Unemployment Rates During First Term Democratic Administrations

During the 2008 election campaign, Democratic presidential candidate Obama promised U.S. voters that joblessness would be reduced in the United States if he were elected. Yet in the 1990s, the official unemployment rate in the United States actually remained at a high level during the first term of the Democratic Clinton Administration—when a top Obama economics advisor, former Harvard University President Larry Summers, was a high official in the U.S. Treasury Department and another Obama economics advisor, Robert Reich, was Secretary of Labor. For example:

1. Between April 1993 and May 1993 the official unemployment rate in New York State rose from 7 percent to 7.5 percent, while the official jobless rate in New York City was 9.4 percent in May 1993.

2. Between May 1993 and June 1993, the official unemployment rate in New York State rose from 7.5 percent to 7.8 percent, while the official jobless rate in New York City remained at 9.4 percent in June 1993. Between the first inauguration of Democratic President Clinton in January 1993 and June 1993, 190,000 factory jobs also disappeared in the United States, according to the July 3, 1993 issue of the New York Times.

3. In July 1993, the official unemployment rate in New York State was 7.5 percent, while the official jobless rate in New York City was 9.5 percent.

4. Between July 1993 and August 1993, the official unemployment rate in New York State rose from 7.5 percent to 7.9 percent, while the official jobless rate in New York City remained at 9.5 percent. Between July 1993 and August 1993 the number of payroll jobs throughout the United States also fell by 88,000.

5. In September 1993, California’s official jobless rate jumped to 9.4 percent, New York State’s official unemployment rate still exceeded 7 percent, New Jersey’s official unemployment rate jumped to 7.7 percent and over 12 percent of Black workers were still officially unemployed in the United States.

6. Between September 1993 and October 1993, the official unemployment rate in New York City jumped from 8.7 percent to 10.8 percent, while the official jobless rate throughout New York State jumped from 7.1 percent to 7.9 percent. In October 1993, the official unemployment rate in California also rose to 9.8 percent, while the official jobless rate in Florida was 7.1 percent.

7. The official jobless rate for Black workers in the United States was 12.5 percent in November 1993, while the official unemployment rate in New York City in November 1993 was 10.2 percent. That same month, the official unemployment rate in Los Angeles was 9.4 percent, while the official jobless rate in Michigan was 7 percent.

8. Between November 1993 and December 1993, the official jobless rate in New York City increased to 10.5 percent, while the official unemployment rate in New York State increased to 7.6 percent. During the same period, the official unemployment rate jumped from 6.5 percent to 7 percent in Florida, from 7 percent to 7.5 percent in Michigan and from 8.6 percent to 8.7 percent in California.

9. Between December 1993 and January 1994, the official unemployment rate in New York City jumped from 10.5 percent to 10.8 percent, while the official unemployment rate in California jumped from 8.7 percent to 10.1 percent during the same period. Between December 1993 and January 1994, the official unemployment rate also jumped from 5.9 percent to 6.6 percent in Illinois, from 6.2 percent to 7.2 percent in Massachusetts and from 7.3 percent to 7.5 percent in Michigan. In addition, the official unemployment rate for Black workers in the United States was 13.1 percent in January 1994.

10. In February 1994, the official unemployment rate for Black workers in the USA was 12.9 percent, while the official jobless rate in California was 9 percent. The official jobless rate also jumped from 7.5 percent to 7.9 percent in Michigan and from 6 percent to 6.9 percent in Texas between January 1994 and February 1994. In addition, 10 percent of all New York City workers and 7.8 percent of all workers throughout New York State remained officially unemployed in February 1994.

11. Between February 1994 and March 1994, New York State’s official jobless rate increased from 7.8 percent to 8.1 percent, while New York City’s official unemployment rate rose from 10 percent to 10.3 percent. During the same period, the official unemployment rate also rose from 5.1 percent to 6.8 percent in Pennsylvania, from 5.7 percent to 7.3 percent in Florida, from 6.9 percent to 7.4 percent in Texas and from 5.2 percent to 5.9 percent in Ohio. The official unemployment rate in California was still 8.6 percent in March 1994, while 12.5 percent of all Black workers in the USA were officially unemployed in March 1994.

