simply just because of a deep desire
on her part to be close to her Jewish community, most of whom are Zionists.

Her slideshow was the inspiration for my first documentary
“Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid”. Penny Rosenwasser, a Jewish American peace
and human rights activist, was very generous to me, allowing me to film her
slideshow with my video camcorder and even giving me a copy of a photo she took of
a Jews-only by-pass road in Israel, where Palestinians are shot and/or arrested if they
are caught trying to use it. Of course there are no signs there which say
“No Palestinians Allowed” because that would broadcast the fact that Israel is an
apartheid country by putting it in writing, confirming the obvious.

For more details on these apartheid roads in Israel
including that photo, see http://www.marwenmedia.com/articles_images
/ApartheidIsraelRoads.html

Her slideshow and this photo of the apartheid by-pass road for Jews-only
are featured prominently in my documentary. When I premiered my documentary
“Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid” at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley,
California, the very place where I saw her slide show about a year earlier,
I donated half of the proceeds to the Middle East Children’s Alliance.

At any rate, I discovered the Jewish Voice for Peace from that flyer at her slide show and
decided to try to attend one of their meetings, since it was the only group of any sort that
I knew about which was discussing Middle East politics. At that time, most Americans
were simply clueless about Israel and the Middle East in general. I should know. I used to
be one of them.

I showed up at the doorstep of the house in Berkeley where a meeting of the Jewish
Voice for Peace was being held sometime in early November 2001 and asked the greeter
at the door if I was “allowed” to attend even if I am not Jewish . The person let me in.

I found myself seated next to Prof. Joel Beinin, who teaches at Stanford University
and the University of California at Berkeley. We chatted before the meeting began. He
was very nice and informative. In fact, he told me he was going to give some lectures
about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a class at the UC Berkeley and when I expressed
an interest in attending it as a guest, he gave me his permission. I did show up with my
camcorder and filmed the entire lecture. Unfortunately, I was just getting used to my
camcorder and the quality is not not great, so I did not include any of it in my documentary
“Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid”. (Note: Ultra hardcore Zionist and Islamaphobic
David Horowitz has relentlessly slandered Prof. Beinin for his activism with JVP and beyond.)

Anyway, everyone was seated in the crowded room, in chairs, sofas and on the floor.
Lincoln Shlensky sat on the floor in the middle of the crowded room. He was one of the
original members and leaders of the Jewish Voice for Peace, which was formed in 1996,
after the provocative opening by the Netanyahu government of an archaeological tunnel
under Jerusalem's Temple Mount, which led directly to confrontations in which 65 Palestinians
and 14 Israelis were killed. After that conflict seemed to settle down a bit during yet another
sham of a “peace process”, the Jewish Voice for Peace basically disbanded. However,
shortly after 9-11-01, the group was resurrected again, apparently to deal some damage
control.

One astute observer of the Jewish political scene has made the reasonable statement
that if the JVP didn’t exist, then the Likuds would have invented it themselves for creating
good PR for Israel, but really nothing much more than that, in that there is no positive
change in the direction that Israel has embarked on since day one with regards to the human
rights of the non-Jewish native Palestinians.

“ANYONE WHO THINKS ISRAEL HAS
ANYTHING TO DO WITH 9-11 IS NAÏVE.”

says JVP Leader Lincoln Shlensky, a pleasant Jewish man, a student at UC Berkeley and
who seemed to be in his mid-30s, twisted himself left and right in order to look around the
room and make eye-contact with everyone as he opened the meeting with the proclamation
that “anyone who thinks that Israel has anything to do with 9-11 is naïve.”

Hmmm… I thought to myself. Very interesting. If this was indeed the case, why are we even
here? It immediately seemed to me like a bit of self-deception at best and deliberate deception
at worst. It quickly became obvious to me that the Jewish Voice for Peace was really
basically about doing damage control with regards to Israel’s obvious role in 9-11 and they
were running interference for any attempts to blame or criticize Israel in any way for the
9-11 attacks.

At that time, I believed, like many others, that 9-11 was blowback as a result from the
unjust US foreign policy in the Middle East which is basically blind, unconditional support for
Israel. This includes funneling billions of US tax dollars yearly in cash and in military aid to Israel,
as well as providing diplomatic cover and even military cover as demanded by Israel.
This is despite the fact that aggressive and war-mongering Israel, which is a racist,
apartheid, Jewish supremacist state is built upon an on-going campaign of ethnic-cleansing
of non-Jewish native Palestinians from their own land, homes and businesses. Israel
habitually breaks International Laws and UN Resolutions, since day one of its existence in
1948 when it began the process of wiping Palestine off the map, with the consent of the
ruling international political elites at the time.

It was only until about 2003 to 2004 that I came to believe that Israeli agents actually played
a direct role in making 9-11 happen, as in Larry Silverstein allowing the Mossad
to plant explosives in the World Trade Center buildings which brought them down on that
fateful day. Not only did WTC buildings 1 and 2 implode/explode but so did building 7
which was not even hit by a jet. This is really the smoking gun. But more about that later.

