Dissident Veteran For Peace

I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.

Source: Attributed to Baron Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild in The Independent (UK). Baron Rothschild was the father of Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild. Among other things, the elder Rothschild, in 1887, financed the notorious De Beers diamond conglomerate in Africa. The son was the Lord Rothschild to whom the infamous Balfour Declaration was addressed.

Note: Versions of this quotation are prolific on the internet. However, there are also many claims that the quote is apocryphal (see e.g. this one). I don't know the truth; however, I do know that my source is a 2004 article authored by Paul Vallely (a distinguished British journalist and editor) and published in a reputable British newspaper. Vallely could have been clearer about which Nathan Rothschild he was referring to. Nevertheless because Vallely says in the same paragraph from which the quote derives that "in 1885 he was given the hereditary title of Baron Rothschild" I conclude that he attributed the remark to Nathaniel Mayer.

Labels: banking, diamonds, Empire, Israel, money, Palestine, quotations, Rothschild, Zionism

Keith Harmon Snow has an important new article that greatly expands on a topic I first touched upon almost 14 months ago in "Blood Diamonds"--the Israel Connection. Snow's article is "Gertler's Bling Bang Torah Gang: Israel and the Ongoing Holocaust in Congo (Part 1)." On the subject of Congo, please also check out his recent article "Over Five Million Dead in Congo? Fifteen Hundred People Daily? Behind the Numbers Redux: How Truth is Hidden, Even When it Seems to Be Told".

I've written several posts dealing with Darfur and Snow has a couple of good articles on that subject, too. See "The United States' War in Darfur" and "Darfurism, Uganda & U.S. War in Africa: The Spectre of Continental Genocide".

Staying in Africa, late last December Sadia Ali Aden wrote "The 'War on Terror' and the Humanitarian Crisis in Somalia". The current crisis in Kenya seems partly related to the US-backed invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian troops in 2006. Last Saturday, the Independent (UK) published an article entitled "Somalia: The World's forgotten catastrophe" that focuses mainly on Somalia but also discusses how the US and Kenya figure into the conflict. Here's the intro: "According to the UN, the worst catastrophe in Africa is not taking place in Kenya, or even Darfur. Fifteen years after the disastrous Black Hawk Down incident, Somalia has more refugees than any country in the world"

Please see also "In Somalia, a reckless U.S. proxy war" in the International Herald Tribune. This article is 14 months old but it highlights the US role. Note that both articles say that the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which is one of the groups at the center of the current conflict, was hatched in Nairobi, Kenya at US behest in 2004. Last year, Human Rights Watch reported "Kenya, Ethiopia, the United States and the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia cooperated in a secret detention program for people who had fled the recent conflict in Somalia ... In a March 22 letter to the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Human Rights Watch detailed the arbitrary detention, expulsion and apparent enforced disappearance of dozens of individuals who fled the fighting between the Union of Islamic Courts and the joint forces of the Transitional Federal Government and Ethiopia from December 2006 through January 2007."

Labels: Africa, Congo, Darfur, diamonds, Empire, Somalia, Sudan, War

Here are some excerpts from "Avocados, Diamonds at Core of Anti-Israel Trade Campaign" by Moyiga Nduru:

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 26 (IPS) - A call from a South African trade unionist for national supermarket chains to stop importing avocado from Israel could ultimately lead to the banning of all imports from the Jewish state, if unions and human rights activists have their way.

Katishi Masemola, secretary general of the Food and Allied Workers' Union (FAWU), told South Africa's supermarket chains earlier this week that Israel produces avocado under "slave-type conditions". He says the International Labour Organisation (ILO) forbids the use of child labour which, he claims, Israel is employing on avocado farms.

IPS contacted the Israeli embassy in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, for comment. It did not return IPS's call.

Masemola told IPS in an interview: "Israel is occupying parts of Palestine and it's frustrating its moving towards statehood. In those occupied territories, avocados are produced under harsh slave-type conditions. Israeli farmers hire Palestinian children and pay them peanuts." ...

When IPS began making inquiries, it found that the fruit debate was only the tip of the iceberg. "It's not only avocado. The main item that concerns us is diamond. Israel imports diamond from South Africa; polishes it and cuts it before selling it back to South Africa at almost ten times its original value. It does the same with gold," Mohamed told IPS by phone from Cape Town.

"Israel imports diamond worth three billion rand (about 430 million dollars) from South Africa a year. Israel doesn't produce a single diamond. Yet 30 percent of its GDP (gross domestic product) comes from diamond. The diamond could be polished and cut in South Africa to provide jobs for the estimated 40 percent unemployed South Africans," he said. ...

Slowly, the anti-Israeli coalition is growing in South Africa. "We haven't made the call to impose sanctions against Israel yet. We know Israel commits atrocities against Palestinians. But we are moving there. It's just a matter of months," Masemola said.

"We are making a call to mobilise South African workers. We want to all diamonds from Israel to be treated as conflict diamonds. We urge people not to buy diamonds from Israel," said Mohamed.

An international campaign targeting Israeli crafted diamonds is planned for February in South Africa, Britain, Canada, Australia and Ireland. ...

The South African government, which has not imposed sanctions, nor introduced boycott regulations, on Israeli goods, is perceived to be pro-Palestine, given the history between the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The former apartheid regime worked closely with the Jewish state.

See also: "Blood Diamonds"--the Israeli Connection

Labels: apartheid, bds, boycott, diamonds, Israel, South Africa

Blood Diamonds—another reason to boycott Israeli goods. From "Director Zwick excavates the bloody price of 'Diamonds' " (12/08/06) by Steven Rosen in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles:

Sierra Leone is now at peace, achieved with the help of international intervention, and trying to recover from its strife. But its recent history makes for many harrowing scenes in "Blood Diamond." The fact that the rebels sold diamonds to support their monstrous acts, relying on a worldwide "lust for bling," might make some moviegoers wonder about their own unwitting complicity in all this. It is an issue directly tied to the Jewish community. The diamond industry has traditionally employed many Jews in all its manufacturing and sales aspects. Here in Los Angeles, Jews -- including many who are Orthodox -- are well-represented as merchants in the downtown Jewelry District. On its Web site, the Israeli Diamond Industry claims to manufacture two-thirds of all gem-quality diamonds in the world, and the World Diamond Congress held its annual meeting in Israel this year. The German-Jewish Oppenheimer family led De Beers to become the worldwide leader in the mining and sales of rough diamonds, although its patriarch reportedly converted to the Anglican Church in the 1930s. De Beers also has a worldwide retail operation, including a store on Rodeo Drive. According to author Edward Jay Epstein, who wrote "The Rise and Fall of Diamonds," Jews turned to diamonds as an asset during the Spanish Inquisition, because they could be easily concealed and instantly redeemed wherever they were forced to move. When they fled Lisbon and Antwerp, for instance, they moved to Amsterdam and established diamond-cutting factories. "One of the great historical ironies is the fact Jews needed a currency for the Diaspora -- something small, something that can be taken with them -- and that led to roles within this industry," Zwick said. But he also added that the "conflict diamond" problem "is more about an industry than a religion." Or is it? "Yes, it's a Jewish issue because [so many] of the diamond dealers in the world are Jewish," said a Jewish Los Angeles diamond merchant, who asked not to be named for security reasons. "Think of how many people are employed in the diamond industry in Israel and how vital it is to that economy."

Labels: Africa, bds, boycott, diamonds, Israel