But first a clarification. The boycott/divestment/sanctions (BDS) campaign is a very diverse campaign. Each organization has its own specific criticism of what it condemns. Israel's offensive policies of colonization in the West Bank and Gaza are the common denominator, but some organizations go beyond that. Likewise, each organization has a different take on what action its members should undertake. But all agree on the need for and appropriateness of some kind of collective action that puts pressure on Israel. I have my own take on both these questions -- what to condemn and how to respond -- but my following remarks address only the broad consensus.

1. Boycotting Israel is hypocritical. There are many other and worse human rights violators. Why aren't these organizations boycotting the UK for occupying Iraq or Russia for its massive slaughter of Chechens?

If a group were to participate in the BDS campaign against Israel while supporting the invasion of Iraq and the massacres in Chechnya, such a group would probably be hypocritical, or at least seriously confused. Are there such groups? I am not aware of any. But if they do exist, they should indeed rethink their stance.

However, there is no direct line from condemnation to choice of action. When considering what action to endorse, a group must take into account other considerations beyond the moral wrongness of what is being condemned.

Responsibility. Are Russian academics involved in the Russian occupation of Chechnya the way Israeli academics are involved in legitimizing Apartheid? Obviously not. If some Israeli apologists believe the opposite, they are welcome to make the case. The case for the complicity of Israeli academia has been persuasively made.

Practicality. Is it practical to try to influence US policy in Iraq through a boycott of US academics? Clearly not. Israel's small academic world is vulnerable and therefore susceptible to pressure. The British boycott resolution already succeeded in scuttling a proposed cooperation between Hebrew University and the Israeli Security apparatus. There is no point in trying to use the same tactics against the U.S. That is unfortunate. But taking an all or nothing attitude to human rights -- which is what some of Israel's apologists demand -- is silly. Not to mention the real hypocrisy of those who call attention to human right violations in Sudan or Russia without having any demonstrable interest in human rights at all, but rather out of the desire to defend human rights violations.

Saliency: Most of the organizations that call to boycott Israel have their own different missions that are not focused on the Middle East. Each has to consider the role solidarity with Palestinians and pressure on Israel plays in its overall position and the way it reflects its identity and specific goals. Those groups committed to defending human right are completely within their rights, for example, to consider that Israel damages the framework of humanitarian law more than China does, even though China has jailed more people than Israel has. Israel's democratic rhetoric and its claim to be a beacon of civilization and morality mean that the occupation in Palestine doesn't merely violates human rights, it relaxes and degrades the principles of human rights in a way no other rogue state does.

Local leadership: Like most strategies of collective action, the boycott/divestment/sanctions campaign depends on broad consensus. The first requirement for such a consensus to form successfully is that the campaign be actively supported and demanded by the victims, in this case Palestinians. At least for now, there is neither an Iraqi nor a Chechnyan boycott campaign or even demand. Palestinians, on the other hands, are leading the boycott/divestment/sanctions campaign against Israel. Also important is the vocal support from a minority of Israeli groups that support Palestinian rights. This is similar to the way the South African campaign was led by the ANC and was supported by an activist minority of White South Africans. Without local leadership, a campaign lacks legitimacy and is less likely to take hold. Groups are therefore fully justified in taking that in consideration when deciding their priorities.

Tailoring different responses to different transgressions based on complex considerations is not necessarily hypocritical, although it can be. The more appropriate adjective in this particular case is "thoughtful."

2. The comparison between Israel and South Africa is misguided. Israel is very different and not as bad as South Africa.

"Apartheid" means "separation" and so does "Hafrada," the Hebrew term for the current policy of Israel vis-à-vis Palestinians. But nobody claims that Israel is "the same" as South Africa. A glance to the globe is enough to ascertain that the two are indeed different countries, and therefore have different, unique and specific histories and institutions. What we claim, however, is that the Apartheid regime in South Africa and the current regime in Israel have a number of significant common traits, and that these common traits are repugnant.

