This post from the old blog is four years old, but it still pretty interesting in how it lays out neoconservative machinations in Iraq and goes into great details about the Sephardic Jewish community in the Mediterranean, particularly in Greece. This research was done to try to determine whether or not John Negroponte was Jewish, as asserted by some prominent anti-Semite “progressives” on the Net. As it turns out, he’s not Jewish at all. Apparently he’s a Greek Orthodox Christian. However, the name Negroponte can be a Sephardic Jewish name too, and it has links back to the history of the Sephardic Jews in Greece and Romania. This Jewish community is little-known, so some of you into Judaica might find it interesting. An old news story from four years ago blasted, “Syria Undermining Iraq’s Stability”. Robert Zoellick, a horrible Zionist Jew neoconservative who thirsts for Arab and Muslim blood, is the source of this “statement”. Zoellick, along with Zionist neoconservative Arab-killer John Negroponte, now the US ambassador to Iraq, was the latest neoconservative outrage to be shoved down the unwilling throats of the Iraqi people. Although the notion of whether or not Negroponte is Jewish is somewhat controversial – for instance, the popular Amygdala blog and the (now apparently defunct) blog Spookspot, both disagree – the balance of the evidence, so far ,Note May 2006: One year after I wrote this article, I no longer feel that Negroponte is Jewish. If he were, I think we would have heard about it by now. I feel that Negroponte is exactly what he says he is – a Greek Orthodox Christian. It is still possible, though not very relevant, that he may have Jewish roots. For that matter, many of us may have Jewish roots. But the major source for the notion that Negroponte is Jewish, Ghali Hassan, is, in my opinion, a proven liar and propagandist. I advise readers to take anything the intellectually dishonest Arab nationalist sophist Hassan says with a massive grain of salt. And Counterpunch needs to quit publishing this proven liar. Nevertheless, I still think this article has a lot of fascinating info about the Sephardic Greek Jewish community. Have fun reading it! The fact that a few leftwing writers have pointed out that Negroponte may be Jewish when he was selected as top Intel Czar and then later as the outrageous US Ambassador to Iraq has been noticed by some right wing bloggers and denounced as, you guessed it, “anti-Semitism”. See the obsessively Zionist Indymedia Watch (on the ambassador selection) and the conservative blog ColdHearted Truth (on the Intel Czar selection) for examples. As suggestive evidence, the name “Negroponte” is also the former name of the capital of Evoia Island, Chalkis; this link also contains a number of photos and paintings of synagogues, Jewish cemeteries and Jewish relics from Chalkis. The city acquired this name during the Venetian Domination, the period after Venetians conquered the island, which lasted from 1205-1470. This city is the only Jewish community in Europe that has been living in the same place for 2,500 years. The Jews on this island were very assimilated. De la Negroponte is the Italian name for Evoia; it is also a Venetian Italian surname from the 14th century. This city, Negroponte, was also a major destination for Turkish Jews fleeing the Ottoman conquest of Turkey and subsequent persecution of Jews, as described by a Jewish doctor from Istanbul, who fled to Negroponte with many other Jews in 1455. Furthermore, “Negroponte” is also the name of an ancient Jewish cemetery in Romania dating from the 14th Century; “Negroponte” was also the surname of a prominent Romanian Jewish family in that area. A famous Jewish author, born in Heraklion, Crete, toward the end of the 1100’s, was called “R. Chemarya of Negroponte“. A famous early translation of Genesis was done by a Greek Jew, Shemariah of Negroponte (1328-46). Shemariah was trying to bridge the gap between the Karaites and the Rabbinites. The evidence suggests that the name “Negroponte” may be a Romanian and Greek Jewish name dating from 14th and 15th Centuries. On the other hand, it is probably also a Greek Orthodox name too. Back to Zoellick and Negroponte. These dual outrages – the neoconservative Negroponte appointed as an ambassador to Iraq, the Jewish Zoellick making high-profile appearances in Iraq – were concocted deliberately by a single group of people. That group is the Zionist neoconservative Jews and their Zionist Gentile allies who have infiltrated our government and have successfully managed to take over at best or wield massive control over at worst, under George Bush, all of US Mideast foreign policy, and some of US non-Mideast foreign policy, for the Jewish-Israeli Lobby. Why were these deeply offensive moves done? In order to understand this, we need to understand the psychology of both the largely Jewish neocons and Jewish history and psychology in general. As a tribal people, indeed, as the most tribal humans on Earth, the Jews have a long history of this sort of thing. Jewish history tells us that the Jews have been noted for harboring endless grudges against whoever wronged them, even 2500 years