12. In April 1994, the official unemployment rate in New York State was 8.2 percent, the official jobless rate in New York City was 9.5 percent and the official jobless rate in California was 9.1 percent. That same month, the official unemployment rate for Hispanic worker was 10.8 percent, while the official jobless rate for Black workers was 11.8 percent in April 1994.

13. Between June 1994 and July 1994, the official jobless rate rose from 8.3 percent to 9 percent in California, from 4.8 percent to 6.3 percent in Illinois, from 5.4 percent to 6 percent in Michigan, and from 6.7 percent to 6.8 percent in Texas. In July 1994, the official jobless rate for Hispanic workers in the USA was 10.1 percent, while the official jobless rate for Black workers was still 11.2 percent.

14. Between September 1994 and October 1994, the official unemployment rate for Black workers in the USA increased from 10.7 percent to 11.4 percent, while unemployment also officially jumped in Massachusetts from 5.2 percent to 6.4 percent. During this same period, the official jobless rate in New York City climbed from 7.2 percent to 8.2 percent.

15. In November 1994, the official jobless rate for Black workers in the USA was 10.5 percent.

16. In February 1995, the official jobless rate for Black workers in the USA was 10.1 percent.

17. In May 1995, the official unemployment rate in New York State was 8.2 percent, the official jobless rate in California was 8.5 percent and the New York Times reported in its June 3, 1995 issue that during the first term of the Democratic Clinton Administration “stark evidence of a rapidly slowing economy came in a report that employees dropped 101,000 workers from their payroll in May [1995], the worst decline since the Spring of 1991.” In addition, in May 1995 the official jobless rate for Hispanic workers in the USA was 10 percent and the official jobless rate for Black workers was 9.9 percent.

18. Between May 1995 and June 1995, the official unemployment rate for Black workers in the USA increased from 9.9 percent to 10.6 percent. The official jobless rate in New York City in June 1995 was also 8.1 percent.

19. Between July 1995 and September 1995, the official unemployment rate for Black workers in the USA increased from 11.1 percent to 11.3 percent.

20. In January 1996, the official unemployment rate for Black workers in the USA was 10.5 percent; and, according to the February 3, 1996 issue of the New York Times, the U.S. Department of Labor estimated that between December 1995 and January 1996 U.S. “employers dropped 201,000 people from the payrolls.” Coincidentally, the first term Democratic Clinton Administration’s Bureau of Labor Statistics then “discontinued publication of the unemployment rates for 11 major industrial states” in its monthly employment situation reports during the 1996 presidential election year, according to the New York Times.

21. In February 1996, the official unemployment rate for Black workers was 10.3 percent, while the official Hispanic jobless rate was 9.7 percent. A back page of the March 9, 1996 issue of the New York Times also reported that for all U.S. workers the official unemployment rate, based on the “U-6 measure that…includes all those working part-time and those `marginally attached’ to the work force,’ increased from 10.5 percent to 10.7 percent” between February 1995 and February 1996.

22. In June 1996, the official unemployment rate in New York City was 8.5 percent.

23. In April, July, August and September of 1996, the official unemployment rate for Black workers in the USA remained at 10.5 percent. And in its October 5, 1996 issue, the New York Times reported that, nationally, “the job market weakened in September, confirming a slowing of the economy, as payrolls unexpectedly fell by 40,000 and the unemployment rate inched up” with U.S. factories “now employing 331,000 fewer people” than they did in March 1995.

24. Between September 1996 and October 1996, the official jobless rate for Black workers in the USA increased from 10.5 percent to 10.8 percent.

25. In November 1996, the official unemployment rate for Black workers in the USA was still 10.6 percent.

26. The official unemployment rate for Black workers in the USA in December 1996 of 10.5 percent remained more than double the jobless rate for white workers in the USA. The New York Times also reported in its Jan. 11, 1997 issue that “regionally, the December jobless rate edged up two-tenths of a point, to 6.5 percent in the West…”

And at the end of the first term of the Democratic Clinton Administration in January 1997, the official unemployment rate for Black workers in the USA was 10.8 percent, while the official jobless rate in the Northeast United States was 5.8 percent.

