November 22, 2023

The Foreign Policy of Hannibal Lecter

 

"A hotdog vendor once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti."

"For 30 years, I have been killing and murdering. What have I achieved? Same world. same wars, same enemies, same friends, and same victims." - Black Sunday (1977).

An excerpt from, "Israel's skin bank raises ethical concerns on organ consent" Jordan News, November 17, 2023:
Israel possesses the world's largest skin bank, a medical facility that stores human skin for later use in treating burns and skin cancers. This bank was established in 1986 under the supervision of the military medical sector of the occupying army, which provides its services internationally, especially to requests from Western countries.

Israeli occupation authorities been stealing organs from the bodies of dead Palestinian, a heinous criminal practice that has been revealed in several reports and through testimonies of Israeli doctors who participated in this gruesome practice, violating professional ethics and constituting a crime against humanity, Al-Ghad reported.

In contrast, this Israeli bank differs from other banks worldwide in that its supply of these vital organs does not come solely from voluntary donors. Instead, documented cases of stealing skin from the bodies of Palestinians have been recorded, individuals whose organs are also stolen.

There is compelling evidence of Israelis engaging in trafficking these stolen organs, making the entity the largest market for organs in the Middle East.
A former White House security advisor who served under President Obama spewed Islamophobic remarks at a halal cart vendor in New York City on several occasions, according to shocking videos.

An excerpt from, "Obama's ex-director of the National Security Council is unmasked as man seen unleashing Islamophobic abuse at halal cart vendor where he mocked Quran over Israel's war against Hamas" Daily Mail, November 21, 2023:

He said 'if we killed 4,000 Palestinian children, it wasn't enough', asked if the victim 'raped his daughter like Mohammed and threatened to get him deported.

Following the shocking footage, which was posted online on Tuesday, New York-based Gotham Government Relations 'ended all affiliation' with him

Seldowitz was deputy director in the US State Department's Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003 and worked in the Obama administration.

Today – today – we celebrate 75 years of the U.S.-Israeli partnership.

Now, you all know this very well.  That partnership touches on every aspect of our lives, from security to business, from energy to public health.  Our ties have not only delivered for one another but for countries around the world – making deserts bloom, developing the clean energy technologies of the future, producing vaccines, charting the future of space exploration, and so much more.  And the depth and breadth of that partnership between our governments is matched only by the strength of the ties between our peoples.

This partnership between the United States and Israel is indispensable.  But it was not inevitable.   As Israel prepared to declare its independence, many members of President Truman’s cabinet, including the secretary of state, counseled against recognizing Israel, convinced that an independent Jewish state could not survive – that it wasn’t economically viable, that it lacked the natural resources to serve as the Jewish homeland, that it couldn’t bear an influx of immigrants, that it simply faced too many security threats.

Not everyone thought that way.  My grandfather, Maurice Blinken, who founded the American Palestine Institute after the Second World War, initiated a report before independence that argued that a Jewish state was indeed possible – that it would in fact be easier to “support two million Jews than the present 600,000.”  That report helped convince many skeptics, including within the United States Government.

Others in the country similarly had faith in Israel’s future and found the courage to speak out against the prevailing wisdom – public servants like White House Counsel Clark Clifford, who argued that Israel could be the first democratic government in the Middle East; everyday Americans like Missouri businessman Eddie Jacobson, who convinced the President to meet with Chaim Weizmann; and, of course, President Truman himself.

President Truman never wavered in his decision to extend recognition to the new Jewish state.  He said, and I quote, “I had faith in Israel even before it was established.  I knew it was based on the love of freedom, which has been the guiding star of the Jewish people since the days of Moses…I believe that it had a glorious future before it, not just as a sovereign nation but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.”

Video Title: Israeli colonel says Hannibal Directive was possibly deployed on 7 October. Source: Middle East Eye. Date Published: November 21, 2023. Description:

Israeli air force colonel Nof Erez told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the Israeli army possibly deployed the Hannibal Directive on 7 October and potentially hit Israeli hostages as they were being taken back to Gaza by Palestinian fighters. 

Erez said that if the directive had been deployed, it would have been intentional, and explained that the situation on 7 October would be considered a “Mass Hannibal”, adding that normally Israeli soldiers are only trained to deploy the protocol in situations of a single vehicle with multiple hostages. 

The Hannibal Directive, a controversial military protocol demanding that kidnappings of Israelis should be stopped “by all means”, including hitting their own, was officially revoked in 2016. 

Only one Israeli soldier survived in the known cases where the Hannibal Directive was deployed, as the directive was often understood by Israeli soldiers to mean that killing their own would be better than leaving them captive.