This is not the place to engage in that substantive debate. For those who wish to deepen their knowledge of the issue, Chris McGreal provides an excellent introduction in The Guardian. But one does remark that Israel's defenders are not in a very good position to argue now that the regime in Israel is not as repugnant as South Africa was. In fact, Israel's apologists today are often the same groups that used to defend the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Zionist organizations feted the similarities between Afrikaners and Jews, the Anti-Defamation League, for example, even spied on anti-Apartheid activists in the U.S. Israel, for its part, supported South Africa's nuclear program and later helped it evade sanctions. On the other hand, South African Black and Jewish anti-Apartheid activists who visited the West Bank said that the conditions of Palestinians were similar or even worse than what Blacks endured under Apartheid.

Who has more credibility on the subject of how repugnant the Israeli brand of "Hafrada" is, Abe Foxman, head of an organization that supported Apartheid in South Africa, or the victim of Apartheid, Archbishop Desmond Tutu?

3. Putting pressure on Israel is one-sided and therefore unfair. It would be better to encourage both sides to engage each other in dialogue.

Israel's apologists have a simple narrative about the history of the relations between Jews and Palestinians. In that narrative, Jews came to Palestine with open palms, and have tried ever since to achieve peaceful co-existence with Palestinians, only to be repeatedly rebuffed by hostile and belligerent Palestinians. Base on that narrative, Israel's apologists demand more "dialogue," and excuse all Israel's actions as self-defense.

Unfortunately for them, nobody else accepts that fairy tale today. Actual history is very different. Since the very beginning, the Zionist leadership was clear about its intention to displace and dispossess Palestinians to make way for a Jewish state. That goal had been largely accomplished in 1948. Thereafter, Israel found the status quo comfortable, and saw no urgency in resolving its conflict with the Palestinians. At every occasion, Israeli leaders expressed disinterest in peace. Ben Gurion said the solution for the Palestinian problem would be that Palestinians would become "human dust." Moshe Dayan told them after the 1967 occupation, "we have no solution, you will continue to live like dogs." Golda Meir said there was no need for dialogue because "there is no Palestinian people." Begin and Shamir refused to negotiate on Palestinian rights in the face of serious U.S. pressure. Begin even invaded Lebanon to avoid having to talk with Arafat (who had already agreed to a "two state solution" in 1974.) After Oslo, despite their lip service to advancing a "two state solution," Rabin, Netanyahu and Barak have all refused to evacuate a single settlement. All three built new settlements, Barak being the most industrious. At no point has any Israeli leader agree to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza in full, not to mention to recognize the rights of Palestinian refugees.

The evacuation of Gaza, contrary to the fairy tale, is not a withdrawal at all. Israel is still the occupying force in Gaza. The situation of Gaza today is in fact the closest Israel comes to the full South African Apartheid model; Gaza is an effective separate Bantustan under full Israeli military control. Finally, Olmert's latest plans for "unilateral separation" in the West Bank point in the same intensified Apartheid direction.

Those who might fear that this historical excursus is threading stale water should consider how Sharon's advisor Dov Weissglass recently described the purpose of evacuating the settlements from Gaza:

"...we succeeded in removing the issue of the political process from the agenda. And we educated the world to understand that there is no one to talk to....As long as there is no one to talk to, the geographic status quo remains intact..... [until] Palestine becomes Finland."

There you have it succinctly. Israel's consistent policy is to avoid dialogue in order to maintain its domination. Based on this analysis, peace can only be advanced by putting pressure on Israel. This is exactly the purpose of the divestment, boycott and sanctions campaign.

4. The boycott advocates are anti-Semitic.

Puhleeeeze!

Writing in the Boston Globe, Reason magazine's Cathy Young insinuates that Mona Baker is guilty of anti-Semitism.

Young's evidence: Baker says that in the U.S., "Zionist lobbies are extremely powerful with both Congress and the media." Apparently, according to Young, you're either an anti-Semite or an idiot. Because only an idiot would argue with what Baker said.

Young's smear, to put it mildly, is despicable, but very much de rigeur in almost every standard apology for Israel. Dear Ms. Young, please read the first half of Norman Finkelstein's book, Beyond Chutzpah, and copy the following sentence 500 times in your notebook: "I will not use accusations of anti-Semitism to smear critics of Israel and Zionism."