So don’t be surprised if full employment is not restored and the official unemployment rate of U.S. workers remains high during the first-term of the Democratic Obama Administration under the existing U.S. corporate welfare-oriented economic system—despite the 2008 presidential campaign rhetoric that “putting a Democrat in the White House” would lead to a reduction in joblessness for U.S. working-class and U.S. middle-class people during the “Great Recession of 2007-2009.”

Militaristic Israel's Lobby & Its Historic Media Connections

As The Power Peddlers: How Lobbyists Mold America’s Foreign Policy by Russell Howe and Sarah Trott noted in 1977, “today, the Israeli Air Force can bomb a more or less defenseless Lebanon [and Gaza] in search of Palestinian guerrilla camps, immolating hapless civilians in its passage, with nary a word being said about the provisions of the Foreign Military Sales Act…”

One reason for the Militaristic Israeli government’s ability to apparently violate the provisions of the U.S. government’s Foreign Military Sales Act without getting its military aid cut-off by the U.S. government may be because its lobbying organizations in the U.S. have had ties, historically, to the Big Media and also have, historically, spent a lot of money on spreading pro-Israeli War Machine propaganda in the United States. As The Power Peddlers, for example, revealed in 1977:

“The 1963 Fulbright hearings into foreign lobbies probed the activities of the Jewish Agency, the United Israel Appeal, the United Jewish Appeal, the American Zionist Council and AIPAC [The American Israel Public Affairs Committee]. The AZC’s report for the previous year noted that it had supplied free lecturers and articles and sent `journalists and others’ on junkets to Israel. The report, without naming names, said its magazine committee was `chaired by a man who holds a key position on the editorial level in the magazine business. He knows everyone in the trade, has important contacts, and exploits them on behalf of Israel.’ The magazine committee was responsible for `the writing and placement of articles on Israel in some of America’s leading magazines.’ The TV-radio committee had been `fortunate in securing the services of the director of creative projects of an important TV chain.’ This would `expand the influence’ of the American Zionist Council on television…

“Gottlieb Hammer and Isidor Hamlin of the Jewish Agency testified that they had spent over $5 million between 1957 and 1962 on propaganda in the United States…In a 1974 article, [then-] Senator Abourezk accused the World Ziionist Organization—an Israeli Government front—of spending `$5 million a year’ on propaganda in the United States…”

(Downtown 8/18/93)

Did Militaristic Israel's Mossad `Terminate' Ex-`NY Daily News' Owner Maxwell?

Remember former New York Daily News Owner Robert Maxwell, who came to Midtown Manhattan in early 1991 to “save” the New York Daily News from bankruptcy?

Well, according to a former agent of the Militaristic Israeli government’s Mossad Intelligence Agency, Victor Ostrovsky, Maxwell was apparently eliminated by a Mossad assassination team of the Zionist movement in November 1991; after Maxwell threatened to reveal certain secrets unless the Mossad quickly provided him with enough money to prevent his own financial bankruptcy. (At one point, Maxwell was worth $1.2 billion; but his cash flow problems became so severe, just prior to his death, that the former New York Daily News owner secretly took $765 million from the pension fund of the labor he employed at his Mirror newspaper in London).

In his 1990s book The Other Side Of Deception, Victor Ostrovsky wrote the following:

“The ties between Maxwell and the Mossad went back a long way…He provided an unending supply of slush money for the organization…

“A small meeting of right-wingers at Mossad headquarters resulted in a consensus to terminate Maxwell…

“Maxwell was asked to sail on his yacht to Madeira and wait there for a message.

“…On Friday, Nov. 1 (1991), a special Mossad troubleshooting team that was in Spain…was dispatched. The team flew to Morocco, where they were met by a confederate who’d already taken care of all the necessary equipment and other arrangements…

“On Nov. 2…Maxwell…was…told that the meeting with the money people would now take place on the island of Tenerife.