I had begun to study in depth about the true nature of racist, apartheid Israel beginning
with a little booklet I had picked up that night at La Pena when I went to Penny
Rosenwasser’s slideshow “The Face of the Occupation”. This highly recommended
and well-known booklet is entitled “Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict”. It was written by
Jews for Justice in the Middle East. I found it spell-binding, and it can be printed out in PDF
form or just read it at http://www.cactus48.com

Anyway, back to that first JVP meeting. Although I didn’t agree with Lincoln’s
proclamation about the innocence of Israel with regards to 9-11, I felt that I maybe
I could learn more about it all and even partner up with some Jewish people who might
feel the way I did on some political activist activities.

Talk about being naïve! That didn’t happen, although I really gave it the good girl scout try.

At that time, JVP didn’t even have a brochure! I was surprised at how they basically just sat
around talking or you could say, kvetching, about how they felt. Really it was basically just
a big therapy session for them, to manage their anxieties, their feelings of guilt, and worries
about how this would all affect the Jewish community, the Jewish state of Israel and its
relationship with its sponsor and benefactor, the United States of America.

I was ready for taking some real actions, as in printing up some postcards to hand out to
educate the American public and to mail to politicians about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
At that time, I was actually wanting to promote the Two-State Solution, two separate states
of Israel and Palestine, because at that time I thought that was the more “realistic” solution.
When I tried to enlist the help of others on the JVP’s subcommittee of “Stop US Military
Aid to Israel” to help me pay for some postcards to be printed up promoting the
Two-State Solution (since I worked at a printing company, and would get a discounted
price on printing them) I got no takers. In fact, one Jewish woman at JVP even ridiculed my
efforts. So I decided to take a different tact and got some other activists and friends outside
of the JVP to help me pay for the postcards calling for the Two-State Solution based on the 1967 borders. When I asked the leaders of JVP if I could reference their website on the
postcard, even just to say “For more information”, not claim “Endorsed by JVP”, they said
N-O. No way. I was perplexed and getting discouraged with them and their lack of a
sense of urgency about doing anything or making a strong stand on anything besides just
saying they were “against the occupation”, which is akin to saying you are against rape
but not sexism.

Some of the members of JVP began to make it clear that I was not really welcome to be
there, especially Joel Beinin’s wife Miriam, and another woman, and a couple of the men, too.
So I stopped going to their meetings.

To be fair, some members of JVP were exceptionally kind, generous and open to me.
And perhaps many of them are as clueless as your average American. But unlike your
average American, they are committed to maintaining Israel as a Jewish supremacist
state. Anyway, the time had come for me to part ways with the Jewish Voice for Peace.

I later became an advocate of the One-Democratic State solution, after realizing that the
Two-State Solution is really just official apartheid, shortly before I made my documentary
“Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid” in 2003, and I had some postcards made up
advocating the One-Democratic State solution for disseminating to the public and politicians.

Later I ran into a JVP member at an event screening a documentary about the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and I said hello to him. He was very cold to me and mentioned
that he had heard that I was getting “radical”, to which I said, I guess you could say that
(according to some people that might seem true, but not to me) , but I am NOT violent.
Then he said darkly, “You better be careful.” It sounded like he said it as a threat to me
rather than out of concern for my safety.

I have long since abandoned any attempts to seek approval or permission from Jewish people
with regards to my activism efforts. I act only based on my beliefs in The Golden Rule,
the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus Christ. I don’t need to managed
by Jews, although some of them seem to think I do. I avoid seeing everything through a
Jewish filter by avoiding as much as possible the US mainstream media. I do read it
or watch it occasionally just to keep current of the latest propaganda, but I get most of
my news from a wide variety of sources on the internet, sometimes even from the website
of the progressive Israeli newspaper the Ha’aretz. I also count myself as fortunate to have
some good Jewish friends who are also activists in seeking justice, freedom, equality,
peace and security for the Palestinian people.

FIRST SEED PLANTED WITH REGARDS TO 9-11 AS THE INSIDE JOB

I first heard about 9-11 being an inside job from a flyer that was being disseminated at
some anti-war rally by some activists in San Francisco on behalf of Lyndon LaRouche, a
political figure who has run for president numerous times. The flyer just said something
about how the US government was involved with making 9-11 happen and that the Arab
terrorists were just patsies. At first I was just flabbergasted! I even called up a
representative for LaRouche and questioned him about this bizarre assertion.
After I finished talking with this man, I hung up, still shaking my head, still thinking
it was really far-fetched. However, the seed had been planted and it started to slowly grow.

On July 4, 2003, I attended a 9-11 Truth event at an artsy building where many kinds of
creative and alternative events regularly occur in the Mission district of San Francisco.
At that time, my belief that 9-11 was indeed an INSIDE JOB by elements in our own
government had fully blossomed.