Now, there are certainly a few lost souls out there whose motive for supporting Palestinian rights is anti-Semitism. It's a pity. They are the mirror image of the Zionists who support human rights in Sudan for the sole purpose of deflecting attention from Israel. We wish both kinds of bigots full recovery. But we won't stop eating Broccoli if we discovered that it was Hitler's own favorite food. Nor should we stop supporting Palestinian rights because David Duke support them too.

Besides, outside the fervid imagination of Israel's willing apologists, the problem of real anti-Semitism is negligible. To gauge how negligible it is, consider that in 2003, the ADL, which is supposed to lead the struggle against anti-Semitism, honored former Italian PM Berlusconi, weeks after the latter made sympathetic remarks about Mussolini -- Hitler's sidekick in World War II -- a dictator who enacted race laws and sent Jews to the death camps. Furthermore, taking into consideration the Christian Zionist right in the U.S. and the anti-Muslim right in Europe, I think it is safe to say that there are more anti-Semites among Israel's friends than among those who express solidarity with Palestinians.

Gabriel Ash is an activist and writer who writes because the pen is sometimes mightier than the sword and sometimes not. He welcomes comments at: g.a.evildoer@gmail.com.

The package, agreed by Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany as well as the United States, also outlines penalties if Iran rejects the deal.

It was formally presented to Iranian officials in Tehran on Tuesday. Many American and European officials are doubtful that Tehran will accept any deal but see the overture as diplomacy's best chance.

AIPAC, with about 100,000 members, has for years considered Iran and its nuclear program the most serious threat to U.S. ally Israel and sought to ensure a tough American policy.

"Iran's apocalyptic president (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) has openly and repeatedly called for Israel's destruction. But long before he began making headlines ... AIPAC was working behind-the-scenes to educate leaders throughout the U.S. government about the growing Iranian threat," the fundraising letter states.

"While many organizations now realize the threat that Iran poses, AIPAC is the only organization uniquely positioned to work with (the U.S.) Congress and the administration to take meaningful action against this terrorist regime," it said.

The letter added, "we need your help to stop Iran" and to pass the Iran Freedom Support Act.

The act, which was overwhelmingly approved by the U.S. House of Representatives and has considerable support in the Senate, would tighten sanctions on Iran, urge disinvestment from companies investing in its oil sector and support assistance for democratic forces inside Iran.

An AIPAC official said the letter's timing was not connected to the major powers' offer and its message essentially mirrored long-standing AIPAC policy.

AIPAC has not formally endorsed the U.S. decision to back the major powers' offer to Iran.

AIPAC spokesman Josh Block said: "If Iran fulfills the demands of the international community ... by immediately stopping all of its work on the nuclear fuel cycle and allowing inspectors unfettered access, that would be a positive development."

But he added: "We must remain cautious and aware of Iran's two decade history of deception and delay, and not allow the offer of dialogue to devolve into a time-wasting exercise."

The United States and its partners believe Iran is trying to produce nuclear weapons but Tehran insists its activities are only aimed at generating civilian energy.

Even though German intelligence had misspelled it as Clemens, it was a crucial clue. The Mossad effort to track Eichmann had been suspended at the time because it had failed to discover his pseudonym. They were ultimately tipped off by a German official disgusted at his government's failure to bring the war criminal to justice.

Embarrassment

Washington and Bonn failed to act on the information or hand it to the Israelis because they believed it did not serve their interests in the cold war struggle. In fact, the unexpected reappearance of the architect of the "final solution" in a glass box in a Jerusalem court threatened to be an embarrassment, turning global attention to all the former Nazis the Americans and Germans had recruited in the name of anti-communism.

Historians say Britain and other western powers probably did the same, but they have not published the evidence. The CIA has. Under heavy congressional pressure, the agency has been persuaded to declassify 27,000 unedited pages about American dealings with former Nazis in postwar Europe.