“When he reached Santa Cruz on the island of Tenerife, he headed for a meeting in the Hotel Mency. As he dined alone in the hotel restaurant, someone walked over to him and gave him a message indicating that he should be in Los Cristos on the other side of the island the next morning. He was to make his way there in his yacht…

“The Kidon (Mossad assassination team)…managed to get to Maxwell at sea while the yacht was cruising at 15 knots…Some time during the night of Nov. 4-5, the Mossad’s problem was laid to rest in the salty waters of the Atlantic…”

(Downtown 5/17/95)

Militaristic Israel & Middle East Nuclear Balance Of Power Historically

During the 2008 election campaign both Democratic President-Elect Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State-Designate Hillary Clinton expressed their concern that the U.S. imperialist version of “Peace in the Middle East” would be threatened if the Iranian government acquired nuclear weapons. Ironically, the Zionist movement’s militaristic Israeli government in the Middle East--which Obama & Clinton regard as a U.S. government ally—has already been producing nuclear weapons at its Dimona nuclear bomb factory for many years.

Like Iraq in the 1990s, neither Libya nor Iran possessed in the 1990s the kind of nuclear arsenal and nuclear bomb factory operation which Militaristic Israel has long possessed, historically. In his 1988 book The Undeclared Bomb, Leonard Spector noted that “for the foreseeable future, nuclear weapons” were “likely to remain beyond Libya’s grasp;” because “its indigenous capabilities” were “too rudimentary to permit the production of weapons-grade nuclear materials, and the global embargo on nuclear transfers to Libya” was “likely to prevent it from making further advances.” In the same 1988 book, Spector also concluded that in 1988 there was “no evidence to indicate that Tehran” possessed “the capability to manufacture nuclear arms or the necessary nuclear material” and there was “little reason to believe that Iran” was “making substantial progress toward nuclear arming.”

The Israeli War Machine has apparently not been reluctant, historically, to use sabotage methods and aerial attacks against other nations in order to preserve its superior nuclear warfare capacity over the military forces of neighboring Middle Eastern countries. According to Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal by Peter Pry, “Mossad, the Israeli secret service, has apparently sabotaged nuclear equipment stored in Europe, that Western corporations had sold to Arab nations and were planning to ship to the Middle East.” And on June 7, 1981, a French-build nuclear reactor in Osirak, Iraq was destroyed when the Israeli military bombed it from the air.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Senior Associate Spector expressed some concern about Militaristic Israel’s nuclear war preparations in The Undeclared Bomb in 1988 and recommended that “In the Middle East, strategies focused on freezing Israeli nuclear capabilities and constraining its delivery systems may also be appropriate, given recent Israeli advances, which reportedly include the development of weapons using the H-Bomb principles and the testing of a missile able to reach” the former “Soviet Union.”

Downtown asked then-War Resisters League staff person David McReynolds in late 1991 whether he thought the large size of the Israeli government’s nuclear arsenal threatened peace in the Middle East.

“I think the large size isn’t as important as the fact that Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons pushed the Arab states into inevitably attempting to match Israel,” McReynolds replied. “Israel did not take a position in support of a nuclear freeze in the Middle East, but instead opted for a decision to rely on nuclear weapons.”

In McReynolds’ view, it was “crazy for Israel” to rely on nuclear weapons for its security since—if its military foes are able to eventually retaliate in a nuclear way against Israel—only “one bomb means the end of Israel,” because Israel’s land area is so small. Other nations in the Middle East, on the other hand, might still survive a nuclear exchange because of their large land space.

McReynolds thought in the early 1990s that people in Israel were actually more threatened by Israel’s decision to rely on nuclear weapons, instead of a nuclear freeze, than are most other people in the world.

“It was stupid for Israel to base its security on acquiring nuclear weapons—although perhaps historically understandable. But very few countries think rationally. In fairness to Israel, look at England—which also decided to acquire nuclear weapons and only made itself a target by doing so,” McReynolds said in late 1991.

In the early 1990s, McReynolds didn’t think the Israeli War Machine would possess a monopoly on nuclear weapons in the Middle East forever, because “the only way to preserve its nuclear monopoly” was “if Israel” was “prepared to keep launching attacks.”