in the past. It’s typical Jewish behavior to pine endlessly for defeat of any and all enemies, ancient or modern, to right the wrong done to the Jews, no matter how long ago. “Never forgive, never forget” was not invented with the Shoah – it’s classical Jewish psychology, and it doesn’t apply only to Nazis, it applies to any group that ever wronged the Jews. After defeating an enemy, Jewish history tells us that Jews have often tried to wipe out the collective culture and history of the adversary. This may explain the lackadaisical attitude the neocons took towards the looting and destruction of much of Iraq’s history and infrastructure. In addition, I have noticed that Jews seem to delight in utterly humiliating their enemies after they surrender. In fact, if an individual Jew ends a friendship with you after he suspects the slightest anti-Semitism (a very common occurrence) they usually will only accept you (if at all) again after forcing you to utterly humble and humiliate yourself at the feet of the Jews. This ties into the Jewish uber-tribal view of humanity, in which there are three categories of people – Jews (the only really important people in the world), non-Jews (people who barely exist in the human world, or are at least not important to it – kind of like the wild animals in your country lot), and enemies of the Jews – a vast, ever changing, always growing, undifferentiated mass of humanity. Not all Jews hold this tripartite worldview, but many do, particularly the Orthodox. A solid majority of US Jews (about 8
There is also a third category – suspected enemies of the Jews. For all practical purposes, these are nearly as bad as the enemies. Less assimilated, more traditional Jews will tend more towards the traditional tripartite world, more assimilated Jews will tend more towards the dual worldview and the most assimilated Jews will be like the rest of us and hardly trouble themselves with anti-Semites at all. The enemies are lumped together as “the people who threw us in the gas chambers” – everyone from the person who utters the slightest Jewish-critical remark to the most deranged genocidal Nazis – the Jews, in their blindness, see them all as one. The enemies are endlessly cultivated and provoked into greater and greater extremism, in part due to a Jewish need for as many enemies as possible, of maximum virulence. Jews do something I have never seen any other ethnic group do. If they feel you are anti-Semitic (often a false characterization) or anti-Israel even in the slightest, they will often immediately end the friendship or business-professional relationship with you, forever. At the very least the temperature of the relationship will grow colder. Completely unforgiving, totally black and white, no gray area. If these Jews continue in some professional relationship with you, they will sometimes try to screw you in order to “get back at the anti-Semitic enemy” – which is why it’s a bad idea to piss off your Jewish lawyer. As noted above, they may take you back if you debase yourself enough at their proud feet, but you will always retain a taint of suspicion. Jewish qualities of vengefulness, vindictiveness, a Manichean mindset, hypersensitivity to criticism, us versus them thinking, obsession with enemies, provocation of enemies, need for victimhood, and desire to humiliate the crushed enemies are some of the most extreme examples of these behaviors I have seen in any human group. I’m going to submit that there is something pathological about these extreme behaviors. A more important question is: What is the explanation for the Jewish behaviors above? A variety of explanations have been offered for the Jewish behaviors above, along with other Jewish behaviors deemed objectionable by non-Jews. The standard, classical anti-Semitic line is that Jews are just plain damn evil. The racial anti-Semitic view is that Jews are not only evil – they are born evil, their evilness is genetic, and it’s bred right into their genome – this was the Nazi line. The Islamist line is that it is due to the Jewish religion, a religion that causes ornery and malicious behavior due to its innate characteristics. Christian anti-Semitism also focuses on the Jewish religion as the source of these behaviors. Catholic anti-Semitism will lay furious blame on the Jews’ role in killing Jesus, a crime that, according to this doctrine, the Jews can never live down. These explanations also differ in the possibility of Jewish redemption. The racial point of view says that since Jewish evilness is bred in the Jewish genome, there is no solution but expulsion, conflict, restriction of Jewish rights, homicide, or genocide. The Jew is hopeless, at the least; we must separate ourselves from him. The Christian and Muslim points of view see the Jewish religion as the source of these behaviors, hence, conversion to Christianity or Islam is sufficient to redeem and purify the Jew of his objectionable Jewish characteristics. All of these explanations are interesting, some are just wrong, and most have elements of truth in them somewhere, but none of them seem sufficient to explain the behaviors described above. Look at those characteristics – extreme vengefulness, vindictiveness, Manichean mindset, hypersensitivity to criticism, us and them mindset, obsession with enemies, provocation of enemies, need for victimhood and desire to humiliate the crushed enemy. Careful, thoughtful analysis shows us that those are characteristics of human tribalism, clannishness or ethnocentrism (same thing). Note: Not Jewish tribalism, but human tribalism. This is an important point to make, since so much anti-Semitism seeks to make the Jew appear non-human. The tribalism of Jews, the most extreme tribalism of any human ethnic group, is simply human tribalism, and these “Jewish” behaviors can easily be revealed as human behaviors once we open our minds and try to see these same qualities in non-Jews. The purpose of this little excursion into Jewish history and psychology is to shed some light on so many things about this Iraq War that seem to defy understanding. If we plug our new found understanding of Jewish hypertribalism into the largely Jewish neoconservative movement, more and more lights wink on and things seem even clearer. When we recognize that the (largely Jewish) neoconservative War on Terror battle plan has nothing to do with spreading democracy, the blurred lines get even clearer. Off the record, many neoconservatives have admitted that the purpose of the War on Terror is simply a war on the Islamic religion. In order to set off this war, neoconservatives seek to do precisely those things that are designed to humiliate and infuriate the Muslims most of all. In off-record comments, neocons have admitted that what they really desire is not democracy but the radicalization of the Islamic World. Why would anyone want something so counterproductive? In order to “smack the hornet’s nest”, to “get the enemies to show us their true colors”, and to “get the enemies out in the open where we can destroy them” – that’s why. At the moment, most Islamic countries cannot be attacked by the neocons, because Islamic hostility to the US and Israel, officially anyway, is somewhat hidden. The neocons hope that by radicalizing the world’s Muslims, Muslims will be turned into a worthy, evil target that the neocons will be justified in attacking. In the same fashion, Israel undermined the PLO and promoted Hamas in order to give the enemy an evil face and weaken the more moderate PLO, whose relative moderation threatened to gather world support. The neocons hope this provocation will set off a religious war of the West, or really the Jews and whatever Christian and maybe Hindu allies the Jews can round up, versus the radicalized, evil Muslims. I know that sounds insane, but bear with me. The neocons realize that this will be a long, hard, drawn-out war, but they make the analogy of the Cold War. The war against Islam will last for maybe 40 years, the neocons figure, but they assume that, like the Cold War, the West will come out on top. In the end, Islam will be defeated and the Islamic religion will be transformed into a neutered, harmless version of itself. Once we recognize the outlines of the neocon conspiracy and trace its roots to Jewish ultratribalist psychology and history, so many things start making sense. Shoving Jay Garner, the arch-Zionist general from JINSA, down Iraq’s throat. Desecration of the Koran – stomping on it, tossing it in the toilet. For Muslim POW’s – forced nudity, nude human pyramids, exposure to dogs, blasting with “immoral” rock music, forcing Muslim women to undress, forced eating of pork, forced watching of US jailers having sex. The outrageous new Iraqi flag that looks suspiciously like the Israeli flag. Having a US Jewish Zionist run the new Occupation regime’s radio network (Norman Pattiz’s Radio Sawa). The deliberate US plot to wipe out of Iraq’s cultural history and infrastructure. Sending an uber-Zionist neocon (Negroponte) to Iraq as an ambassador. Attempts to force Iraq to recognize Israel or sign a peace treaty with Israel. The delighted, repeated, floating in the media of the Israeli plan to rebuild a pipeline from Kirkuk, Iraq to Haifa, Israel. Major construction of 14 permanent US military bases in Iraq, whether the Iraqis want them or not. Outrageous plans to turn over most of Iraq’s public property to rich foreign investors and wipe out most Iraqi private businesses, all at once. Loud plans to privatize Iraq’s oil industry. The loud demands of the expatriate Iraqi Jews to be compensated for the money and property left when they were evicted from Iraq so long ago. Sending a super-Zionist Jew, Zoellick, to Iraq on frequent, in your face, junkets to Iraq. The deliberate destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure, so it can be rebuilt at maximum cost by US companies. The destruction of the Michael Aflaq (a founder of the Baath Party) statue in Baghdad. The faked humiliating capture of Saddam Hussein in a spiderhole, when he was actually caught in a firefight with US and Kurdish forces, defending himself with a pistol, 2 days before. The humiliation of a US Army doctor searching Saddam for lice. The deliberate opening of the uberZionist Mossad office, MEMRI, right in the heart of Baghdad. The smashing up the