The U.S. State Department Is Now Openly An Organ Of Israeli Propaganda

The State Department has just submitted to Congress a report called "Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism". According to Reuters,

Anti-Semitism, including government-promoted hatred toward Jews and prejudice couched as criticism of Israel, has risen globally over the last decade, the State Department said on Thursday.

"Today, more than 60 years after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is not just a fact of history, it is a current event," it said in a report to Congress.
...

"The distinguishing feature of the new anti-Semitism is criticism of Zionism or Israeli policy that -- whether intentionally or unintentionally -- has the effect of promoting prejudice against all Jews by demonizing Israel and Israelis and attributing Israel's perceived faults to its Jewish character," it said.

This was common throughout the Middle East and in Muslim communities in Europe, but was even encouraged by some activity at the United Nations, the report said.

Various U.N. agencies are asked each year to investigate what are often "sensationalized reports of alleged atrocities and other violations of human rights by Israel," the document said.

Such unremitting criticism of Israel "intentionally or not encourages anti-Semitism." This hostility can translate into physical violence, as in the surge in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide during the 2006 war between Israel and the Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah, the report said.

The message couldn't have been clearer:

The State Department now works for Israel.

So let's get this straight: Because of the atrocities committed against European Jews by Nazi Germany, Israel can now do whatever it wants to do.

And anyone who dares to criticize the policy of this rogue state "intentionally or not encourages anti-Semitism", which because of the Holocaust is infinitely more despicable than any other form of racial and/or religious prejudice known to man.

In fact, Israel uses the horror of the Holocaust as a human shield, but that's all right with our so-called "diplomats", who often act more like zombies under an evil spell than intelligent human beings.

The spell is so powerful that Israel's full-scale assault on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 is now referred to as a war against a "Shi'ite Muslim group". And atrocities committed by Israeli military forces are not even mentionable without words like "alleged" and "sensationalized".

I've got an idea: Let the State Department compile a summary of crimes against Arabs and Muslims over the last ten years. Skip the "alleged"; skip the "sensationalized"; let's stick to actual physical reality.

Is Anti-Muslimism growing? Are innocent Arabs and/or Muslims being killed or injured for no reason other than where they live? And if so, by whom? And for what reason?

Let the State Department answer those questions, and then we can talk.

Condoleezza Rice’s Right-Hand Man Is Retiring For Personal Reasons

Here's another late-Friday news release about the resignation of a top level diplomat.

AP via the New York Times:

R. Nicholas Burns, the country’s third-ranking diplomat and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s right-hand man, is retiring for personal reasons, the State Department said Friday.

The White House said that it was nominating William J. Burns, the United States ambassador to Russia, to replace him as under secretary of state for political affairs. The two men are not related. Like R. Nicholas Burns, William Burns is a career Foreign Service official. He has served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs as well as ambassador to Jordan.

“This is a very bittersweet time for us because Nick Burns has decided that it is time for him to retire,” Ms. Rice said in announcing Mr. Burns’s resignation in the State Department’s ornate Treaty Room. “He has decided that it’s the right moment to go back to family concerns.”

R. Nicholas Burns, 51, has led the administration’s efforts on Iran, serving as the United States negotiator with the five other countries — Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — that have been seeking to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Mr. Burns has thrived under a succession of administrations, both Republican and Democratic.

He was the lead negotiator on an India nuclear agreement, and has had a role in almost all of the Bush administration’s major foreign policy initiatives. A senior administration official close to Mr. Burns said that he was retiring so that he could focus on getting his three daughters through college.

Mr. Burns has not lined up his next job, but has dismissed talk of running for office in Massachusetts, his home state.

During an interview, Mr. Burns said he was proud of the administration’s offer in 2006 to hold talks with Iran if it agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment. “It’s very important that we continue the effort to find a way toward negotiations with Iran,” he said.

He said that he believed that the United States and NATO still had some distance to go in managing the military presence in Afghanistan, where forces from the United States and several allies are working to end the Taliban-led insurgency. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to help organize our efforts in Afghanistan, and that is a singular challenge for us,” he said.

They're dropping like flies, all on Friday afternoons; this one for personal reasons with no job lined up. What do you know?