Although McReynods didn’t believe in late 1991 that the Israeli War Machine was prepared to initiate a nuclear war, he thought it was dangerous for a small power like Israel to rely on a policy of nuclear weapons possession to deter a nuclear attack. By possessing nuclear weapons, in McReynold’s view, “You make yourself a target for a nuclear attack.”

According to The Undeclared Bomb:

“Information disclosed in 1985, on Sweden’s largely secret nuclear weapons development program of the 1950s and 1960s…indicate that Sweden’s prototype nuclear bomb, on which design work was completed by 1958, was to have weighed 1,300 pounds…and was to have been aerodynamically shaped to permit it to be carried on the exterior of an aircraft…By 1965, Swedish specialists had repeatedly tested all of the key components of the weapon, except the nuclear core, and had gained high confidence that the design would work. Sweden’s nuclear weapons program was terminated in 1968, although some relevant experimental work continued until 1972.”

But in the early 1990s, War Resisters League staff person McReynolds felt that Sweden had pursued a wiser national security policy than Israel, when it opted out of the nuclear arms race, despite Sweden’s closeness to a previously nuclear-armed Russia.

Although its political opponents in the Middle East have never possessed nuclear weapons, the Israeli government has “gone to full nuclear alert—meaning that nuclear missiles have been wheeled out of silos and put on launches—three times, twice during the 1973 war and once” in early 1991 “while Israel was under missile attack from Iraq,” according to the Oct. 20, 1991 issue of the New York Times.

Yet no matter how many times it goes on nuclear alert, how many nuclear bombs it produces in the Holy Land, and how much special influence its political allies in the United States purchase in the U.S. Congress, Militaristic Israel is not likely to bring much peace to the Holy Land until the Zionist movement’s government stops attempting to resolve political conflicts through more militarism, instead of by genuine, good faith negotiations.

(Downtown 1/15/92)

The Pro-Militaristic Israel Political Action Committees Historically

With regard to the 124 political action committees [PACs] in the United States which were established since 1976 by U.S. political allies of Militaristic Israel to purchase special political influence in Congress, the Zionist movement’s Israeli government has, historically, not sought too much publicity.

Pro-Militaristic Israel PACs which specialize in funding U.S. congressional candidates “rarely mention the Middle East, Israel, or Judaism in their titles,” according to the 1990s book Stealth PACs: How Israel’s American Lobby Seeks To Control U.S. Middle East Policy by Richard Curtis. “Other PACs established by corporations, trade associations, consumer organizations, and religious or ideological groups, identify their sponsors or purposes in their titles,” according to the same book.

Among the nondescript names which the pro-Militaristic Israel PACs operate under are “National PAC,” “Washington PAC,” “Hudson Valley PAC,” “Joint Action Committee for Public Affairs PAC,” and “Desert Caucus PAC.” According to Stealth PACs, since 1984 nearly all the pro-Militaristic Israel PACs “have deliberately sought nondescriptive titles to mask their purposes from the American public.”

Among the leading recipients of pro-Militaristic Israel PAC donations between 1978 and 1988 were the following U.S. politicians: Senator Thomas Daschle of South Dakota ($286,630); Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada ($208,540); Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania ($163,423); Rep. Richard Durbin of Illinois ($146,633); and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont ($106,200).

According to Stealth PACs, “Suggestions that in coordinating contributions of pro-Israel PACs, and in some of their other activities on behalf of Israel, present and former officers of American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC] like Michael Goland have violated both the letter and the spirit of the law are generally ignored by the media and met with extreme hostility…” Southern California real estate developer Michael Goland, a former member of the board of directors of the AIPAC pro-Militaristic Israel political lobbying organization “was convicted of federal law violation” in 1988 “for concealing the fact that he was the source of the funds” for the successful 1984 campaign of Militaristic Israel’s political allies to defeat Senator Charles Percy of Illinois, according to the Stealth PACs book.

