Jeff Gates* suggests some lessons Obama might learn from past Israel intrigues With Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visiting the White House 6 July, it's time to recall how Tel Aviv has deceived Washington throughout the entirety of the US-Israeli relationship. US military leaders will be watching this meeting very closely, as will the veterans community. For me, confirmation of Israel's strategic duplicity came in a meeting with Harry McPherson who served as counsel and speechwriter for Lyndon Johnson. LBJ entered the Senate in 1948 with Louisiana Senator Russell Long for whom I served as counsel and speechwriter. At his law offices in Washington, Harry described his arrival in Tel Aviv the night that the 1967 war began. That war typifies the consistency of this ongoing deceit. He flew in the night before from Vietnam through Hong Kong. He knew on arrival that something was amiss because the airport lights were off. He checked into his hotel and was awakened early on 5 June by Wally Barbour, the US ambassador to Israel. A pear-shaped diplomat with a penchant for yellowing Palm Beach suits, Barbour called to tell Harry that the war had just broken out -- to which he replied, "But I just came from the war". Barbour picked him up at the hotel and they hurried to the Foreign Ministry for a brief meeting before conferring with the Israeli chief of military intelligence. In response to their repeated question, "Did the Egyptians attack?" McPherson and Barbour received only evasive answers. As air raid sirens wailed, McPherson recalls in A Political Education that Barbour suggested they continue the discussion in the underground bunker. The general studied his watch. "No, that won't be necessary. We can stay here." Barbour and I looked at each other. If it wasn't necessary, the Egyptian air force had been destroyed. That could only have happened so quickly if it had been surprised on the ground. We did not need to ask for confirmation, but left at once to cable the news to Washington. Israel was neither under attack nor under threat of attack as its leadership has since conceded. Air raid sirens were just props in the stagecraft of waging war by way of deception. The Israel-as-victim storyline was stage-managed by Zionist extremists to make both Israeli citizens and foreign observers believe that the Jewish state was endangered. As with the phony intelligence that induced the US to war in Iraq in March 2003, the facts in June 1967 differed dramatically from the geopolitical narrative. Under cover of that false attack, Tel Aviv occupied land belonging to its neighbours. The bulk of that property is still held by force 43 years later with the support of the US as its oft-duped ally. In the lead-up to Israel's Six-Day Land Grab, Johnson was lobbied by UN ambassador Arthur Goldberg. LBJ had moved Goldberg from the Supreme Court to the UN so he could be replaced with Abe Fortas, Johnson's personal lawyer. Fortas was a senior operative in a network of Zionists who helped produce the Johnson presidency and shaped its policies. When Goldberg used heart-rending rhetoric to weave for Johnson a storyline about Israeli vulnerability and the pending victimisation of hapless Jews at the hostile hands of an Arab "ring of steel", LBJ waved a CIA report predicting that Israel could win any war in the region in two weeks. When Goldberg persisted, Johnson ordered the CIA to revisit their analysis. The agency returned with a revised report concluding that Israel could win any war in the region in one week. On 4 June, at a Fortas-hosted dinner for Johnson, defense secretary Robert McNamara and New York investment banker John Loeb, Fortas cautioned Johnson that war might soon erupt in the Middle East. When the president turned to McNamara for his opinion, the Pentagon chief agreed with Johnson that there would be no war. Johnson then confirmed that US intelligence agencies agreed with McNamara's assessment. Johnson left for the White House at 10:58pm. Less than six hours later, at 4:30am on 5 June, National Security adviser Walt Rostow called LBJ to announce that Israel had attacked Egypt. Mathilde Krim, a former Irgun operative, was Johnson's guest at the White House that night. Before informing anyone else, LBJ stopped by the blonde beauty's bedroom to tell her, "The war has started." Not until 7:45am did Johnson speak with Soviet Premier Aleksi Kosygin who expressed his hope and expectation that the US, as Israel's closest ally, would restrain Tel Aviv. The Israeli spy Krim was the wife of Arthur Krim, chairman of the Finance Committee for the Democratic Party and president of United Artists. While Johnson was in the Senate, Krim bought land near the LBJ Ranch in Texas where he built "Mathilde's