Then, as the extremely convincing evidence kept pouring in about the use of explosives
to bring down the World Trade Centers which were owned by neocon Larry Silverstein who
is best friends with the Israeli ex-Prime Minister Netanyahu (one of the authors of PNAC),
along with the reports of the “dancing Israeli spies”, the warnings made to the Israeli Mossad
front company Odigo in the World Trade Center, Mossad agent Dominic Suter and his
Urban Moving Systems with his van with explosives, the Fox News 4-part series on “Israeli
Spying in the US” which was later spiked from its archives, the manifesto of the neocons’
Project for New American Century, I have become totally convinced that along with
Americans Bush, Cheney, and Israeli-Americans Wolfowitz, Perle and their neocon
cohorts, that Israeli agents played a major role in “making it happen” with regards to
the 9-11 attacks. The free-fall collapse of Building 7 was really the biggest smoking gun,
along with Larry Silverstein’s video-taped admission about it being “pulled”, which can be
easily found on the internet. The fact that the government and the mainstream media have
refused to address any of this in any meaningful way confirms my conclusions shared
by many others, that there is a cover-up of 9-11 as an inside job and the apparent
Israeli connection as well.

I have reached my conclusions in a way that is very similar to the account by Ryan
Dawson at this URL: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/9-11neocon.php

Another book that really lays it on the line with all the evidence and proof is “9-11 Evil”
by Victor Thorne and Lisa Guiliani available at: http://www.wingtv.net/911evil.html

There are by now lots of books and many DVDs that really make the case for 9-11 having
been an INSIDE JOB, although many do not mention the Israeli connection directly or at all
in some cases, mainly due out of fear of retaliation and being smeared by the common
smear words used by shills for Israel towards anyone who dares to criticize the Jewish
state of Israel, Zionism and its political supporters. The typical, predictable smear words
include” “anti-Semite”, “nazi”, “hitler”, “holocaust denier”, “white supremacist”, which are
certainly all completely untrue accusations with regards to myself and are generally
untrue with regards to anyone who is smeared as such by Israel-firsters. It’s just a
method the Israel-firsters use to attempt to intimidate anyone from criticizing Israel and
Zionism, in an all out dirty effort to maintain the status quo with regards to US support
for the Jewish supremacist state of Israel.

But more and more people are forging ahead with criticizing Israel and its racist policies
anyway because their sense of moral consciousness speaks to them much more loudly
than any Zionist thug ever could. For example, President Jimmy Carter and the
Professors Walt and Mearsheimer have had to endure such smears even though their
criticisms of Israel and its ardent supporters were rather milk toast.

ANYONE WHO DOESN’T THINK THAT THERE IS AN ISRAELI
CONNECTION TO 9-11 IS NAÏVE says Wendy Campbell

In concluding this article, to come full circle, I would like to make the proclamation
that anyone who DOESN’T think that Israel was involved with 9-11 is naïve, at best.

*****

(For the record, as per their website and its mission statement, the JVP does not
advocate for the one-democratic state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
where all its residents would enjoy completely equal rights regardless of religion, ethnicity
or race; nor does JVP support a boycott of Israel similar to the boycott of apartheid South
Africa; nor does it make a stand for supporting the Palestinian refugees’ Right to Return
to their ancestral homeland as equals. In other words, the JVP cleverly and deceptively
avoids these issues with smoke and mirrors, making only ambiguous statements, all
the while trying to place all the blame for Israel’s racist policies on the USA.

Just for one example of their deceptive ” blame game” while trying to maintain their
innocence of playing any part in Israel’s sins : they bought shares of the Caterpillar company
which manufactures the vehicles which Israelis use to demolish thousands of Palestinian
homes, orchards and businesses every year, so that the JVP can go to Caterpiller’s
investor meetings to complain about Caterpillar’s sales to Israel, when the JVP should
really just put pressure on Israel and the Jewish settlers there to stop buying these
Caterpillar vehicles and to stop using them to demolish Palestinian homes,
orchards and businesses. The Caterpillar tractors don’t demolish Palestinian
property on their own- they are operated by Zionists! In other words, the JVP
are essentially themselves Zionists who do not want to disturb the status quo with
regards to maintaining US economic support for Israel as the Jewish supremacist state
that it is, nor does the JVP recognize or address the racist nature of Zionism, nor
do they consistently directly criticize their brethren and the leaders in Israel.

The JVP also decry the use of the words which accurately describe Israeli policies
and actions including apartheid, ethnic-cleansing and genocide. Simply put, the JVP
wishes to preserve the Jewish supremacist nature of the state of Israel but place the
blame on others, specifically the US, for the inevitable strife and injustices that are
created as a result of the racist ideology of Zionism.)

Wendy Campbell is an American human rights activists whose documentaries include:
“Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid”, “Rosa Remembers Palestine”, “Neturei Karta: Jews
Against Zionism”, and “Syria: Land of Friendly People and Hidden Treasure”. Her many
articles have been published on a wide variety of websites and newspapers (google:
“Wendy Campbell Palestine Israel”) and
also appear at her websites: http://www.marwenmedia.com and
http://www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com She can be reached at info@marwenmedia.com