Percy was regarded by Militaristic Israel’s political allies as more sympathetic to Arab aspirations than his opponent, former U.S. Senator Paul Simon of Illinois. AIPAC board member Goland had illegally spent $1.2 million of his personal funds in AIPAC’s successful 1984 campaign to defeat Percy. Although Goland was fined $5,000 in 1988 for his 1984 federal law violation, he was again indicted in 1990 “on charges that he used other individuals as fronts to conceal illegal contributions of $120,000 of his own funds” to finance the U.S. senatorial campaign in California of Michael Valleni, and he “was convicted…of exceeding the [then] limit of $1,000 on individual donations to a candidate,” according to Stealth PACs.

Downtown twice attempted in late 1991 to speak to a press representative at the Manhattan office of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC] regarding its response to some of the charges made in Stealth PACs about the methods used by AIPAC to secure congressional support for Israel. But the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was not too eager to speak to the public. The first time Downtown telephoned, all the AIPAC spokespersons “were out to lunch” and Downtown was told to telephone an hour later.

When Downtown telephoned AIPAC a second time, the receptionist asked Downtown what it wanted to talk about. After Downtown told her it wanted to talk about “congressional support for Israel,” she replied, “Oh, political questions,” and put Downtown on “hold.” A minute later, Downtown was taken off “hold” and the AIPAC receptionist informed Downtown: “We don’t talk to the press.”

U.S. law requires the U.S. president to cut off U.S. economic and military aid to any country which violates the provisions of the 1968 Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty. Yet Militaristic Israel still received over $6 billion in direct U.S. government grants in the early 1990s despite its Holy Land Nuclear War preparations and its refusal to sign the 1968 Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty, historically. But it’s not too likely that the pro-Militaristic Israel PAC donation recipients in the U.S. Congress will ever be too likely to vote for a cut-off in U.S. military and economic aid to Israel—now matter how many bombs the Israeli War Machine drops on civilians in Gaza or Lebanon, in pursuit of its undemocratic political objectives and ethnically-chauvinist settler-colonialist goals..

(Downtown 1/15/92)

Militaristic Israel's Mordechai Vanunu Case Remembered

During the 2008 election campaign both Democratic President-Elect Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State-Designate Hillary Clinton expressed their concern that the U.S. imperialist version of “Peace in the Middle East” would be threatened if the Iranian government acquired nuclear weapons. Ironically, the Zionist movement’s militaristic Israeli government in the Middle East--which Obama & Clinton regard as a U.S. government ally—has already been producing nuclear weapons at its Dimona nuclear bomb factory for many years.

In 1987, nine Australian senators, the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and 36 members of the British Parliament nominated Mordechai Vanunu for the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize. In their letter of nomination, the nine Australian senators wrote the following:

“We believe that Mordechai Vanunu’s action in revealing details of Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal to the world was motivated by a great and long standing desire for world peace, and we believe that he deserved the world’s recognition for his selfless action. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to him would be a timely and appropriate expression of such recognition.”

Vanunu was a technician at the Dimona Nuclear Bomb Factory from August 1977 to November 1985 who, after becoming anti-war in his politics, decided to photograph for the world what the Israeli government was actually doing inside its Negev Nuclear Research Center. After passing the photographs on to investigative reporters at the London Sunday Times in 1986—which published the long news story on Oct. 5, 1986 that first revealed the existence of the Israeli government’s Dimona Nuclear Bomb Factory—Vanunu was kidnapped in Rome by Israeli Mossad agents, taken to Israel, tried by a secret Israeli tribunal, convicted of espionage and treason on March 24, 1988, and sentenced to an 18-year prison term.

According to the book Triple Cross by Louis Toscano, after learning from the Israeli embassy in London that the London Sunday Times was about to print its expose of the Dimona Nuclear Bomb Factory, then-Israeli Prime Minister [now-Israeli President] Peres telephoned then-Mossad Chief Admoni on Thursday, September 25, 1986 “for a briefing on the Vanunu operation” and “Admoni assured Peres that agents were in position in London, prepared to pounce on Vanunu once the Sunday Times story appeared.” The then-Israeli Prime Minister [now-Israeli President] Peres then “indicated he didn’t want to hear any more, and instructed Admoni to inform him when the agents completed their mission.” According to Triple Cross, the reason why Peres didn’t want to “hear any more” about how the Israeli agents were going to kidnap Vanunu on foreign soil was that “it was important for government officials to be able to deny any knowledge of the dirty tactics employed by their spies.”