One of the most startling of those documents is a CIA memo dated March 19 1958, from the station chief in Munich to headquarters, noting that German intelligence (codenamed Upswing) had that month passed on a list of high-ranking former Nazis and their whereabouts. Eichmann was third on the list. The memo passed on a rumour that he was in Jerusalem "despite the fact that he was responsible for mass extermination of Jews", but also states, matter-of-factly: "He is reported to have lived in Argentina under the alias Clemens since 1952."

There is no record of a follow-up in the CIA to this tip-off. The reason was, according to Timothy Naftali, a US historian who has reviewed the freshly-declassified archive, it was no longer the CIA's job to hunt down Nazis. "It just wasn't US policy to go looking for war criminals. It wasn't British policy either for that matter. It was left to the West Germans ... and this is further evidence of the low priority the Germans gave to hunting down war criminals."

It was not just a question of bureaucratic inertia. There were good reasons not to go hunting for Eichmann. In Bonn, the immediate fear was what Eichmann would say about Hans Globke, who had also worked in the Nazis' Jewish affairs department, drafting the Nuremberg laws, designed to isolate Jews from the rest of society in the Third Reich. While Eichmann had gone on the run, Globke stayed behind and prospered. By 1960 he was Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's national security adviser.

"The West Germans were extremely concerned apparently about how the East Germans and Soviet bloc in general might make use of what Eichmann would say about Hans Globke," Mr Naftali said.

It was not just a West German concern. Globke was the main point of contact between the Bonn government, the CIA and Nato. "Globke was a timebomb for Nato," Mr Naftali said. At the request of the West Germans, the CIA even managed to persuade Life magazine to delete any reference to Globke from Eichmann's memoirs, which it had bought from the family.

But it was not just Globke. When Eichmann was captured the CIA combed files it had captured from the Nazis to find information that might be useful to the Israeli prosecution. The results caused near panic among the CIA's leadership because, unknown to the junior staff who had looked through the files, a few of Eichmann's accomplices being investigated had been CIA "assets".

An urgent memo was sent to CIA investigators urging caution and pointing out that if Moscow discovered these ex-Nazis had been working for the Americans that would make those agents "very vulnerable".

Meanwhile, some of the CIA's German agents were beginning to panic. One of them, Otto Albrecht von Bolschwing - who also had worked with Eichmann in the Jewish affairs department and was later Heinrich Himmler's representative in Romania - frantically asked his old CIA case officer for help.

After the war Bolschwing had been recruited by the Gehlen Organisation, the prototype German intelligence agency set up by the Americans under Reinhard Gehlen, who had run military intelligence on the eastern front under the Nazis. "US army intelligence accepted Reinhard Gehlen's offer to furnish alleged expertise on the Red army - and was bilked by the many mass murderers he hired," said Robert Wolfe, a historian at the US national archives.

'Unreconstructed'
Alongside the Gehlen Organisation, US intelligence had set up "stay-behind networks" in West Germany, who were supposed to stay put in the event of a Soviet invasion and transmit intelligence from behind enemy lines. Those networks were also riddled with ex-Nazis who had horrendous records.

One of the networks, codenamed Kibitz-15, was run by a former German army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Walter Kopp, who was described by his own American handlers as an "unreconstructed Nazi".

Most of the networks were dismantled in the early 1950s when it was realised what an embarrassment they might prove.

"The present furore in western Germany over the resurgence of the Nazi or neo-Nazi groups is a fair example - in miniature - of what we would be faced with," CIA headquarters wrote in an April 1953 memo.The new documents make clear the great irony behind the US recruitment of ex-Nazis: for all the moral compromises involved, it was a complete failure in intelligence terms. The Nazis were terrible spies.

"Subject is immature and has a personality not suited to clandestine activities," the CIA file on one of the stay-behind agents said sniffily. "His main faults are his lack of regard for money and his attraction to members of the opposite sex."

Those were the least of their flaws as would-be anti-communist agents. They had not risen in the Nazi ranks because of their respect for facts. They were ideologues with a keen sense of self-preservation.

"The files show time and again that these people were more trouble than they were worth," Mr Naftali said. "The unreconstructed Nazis were always out for themselves, and they were using the west's lack of information about the Soviet Union to exploit it."

