{"id":57780,"date":"2014-09-15T12:12:29","date_gmt":"2014-09-15T20:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=57780"},"modified":"2015-02-11T16:57:03","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T00:57:03","slug":"ex-cia-officers-seem-to-loathe-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=57780","title":{"rendered":"Ex-CIA Officers Loathe Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can’t recall any former American intelligence officers saying good things about Israel. Whether it is Ray McGovern<\/a>, Phil Giraldi<\/a>, Robert Baer<\/a> or Michael Scheuer<\/a>, they all say that American foreign policy has been hijacked by the Israel lobby<\/a> to the detriment of long term American interests. Intelligence officers can’t forget the 1967 attack on the USS Liberty<\/a>, the Jonathan Pollard<\/a> espionage, and the continual industrial and political espionage conducted by the Israelis<\/a>. They don’t see this as the type of behavior you expect from an ally. They got angry having their advice ignored as the U.S. made decisions based on internal politics rather than national self-interest, so now that they are free to write what they want, their hatred for Israel jumps off the page.<\/p>\n

Israel Shamir<\/a> seemed like a kook in the Tabletmag article<\/a>. I wonder why Ron Unz publishes him? Unz hates the neo-cons and has no sympathy for Israel. <\/p>\n

The LA Weekly wrote in 1999<\/a>: <\/p>\n

When Ron Unz\u2019s mother, a politically active left-wing schoolteacher from Los Angeles, was in her mid-20s, she met an older professor from the Midwest on a flight to Israel. He seemed odd, eccentric even, but clearly brilliant, too, and Esther-Laio Avrutin decided, after he\u2018d visited her several times when she\u2019d returned to L.A., that she would a have a child with him. When Esther-Laio wrote to her lover to let him know about her pregnancy, the letter was opened by the professor\u2018s wife — the existence of this wife came as startling news to Esther-Laio — and that ended any possibility that, her sister says, they would be married. Esther-Laio\u2019s decision as a single woman to bear Ron by a married man she\u2018d picked out largely for his brainpower rocked her own family.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Israel tends to have a similar role in the Jewish heart that Christ plays for Christians and therefore it is often out of bounds for rational discussion in the United States. <\/p>\n

Here’s more from the 1999 LA Weekly article:<\/p>\n

\nAfter Ron was born in the fall of 1961, Esther-Laio moved back in with her parents and stopped working. During Ron\u2019s infancy, his mother suffered a series of illnesses — colds and other viruses. Ron was a troubled baby, allergic, as it turned out, to his mother\u2018s milk. Esther-Laio grew depressed and had trouble sleeping. She worked only occasionally, and after her father fell ill too, she applied for welfare. Throughout Ron\u2019s childhood, the family stayed afloat thanks to the safety net then provided by the welfare state.<\/p>\n

Although it\u2018s all a little fuzzy — \u201dIt was a long time ago,\u201c Unz says — he remembers his great shame about being different, especially about not having a father living at home. His mother, he recalls, was quite candid, open about the decisions she\u2019d made and the reasons she\u2018d made them.<\/p>\n

Esther-Laio\u2019s parents, working-class Jewish immigrants from Russia, were scandalized, though. \u201dThere was massive turmoil\u201c at the time of Ron\u2018s birth, says Esther-Laio\u2019s only sibling, Rivko Knox. \u201dMy sister is very bright, very creatively bright, and she thinks of new ways to do things. Ours was a very Orthodox household, and she would get into big arguments with my parents. She would turn on the lights or the radio on the Sabbath, defy their rules. My sister detests rules.\u201c<\/p>\n

Both decisions — to have a child outside marriage and to go on welfare — were abominations to her parents, Ron and his aunt both remember. \u201dThey thought that she had behaved very foolishly and improperly,\u201c Unz recalls. \u201dThere was an awful lot of skirmishing.\u201c Some of the insults had to do with politics. Esther-Laio was pro–free speech, pro–civil rights and anti–Vietnam War. His grandfather \u201dcame from a very politically liberal New Deal type of background — I imagine he never voted for a Republican in his life — but he and my mother clashed over political issues a lot during the 1960s, because he was very pro–Hubert Humphrey, pro–Lyndon Johnson, pro–Vietnam War, and she was on the other side.\u201c<\/p>\n