House". When Arthur was away on business, Johnson routinely took Marine One, the presidential helicopter, to visit Mathilde. In the war's first few hours, the "victimised" Israelis destroyed the Egyptian Air Force while its aircraft were still on the ground. Walt Rostow sent Johnson a memo describing the success of Tel Aviv's "vulnerable" military as "the first day's turkey shoot". By evening, the Jordanian air force was also largely destroyed. Johnson also received a memo from Arthur Krim that read, "Many arms shipments are packed and ready to go to Israel, but are being held up. It would be helpful if these could be released." Johnson ordered them released. By evening of the second day, two-thirds of the Syrian air force had been destroyed. The glee in the State Department Operations Room was palpable, leading under-secretary of state Eugene Rostow to caution, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, do not forget that we are neutral in word, thought and deed." At the State Department's mid-day press briefing, spokesman Robert McCloskey repeated Rostow's official "neutrality" lie. Zionist advisers surrounded Johnson in the decision- making that lent US support to the 1967 war. "Everyone around me, without exception was pro-Israel," recalls Johnson speechwriter Grace Halsell. She identified more than a dozen close advisers to Johnson, including Walt Rostow, his brother Eugene and Arthur Goldberg. White House counsels Leo White and Jake Jacobsen were likewise pro-Israel as were two key speechwriters: Richard Goodwin, husband of biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Ben Wattenberg whose parents moved to the US from Palestine. Likewise domestic affairs adviser Larry Levinson and John Roche, an avid Zionist and Johnson's intellectual-in-residence. In the lead-up to this Israeli aggression, Fortas served as an enabling back channel between the Israeli Embassy and the White House. Fortas had known Israeli ambassador Avraham Harman since the ambassador's arrival in Washington in 1959. During the March 1960 visit to Washington of prime minister David Ben-Gurion, Fortas sponsored a breakfast at his home attended by Harman and Johnson who was then Senate majority leader. Fortas's biographer conceded: "For several weeks before the crisis erupted into war, the Israeli ambassador was 'in very frequent contact' with Fortas and regularly visited the justice at his chambers or his house". An outspoken Zionist, Fortas also attended a critical White House strategy meeting on the Middle East on 26 May, 10 days before the land grab began. Throughout the six days of carnage that Israel inflicted on its neighbours, Johnson met his advisers daily in the Cabinet Room. Fortas attended each meeting. John Loeb wrote to Fortas: "You were prophetic about the Middle East. Thank the Lord the president has you as a friend and counselor." Fortas had cemented his relationship with Johnson in 1948 when, in LBJ's first Senate race in Texas, the Washington lawyer finessed the extensive vote fraud apparent in the Democratic primary in which Johnson claimed an 87-vote victory, including 200 votes tallied in alphabetical order. In 1968, Johnson failed in his attempt to elevate Fortas to chief justice of the Supreme Court. Fortas resigned in May 1969 in the wake of a series of scandals. In the summer of 1970, The New York Times reported his registration as a lobbyist for Kuhn, Loeb and Company. Another Israeli prime minister arrives in Washington with yet another rationalisation for continuing this entangled alliance, while yet another Zionist is being promoted for a Supreme Court vacancy. As for Bibi's current visit to Obama, history suggests a reliable rule of thumb for determining whether an Israeli prime minister is deceiving a US president: are his lips moving? If Barack Obama can be honest with himself, he will speak candidly to the American people and explain why this long- running deceit must be brought to a speedy close. If on 6 July he were to announce support for a one state solution, that would start to unwind this perilous alliance. To advance peace, he need only declare US support for the designation of Jerusalem as an international cultural site under the protection of UN troops. To end the multi-decade cycle of provocation/ reaction, he need only reassign 30,000 US troops to Palestine to rebuild a destroyed society, resettle its ousted people on occupied land and secure Israel's nuclear arsenal. The Zionist experiment was a failure before it began. An overdue end to this apartheid regime can begin 6 July. Or this perilous alliance can continue -- at untold cost in blood and treasure. * The writer is a US attorney and author of Guilt By Association, Democracy at Risk and The Ownership Solution .