The lesson would be well learned by young CIA case officers today.

"Threats change rapidly, and it's always exiles and former government elements who are the first to come running to us saying - we understand this threat. We have seen it with Iraqi exiles. No doubt we're seeing it now with Iranian exiles. We have to be smart and we have to know who we are really dealing with."

Protected Nazis

Adolf Eichmann The SS colonel who organised the final solution was so enthusiastic about his work that he carried on even after Heinrich Himmler had called a halt. He was captured by US troops but escaped to Argentina. Israeli agents tracked him down in 1960 and he was hanged in 1962.

Hans Globke A Nazi functionary working with Eichmann in the Jewish Affairs department who helped draft the laws stripping Jews of rights. After the war he rose to become one of the most powerful figures in the government. As national security advisor to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, he was the main liaison with the CIA and Nato.

Reinhard Gehlen A major general in the Wehrmacht who was head of intelligence-gathering on the eastern front. He sold his supposed inside knowledge of the Soviet Union to the Americans who made him head of West German intelligence, an organisation he led until 1968.

* U.S. forces are bogged down in a failed war in Iraq and have limited capacity to fight anywhere;

* Iran is militarily a much more formidable opponent than Iraq, and its people are even less likely than Iraqis to welcome the U.S. military;

* Iranian nuclear sites are dispersed around the country, making it difficult for U.S. (or U.S.-backed Israeli) air strikes to achieve the stated goal; and

* Any aggression in a region already enraged about U.S. bullying, prison torture, and war crimes would risk setting off an uncontrollable conflict that would be potentially catastrophic, leaving U.S. troops in Iraq and American citizens everywhere exposed to heightened dangers.

"Given all that," I asked the audience, "can you imagine any sane politician or policymaker deciding to invade or bomb Iran?"

"No, of course not," they responded.

"Even though all this is obvious," I asked, "are you still worried that the Bush administration is going to bomb Iran?"

"YES!" they shouted back.

The Bush administration's ongoing propaganda campaign to paint Iran as a grave threat to U.S. security -- which just happens to look a lot like the propaganda campaign that targeted Iraq -- suggests that whether or not policymakers have definitive plans to invade and/or bomb, they are creating the context for attack if they deem it necessary to their project of total domination of the Middle East and Central Asia.

So, many in the United States -- and even more people around the world -- are scared that among top U.S. policymakers, rational arguments can easily be trumped by ideology, willed ignorance, and self-delusion. While U.S. military commanders likely view an attack on Iran as dangerous folly -- and are the likely source of leaks to journalists about the planning process, perhaps in an attempt to derail such plans -- civilian leaders seem to be insulated from reality and responsibility.

Indeed, the fanatics in the Bush administration pose a serious threat to peace and are an impediment to the pursuit of justice in the world. But that should not obscure the other lesson of the current "crisis" around Iran's nuclear program: We are dealing with the consequences of 60 years of dangerous U.S. policies around the world.

Let's remember the basics of post-World War II U.S. policy in Iran: A CIA-supported coup in 1953 overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq's government after his nationalization of the oil industry, leading to more than two decades of harsh rule by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi enforced by a brutal secret police, SAVAK. Support for the shah, who played a key role as a mostly obedient U.S. surrogate in the region, continued through Republican and Democratic administrations alike -- including that of Jimmy Carter, the so-called "human-rights president." All that is well documented, but the public memory of U.S.-Iranian relations and the 1979 Islamic revolution typically is reduced to the "hostage crisis," in which the United States casts itself as a victim of crazed Muslims gripped by irrational hatreds.

But we forget history at our own peril. Today many of our problems around the world are a result of what has been called "blowback" -- support of reactionary forces for short-term advantage has often created unforeseen problems. A bit more attention to those decades of immoral and shortsighted U.S. policy around the world would suggest a new course, one that requires the U.S. public to do what doesn't come naturally in this ahistorical, propaganda-driven society: Study honest accounts of our history, evaluate the facts, and apply basic legal and moral principles. That's not only the right thing, it's the sensible thing to do out of self-interest.