According to Triple Cross, the then-25-year-old Cheryl Hanin-Bentov, who had lived in Orlando, Florida for the first 17 years of her life, “became the key to capturing Mordechai Vanunu.” After moving to Israel in 1978 and receiving some intelligence training while serving in the Israeli Army, Hanin-Bentov had married a major who worked for Israeli Military Intelligence. A few weeks before the London Sunday Times was to publish its Dimona Nuclear Bomb Factory expose’, Hanin-Bentov—“traveling on her U.S. passport NO. 040936379, issued at Miami, Florida”—entered London with other Israeli agents. After befriending Vanunu, she persuaded him to travel with her to Rome on British Airways Flight 504 a few days before the London Sunday Times article was to be published.

After Hanin-Bentov and Vanunu arrived in Rome, according to Triple Cross, she “walked briskly out of the terminal and waved at a man slouched against a small red taxi” and the taxi dropped the pair off in front of an apartment building. Entering the apartment building, according to the same book, Hanin-Bentov and Vanunu “climbed the stairs to a second-floor apartment” and then Hanin-Bentov “drew a key from her shoulder bag and opened the door, standing aside to let Vanunu enter first.” Former UPI Jerusalem Bureau Chief Toscano described in his Triple Cross book what apparently happened next to Vanunu:

“The door slammed shut behind him. In an instant, he was attacked by two Mossad agents…He was knocked to the floor on his stomach. As the agents knelt on either side of him, pinning his arms, Bentov took a syringe filled with a fast-acting sedative from a bag lying on a table. One of the agents pulled up Vanunu’s right shirt sleeve and Bentov plunged the needle into his arm. In a matter of seconds, Vanunu was unconscious.”

In a late 1991 telephone interview with Downtown, then-War Resisters League staff person David McReynolds said he thought Israel’s secrecy about its nuclear weapons was not unusual since “any country will be secretive about its nuclear weapons,” but that he thought the kidnapping and imprisonment of Mordechai Vanunu by the Israel government “was a scandal.”

(Downtown 1/15/92)

Tel Aviv University's Complicity With Israeli War Machine

One reason U.S. anti-war activists should consider supporting an academic boycott of Israeli universities is that universities like Tel Aviv University are “playing a major role in enhancing Israel’s security capabilities and military edge,” according to the winter 2008/2009 issue of the Tel Aviv University Review journal. As Gil Zohar revealed in his “Lifting The Veil of Secrecy” article that appeared in this same issue of Tel Aviv University Review:

“In the rough and tumble reality of the Middle East, Tel Aviv University [TAU] is at the front line of the critical work to maintain Israel’s military and technological edge.

“While much of that research remains classified, several facts illuminate the role of the university. MAFAT, a Hebrew acronym meaning the R&D Directorate of the Israel Ministry of Defense is currently funding 55 projects at TAU…

“Nine other projects are being funded by DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense.

“Seven…Israel National Security Prizes have been awarded in recent years to members of TAU’s Blauntnik School of Computer Science—more than any other institution in the country. For security reasons, the recipients cannot be named.”

The results of some of the secret war research projects on Tel Aviv University’s campus have apparently been reflected in the weapons systems that are being brutally used against Palestinian civilians in Gaza by the Israeli War Machine, in violation of the Nuremberg Trial Accords, the United Nations Charter and international law. But the Tel Aviv University professors involved in these campus war research projects have tried to hide what they’re up to from any curious anti-war students or anti-war faculty members at Tel Aviv University. As the “Lifting The Veil of Secrecy” article also observed:

“Not surprisingly, much of the defense-related research at TAU remains hush-hush, conducted in rooms and laboratories protected by barred windows, multiple locks and office safes. `There are people in this university dealing with very secret projects, and they won’t talk about it,’ matter-of-factly notes Dr. Michael Gozin, an expert in organic chemistry and explosives detection, who himself chooses words carefully to describe his work.”