Palestinian Embassy in Baghdad and the arrests of Palestinian diplomats, for no apparent reason, by US troops. The flooding of Iraq with mismarked Israeli products, camouflaged and marked by treasonous Jordanian partners – the mentality is – we will force the Iraqis to buy Israeli products. The deliberate US bombing of mosques, the outrageous attack on the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, and on and on. The reason for all of these baffling, seemingly counterproductive US-Zionist behaviors becomes crystal clear when we see their genesis in Jewish hypertribal thinking and the related neocon efforts to provoke the Islamic World into a World War 3, so the Muslims can be beaten once and for all. Now, moving on, what of Zoellick’s charges? They are deeply problematic. First of all, Syria has caught more jihadis trying to cross into Iraq than Jordan or Saudi Arabia combined. The Saudis support, at least ideologically, the Sunni Salafists, who play such a major role in the insurgency. Jordan, while hostile to Salafism, has a majority fundamentalist Parliament, and is strongly Sunni chauvinist. If you go to downtown Amman, you find it crowded with Iraqis, many of them Sunni refugees of Saddam’s regime. Many of these people have links to the Sunni insurgency. These Sunni Baathists do not bother to conceal their utter delight in the chaos caused by the Iraqi insurgency; such is their furious hatred of the present Shia regime. Indeed, most every Arab Sunni state is so terrified of the Shia government in Iraq that they are surely rooting for the Sunni insurgency. Jordan and Saudi Arabia have done little or nothing to stop guerrillas crossing into Iraq. There are 2,500 Saudis in Iraq now, and they get official sanction and approval from state preachers. By contrast, the Syrian regime is a Shia Alawi regime. In fact, Alawis are a minority, very divergent Shia sect who have been treated like little more than slaves by their Sunni neighbors for centuries. Highly secular, the Alawis have long had to constantly ward off accusations of not being Muslims, or of being apostates. It would seem the Syrian regime would have little reason to support Sunni fundamentalism. In fact, of all the nearby Arab nations, Syria has been by far the most hostile to Sunni Salafism. The Syrian government attack on the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood Salafists in the city of Hama in 1982 killed some 20,000 residents. Syrian prisons are full of Sunni fundamentalists, and the Syrian regime is the most secular Muslim regime in the region. Further, the Syrians have arrested quite a few jihadis trying to head into Iraq, as opposed to Jordan or Saudi Arabia, who have arrested few or none. On the other hand, the Zionist-dominated US is intent on overthrowing the Syrian government, and, conversely, the US government is not conspiring to overthrow any other Arab government, including the Saudis or the Jordanians. In addition, part of the neocon conspiracy is to use the US base in Iraq to attack surrounding regimes, especially defiant Iran and Syria. Therefore, the Syrians have exactly zero reason to cooperate with the US in keeping guerrillas out of Iraq, since they get nothing in return, and since the US troops in Iraq are a major, demonstrable threat to the nation of Syria. The reasons for all of this finger-pointing at Syria, while ignoring, say, the Wahhabi regime in Arabia, are obvious. The Occupation of Iraq, on balance, looks pretty bad. The neocon plan was to overthrow the Iraqi regime quickly and then give Iraq a US-Zionist makeover as some sort of a spearhead to redraw the map of the Middle East and force major culture and political change in the region. Instead, Iraq is a catastrophe; a horrible, chaotic mess, a failed state torn apart by the most savage Arab insurgency in decades. When humans are stuck in a lousy situation, they tend to blame others; it’s a classic defensive psychological reaction. Rather than admit that many of the Iraqi people are in open revolt against the US Occupiers and what they as their Iraqi lackeys, the neocons have come up with a new theory. The theory is that all of the mess in Iraq is due to the existence of the Iranian and especially the Syrian regimes, who, alone, are creating the insurgency and wreaking havoc on the peaceful, lovable, Occupation-loving, Judeophilic, Zionist-enamored Iraqi people, who are just dying to become the 51st state of the US and sign a peace treaty with Israel. This laughably dishonest theory, reeking with psychological defense, is quite useful: it gives the neocons an excellent reason to try to overthrow, one way or another, Iran and Syria, who are the last two state enemies of Israel. The theory is: as long as the Syrian and Iranian regimes are not overthrown, the Iraqi insurgency will rage on. These accusations are simply part of the propaganda campaign being waged as part of a US-Israeli conspiracy to overthrow the defiant governments of Iran and Syria. This research takes a lot of time, and I do not get paid anything for it. If you think this website is valuable to you, please consider a a contribution to support more of this valuable research.