We can start with a simple question: If Iranian leaders do indeed want to acquire nuclear weapons, why might that be? Other major players in that part of the world (Pakistan, India, China) have nukes, as does Iran's primary regional enemy (Israel). And let's not forget that the occupying army in Iran's next-door neighbor belongs to the United States, whose president has designated Iran as a member of the "axis of evil." Iranians no doubt have observed that of the two other original members of that exclusive club, one is thought to have nuclear weapons (North Korea) and one quite clearly didn't (Iraq). Which one got invaded?

What does Iran want? As would any nation in its position, Iran seeks security guarantees -- exactly what the United States refuses to give. As U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton put it this spring, the Iranians "must know everything is on the table and they must understand what that means."

Got it, Mr. Ambassador, we understand: The United States, once again, is ignoring a fundamental principle of international law. The U.N. charter states that nations "shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."

So, everything is on the table, including bombing, which has many people nervous. But we should remember this is not a new U.S. policy. Go back to President Carter's 1980 State of the Union address, in which he outlined the "Carter Doctrine": "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

Throughout the post-WWII period, U.S. policymakers have interpreted "outside force" to include inside forces -- that is, any force that doesn't bow to U.S. demands, no matter where it lives. The Bush administration, while more brazen in its threats and use of force than some past administrations, is not straying too far from a time-honored U.S. principle, articulated most clearly by his father, the first President Bush, in 1991: "What we say goes."

Two simple, but haunting, questions were on the minds of the folks at my talk in Denton, Texas, that night: What if "what we say" is crazy? And, do those in power actually have the power to make sure a crazy idea "goes" forward?

With the attack on Iraq, the Bush administration -- along with fellow-travelers in both the Republican and Democratic parties -- ignored international law, a global mass movement against the war, and the opinions of the vast majority of the world's governments in pursuit of a policy of domination-through-violence.

The same forces are lined up for and against an attack on Iran. The difference may be that this time even the most fanatical in the administration will have a hard time convincing themselves such an attack can succeed.

We hope.

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center. He is the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (both from City Lights Books). He can be reached at: rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.

One senior NATO diplomat said the offer reflects the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan even as the expansion of the NATO mission into the volatile south and east of Afghanistan means more European and Canadian troops can free up U.S. troops currently based there.

The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers Thursday, said the U.S. would likely remain in command for a year, as the alliance drops the current system of six-month command rotations.

Other diplomats also confirmed the U.S. offer. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with their delegations' usual practice ahead of NATO ministerial meetings.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said his country would like to take command in 2008.

NATO is scheduled to expand its peacekeeping mission from 9,000 to 16,000 by late July when it is scheduled to take on security in the dangerous southern region. Later this year, it hopes to complete its expansion by moving into the eastern sector, which will likely take its total numbers to 21,000.

The U.S. is hoping to reduce its troops numbers this year from 19,000 to 16,000. Many of the remaining U.S. troops will be incorporated into the NATO force, notably in the eastern region, where Americans will be the lead nation under the NATO command. Britain is taking command in the south, Germany commands the north, and Italy the west.

However, the U.S. will also maintain a smaller combat force independent of NATO with the aim of hunting down Taliban and al-Qaida remnants.

The NATO diplomat said the likely appointment of a U.S. general to head the NATO force would not prevent the planned reduction in the overall level of U.S. troops, although some additional headquarters units may be needed to support the commander.

Britain's Lt. Gen. David Richards took command of NATO's International Security Assistance Force last month, replacing an Italian general.

Afghanistan will be a key topic at Thursday's NATO meeting, where defense ministers are expected to stress their commitment to the mission despite a surge in attacks on international forces and their Afghan allies. NATO's move into the south will double the number of foreign troops there and alliance officials expressed confidence the beefed up force will be able to confront the insurgent threat.

"We are not planning to review a plan, at the moment, which we believe has been designed to meet the kinds of challenges that we are now seeing," John P. Colston, NATO's assistant secretary general for defense policy and planning, told reporters.