Bu according to the “Lifting The Veil of Secrecy” article, Tel Aviv University Professor Ady Arie, who heads TAU’s Institute for Electronic Devices, is working with Tel Aviv University Professor Aladar Fleischman in “designing systems to protect aircraft from missiles” in partnership “with El op, part of Elbit, which makes electrical optic defense systems.”

The head of the Applied Physics Group at TAU’s School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University Professor Abraham Katz, is “working on a laser-based counter-measure system against shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (SAMs)…”

Tel Aviv University Professor Ron Bachrach of TAU’s Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences is doing research on “seismic waves and remote sensing technologies” that “may finally stop the flourishing underground trade between Gaza and Egypt.”

A “three-year project initiated by the IDF Intelligence Corps on how to enhance and stabilize video images shot from a long-distance” of about seven miles or more was also recently completed by Tel Aviv University Professor of Engineering Leonid Yaroslavsky.

The head of TAU’s School of Electrical Engineering, Tel Aviv University Professor Anthony Weiss, told the “Lifting The Veil of Secrecy” article writer that “I’m not free to talk about things funded by the Ministry of Defense, naturally;” while “characteristically, MAFAT denied” Tel Aviv University Professor Michael Gozin “permission to speak in all but generalities about his research into the detection of `green explosives’—next generation munitions based on multiple nitrogen atoms in the molecules,” according to the same writer. The director of TAU’s Interdisciplinary Center for Technology Analysis and Forecasting [ICTAF], Tel Aviv University Professor Yair Sharan, also “is not free to discuss his current work with Israeli defense agencies including MAFAT, the counter-terrorism unit in the Prime Minister’s Office [MALAL], the Ministry of Defense and the police,” according to the “Lifting The Veil of Secrecy” article.

Ironically, although these Tel Aviv University professors may be shy about fully disclosing the nature of their secret war research work to anti-war students at Tel Aviv University, at least one professor, Tel Aviv University Professor Oded Maimon, has not been shy about apparently violating the privacy rights of people around the globe who correspond with each other by e-mail. As Gil Zohar revealed in his “Lifting The Veil of Secrecy” article, “with implications for intelligence gathering, Professor Oded Maimon…mines cyberspace in a project funded by the European Union, Israel’s Ministry of Science and General Motors;” and “using sophisticated algorithms,” Tel Aviv University Professor “Maimon reads millions of e-mails and identifies those that are suspicious or important.”

Yet, according to Tel Aviv University President Zvi Galil, “people are” still “just not aware of how important university research is in general, and how much TAU contributes to Israel’s security in particular.”

Coincidentally, Tel Aviv University President Galil is a former Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science Dean. After moving from his Columbia University campus office in Manhattan to his Tel Aviv University president’s office in June 2007, former Columbia University Dean Galil stated:

“I look forward to continuing a dynamic, positive relationship with the American Friends of Tel Aviv University and collaborating with our friends in the United States…TAU and Columbia are separated by an ocean, but that has less meaning than at any prior time in human history.”

A former senior regional director for the militaristic Israeli government’s AIPAC lobbying firm named Sam Witkin was the president of the tax-exempt American Friends of Tel Aviv University until a few years ago; and before Witkin was replaced in 2007 by a former executive at the Zionist movement’s United Jewish Appeal office in New York City named Roni Krinsky, former American Friends of Tel Aviv University President Witkin was paid an annual salary of $248,972.

According to its Form 990 financial disclosure form for 2006, between October 1, 2006 and September 30, 2007 the “non-profit” American Friends of Tel Aviv University group’s total revenues exceeded $22 million, while its total expenditures were only $16 million. In addition, during this same period the “non-profit” American Friends of Tel Aviv University earned over $1.3 million in dividends from the over $21.3 million in corporate stock that it owned; while the amount of State of Israel bonds that the American Friends of Tel Aviv University also owned exceeded $1.2 million.

Perhaps the surplus capital still controlled by the American Friends of Tel Aviv University should be used now to pay some reparations to the Palestinian civilians that the Tel Aviv University-supported Israeli War Machine has been brutally attacking in Gaza during the last three weeks, in violation of the Nuremberg Trial Accords?