The sharpest, most sustained exchanges centered on Ron himself. \u201dThe circumstances of my birth,\u201c Unz says coolly. \u201dThat was the main thing they argued about.\u201c The conflicts raged loudly, constantly, in the tiny house on a ridge in working-class Tujunga. There were only two bedrooms, and the walls were paper-thin. \u201dCertainly it was never violence or anything like that,\u201c Unz adds. A moment later, he muses, as if to take the sting out: \u201dWhat people regard as standard in family life has changed in 30 years. When you watch some of the old TV shows from the 1960s . . . the ongoing level of bickering and quarreling was considered normal and standard.\u201c<\/p>\n

Unz met his father only twice while growing up, the first time at a playground when he was about 4. It was an unemotional, businesslike meeting. His father seemed \u201dtall and old.\u201c Between two brief childhood visits and his attendance at Ron Unz\u2018s graduation from Harvard College, he had no contact at all with his son. (The elder Unz declined to speak for this story. \u201dI don\u2019t want to discuss it, and I don\u2018t want my name in the newspaper,\u201c he said.)<\/p>\n

Raised in a household with strong-willed adults, Unz was pulled in contrary directions. His grandmother took him along to synagogue with her, and he even learned enough Hebrew to be bar-mitzvahed. But he never embraced religion and didn\u2019t really identify with his Jewishness. He also went along with his mother — to demonstrations against the Vietnam War and precinct-walking for Democratic nominee George McGovern during the presidential campaign of 1972. \u201dIt\u2018s all a little fuzzy, it was a long time ago,\u201c Unz says again. \u201dWhen my mother took me on those anti-war marches carrying a candle, it was just sort of \u2019I want you to come with me, because we\u2018re fighting the evil Vietnam War.\u2019\u201c<\/p>\n

Unz sank into a vivid imaginary life. He learned to distance himself from adult passions, listening mutely as his mother and his grandparents argued. He became a secular person unattached to the fierce religious and political views of his parent and grandparents. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This may explain Unz’s distaste for religion, Israel and things Jewish. <\/p>\n

Is Richard F. Unz<\/a>, professor emeritus of engineering at Penn State, Ron’s father? No. This article says his dad’s name is Hilel Unz<\/a>, “an Israeli [physicist]<\/a> who settled in the United States”. <\/p>\n

Here’s the obituary<\/a> of Hillel Unz, physicist 1929-2011<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nGraveside service for Hillel Unz, 82, Lawrence, was held at B\u2019nai Israel cemetery, Eudora, on Sunday, Aug. 28.
\nMr. Unz died Saturday, Aug. 27, 2011, at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
\nHe was born Aug. 15, 1929, in Darmstadt, Germany, the son of Moshe and Rivka Unz.
\nHe moved to Haifa, Israel, with his family in 1932 and graduated from the Reali High School, Haifa, in 1947.
\nMr. Unz served in the Israeli Defense Forces during the Israel war of Independence (1947-1949).
\nHe received his Bachelor of Science in electronics in 1953 from the Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. He received his Master of Science in 1954 and his doctorate degree in 1957, both from the Electrical Engineering Department, University of California, Berkeley.
\nHe moved to Lawrence in 1957. Since that year he had been on the staff of the electrical and computer engineering department at Kansas University, first as an assistant professor, and since 1962 as a full professor of electrical engineering. He retired after 40 years in 1997. In the following years he continued his research.
\nHe married Ruth Adam in 1960. They had three children. They divorced. He married Carolyn J. Graham in 1975. They divorced.
\nHe was preceded in death by his daughter Maya.
\nSurvivors include a daughter, Tali Unz, California; and a son, Danny Unz and wife Ariela, Lawrence and their children, Alon, Amir and Eyal. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ron Unz does not get a mention in any of Hillel Unz’s obituaries. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can’t recall any former American intelligence officers saying good things about Israel. Whether it is Ray McGovern, Phil Giraldi, Robert Baer or Michael Scheuer, they all say that American foreign policy has been hijacked by the Israel lobby to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,29645],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-israel","category-ron-unz"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57780"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63127,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57780\/revisions\/63127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}