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Obama Calls for Cooperation.

In his first address to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 23, President Barack Obama signaled an end to the unilateralism that characterized the George W. Bush administration, and asked other nations for help in solving world crises. “Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone,” he said. Calling for a new era of cooperation, Obama added, “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges” including war, nuclear proliferation, economic distress and environmental crisis.

No Nukes Is Good Nukes.

Obama called on all nations to permit unrestricted inspections of their nuclear facilities. Also in New York for the opening of the General Assembly, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told editors of The Washington Post and Newsweek (owned by the Post) that Tehran was willing to have its nuclear experts meet with U.S. scientists and other world powers to discuss its nuclear program. Regarding a similar offer from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel, which has an estimated 200 nuclear weapons...

We’re Not Holding Our Breath.

After all, the would-be-state-for-Jews-only seems committed to violating international law—with its illegal West Bank settlements, illegal apartheid wall built on Palestinian land, illegal war crimes committed against imprisoned civilians, illegal violations of the Geneva Conventions, and on and on—because Zionism, apparently, trumps international law.

Telling It Like It Is.

According to an article by Eli Lake in the Sept. 22 Washington Times, “Israel makes secret offer on settlements,” Prime Minister Netanyahu’s media adviser, Nir Hefetz, told Israeli radio on the eve of Netanyahu’s meeting at the U.N. with Presidents Barack Obama and Mahmoud Abbas that the Israeli prime minister “would not support a settlement freeze, because he considers the settlements to be a ”˜Zionist enterprise.’” Somehow it seems that...

We’ve Heard That Phrase Before.

It seems, in fact, that it used to be considered “anti-Semitic.” But we applaud Mr. Hefetz for his accuracy in not describing Israel’s illegal settlements as a “Jewish enterprise.” May we thus surmise that the presentIsraeli government does not buy into the false allegation that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism? Because that’s what we call progress!

On the Other Hand...

President Obama’s Sept. 22 meeting inNew York with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas was preceded by a spate of news stories downplaying any chances of success. The reason, of course, was rarely specified (except by Israeli spokesmen): Israel’s refusal to halt its construction of illegal settlements, as called for by Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. A Sept. 22 op-ed in Politico entitled “Trilateral talks head on path to nowhere” by Aaron David Miller—who described the Clinton administration’s primarily Jewish negotiating team of which he was a member as acting as “Israel’s lawyer”—is enough to make one believe that pro-Israel pundits, lobbyists and congressmen actually are...

Invested in Failure.

The Forward Defines Genocide.

In its Aug. 14 editorial, “Save Sudan” (see p. 67), the Jewish weekly The Forward described the crisis in Darfur as “a systematic offensive by the Arab-led government to drive darker-skinned civilians...off their land and to destroy their lives. In other words, an act of genocide.”

Sound Familiar?

We’re pretty sure The Forward would apply the same definition to “a systematic offensive by the gentile-led government to drive Jewish civilians off their land and to destroy their lives.” How about to “a systematic offensive by the Jewish-led government to drive non-Jewish civilians off their land and to destroy their lives”? Surely genocide is a crime against humanity...

No Matter Who the Perpetrator.

Congressional Junkets toIsrael.

Our readers asked us to name names: Specifically, just who went on the junket pictured on the back cover of the last Washington Report, and its Republican counterpart, both paid for by American Israel Education Foundation, a sister organization of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee? See p. 27 for a list of the traveling legislators. New ethics rules require all trips to be pre-approved by the House Ethics Committee, but nothing is stopping the pro-Israel lobby from providing free “educational” trips to Israel. Congressional filings show Israel as the top foreign destination for privately sponsored junkets for legislators. Check our Web site, <www.wrmea.org>, in the coming weeks for a list of every member of Congress who has accepted a free trip to Israel.

Demand Al Jazeera!

The English-language version of the Al Jazeera television network is providing those of us who live in the national capital area a welcome change to the usual U.S. international news fare: the same old Washington talking heads talking to each other. Viewers of Al Jazeera discover that not every “expert” is a shill for Israel, and that the world includes other countries as well. Call your local cable and satellite TV companies to tell them you want to watch this refreshingly honest news channel.

Subscribe to “Other Voices”!

The “Other Voices” supplement to each issue of the Washington Report contains thought-provoking articles from national, international and Internet sources (see the table of contents at the top of p. 4). We were tempted to send this month’s supplement to all our subscribers so you could sample it for yourselves, but, alas, the cost was beyond our means. We hope you can afford an extra $15 a year to receive “Other Voices,” and become even more informed and...

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