The Secret War Against the Jews : How Western Espionage Betrayed The Jewish People
- Book Review,
by John Loftus, Mark Aarons
From Publishers Weekly
According to one of the authors' anonymous sources, former CIA director Allen Dulles was "one of the worst traitors in American history" because of his involvement in the linkage among Nazi corporations, U.S. oil interests and Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. The allegations are synthesized from interviews with some 500 former intelligence officers of various nationalities. The major powers, the authors argue, have repeatedly taken covert action designed to bring about the destruction of Israel, as much out of greed for oil as anti-Semitism. Among the charges made in these pages: Allied leaders conspired to block the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 for fear its presence would threaten the flow of Arab oil to the West. Great Britain and the United States, while pretending to support Israel during the Six-Day War, passed Israeli military secrets to their Arab foes. The Reagan administration tried to set up Israel as the principal scapegoat for the Iran-Contra scandal. Over the past 50 years, virtually every Jew in the world has been the subject of electronic surveillance by the British with the assistance of American intelligence. Loftus and Aarons wrote The Unholy Trinity. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The authors (Unholy Trinity, St. Martin's, 1992) argue that the United States and other Western democracies have had a covert agenda to subvert Jewish nationalistic claims throughout the century. That the U.S. State Department has always been anti-Israel has been well documented before, but the authors further their claims by relying on formerly classified American documents and the recollections of many former operatives, or old spies, as they are called here. This book will probably appeal to fans of espionage who like their tales painted in broad strokes. The very chapter titles give an indication of the strident tone of the book, e.g., "Age of Bigotry," "Age of Stupidity," and "Age of Greed." Although there are some interesting nuggets in this book, it is an optional purchase. A much better study on some of the issues raised here is Peter Grose's Israel in the Mind of America (1983).Paul Kaplan, Lake Villa Dist. Lib., Ill.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The thesis of this absorbing book is that the secret bias of Western governments against the Jews was and is the single largest obstacle to peace in the Middle East. The book presents the point of view of non-Jews, most of whom are retired intelligence officers--the so-called old spies who plotted against Israel and the Zionist movement. Most of the hundreds of intelligence officers the authors interviewed were trained to regard Jews, and hence Israel, as hostile targets. The book is divided into three parts: the first covers the period from the end of World War I to just after the end of World War II, the second covers the postwar era up through the Nixon administration, and the third begins with the CIA's alleged sabotage of Carter's presidency and continues through the Reagan and Bush administrations, during which "sources allege that the Reagan administration set up Israel as the scapegoat for the Iran-Contra scandal, while the White House bought guns from a PLO terrorist and wiretapped American Jews." Loftus and Aarons have documented their sources' allegations with facts from such diverse sources as Oliver North's diary, hundreds of volumes of congressional investigations, and thousands of declassified files. The book is bound to be controversial; the list of "betrayers" is long and includes popes and presidents, kings and queens, statesmen, businessmen, military intelligence, and world movers and shakers of every ilk. George Cohen
From Kirkus Reviews
An alternative, conspiratorial retelling of major events of the last 75 years, from the authors of Unholy Trinity (1992). Former Justice Department Nazi-hunter Loftus and Australian journalist Aarons would have us believe that much of recent Western history has had as its common theme ``Get the Jews.'' However, they are far more convincing in arguing that the underlying motivations for most of the evil plots they describe were fanatical anti- communism and/or greed; Jews--mostly pre-1948 Zionists and post- 1948 Israelis--sometimes got in the way. Thus wealthy Americans invested in prewar Nazi Germany because there was money to be made, and Nazis were welcomed to postwar America as fighters against communism; the State Department and American boardrooms were filled with Arabists who had no sympathy for a Jewish state not because it was filled with Jews, but because it was empty of oil. Loftus and Aarons undermine their work by its enormous scope, which makes it virtually impossible to distinguish one chess-gambit conspiracy from another. Also, the sources for their most explosive revelations are ``confidential interviews'' with unnamed veterans of an alphabet soup of espionage agencies: Little hard evidence is presented. Still, like all good conspiracy books, this one offers plausible and intriguing explanations for gray areas of history. These range from how American companies wrested control of Saudi Arabia's oil fields from Great Britain in the 1920s and '30s to the way countries were convinced (blackmailed, say the authors, in a convoluted plot involving Nelson Rockefeller, who was allegedly selling oil to the Nazis all through WW II) to support the creation of Israel in 1948. The book is also enlivened by a rich rogues' gallery, including double (or maybe triple) agents Jack and Kim Philby; and John Foster and Allen Dulles, accused of subverting American foreign policy to their insatiable greed. A conspiracy book offering tasty morsels if one reads with a grain of salt and disregards its sensationalized and misleading title. (16 pages photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"Europe, abetted by the United States and other nations, continues the ancient war against Jews in ways which are vividly narrated in this extraordinary book. This is the sort of story which must be brought into open view if ever we are to be wise enough to end the reflex hostility between Gentile, Arab, and Jew."-- Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List
"The Secret War Against the Jews...reads like a great spy novel."-- Sandee Brawarsky, Jewish Week
Review
"Europe, abetted by the United States and other nations, continues the ancient war against Jews in ways which are vividly narrated in this extraordinary book. This is the sort of story which must be brought into open view if ever we are to be wise enough to end the reflex hostility between Gentile, Arab, and Jew."-- Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List
"The Secret War Against the Jews...reads like a great spy novel."-- Sandee Brawarsky, Jewish Week
Review
"Europe, abetted by the United States and other nations, continues the ancient war against Jews in ways which are vividly narrated in this extraordinary book. This is the sort of story which must be brought into open view if ever we are to be wise enough to end the reflex hostility between Gentile, Arab, and Jew."-- Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List
"The Secret War Against the Jews...reads like a great spy novel."-- Sandee Brawarsky, Jewish Week
Book Description
A hugely controversial work that exposes a series of scandals from Oliver North to the British royal family, The Secret War Against the Jews reveals as much about political corruption inside Western intelligence as it does about Israel. Using thousands of previously top-secret documents and interviews with hundreds of current and former spies, Loftus and Aarons, both veteran investigators, Nazi-hunters, and authors, present a compelling narrative.
The authors demonstrate that numerous Western countries, especially the United States and Great Britain, have conducted repeated and willful spying missions on Palestine and later Israel over many decades. While on the surface these two countries and others profess to be ardent allies of Israel, they work, in fact, through their intelligence services to betray Israel's secrets to the Arabs. Their motive: oil and multinational profits, which must be attained at any price through international covert policies.
The pageant of characters appearing in this narrative is vast and shocking. This is not only a compelling work of history, but also a volume whose grave allegations will be debated for years to come.
About the Author
Attorney John Loftus is the author of four histories of intelligence operations and a consultant for CBS's 60 Minutes, ABC's Prime Time, and other programs. As a former prosecutor with the U.S. Justice Department's Nazi-hunting unit, he had unprecedented access to top-secret CIA and NATO archives. He wrote Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and Soviet Intelligence with his coauthor, Mark Aarons. An internationally award-winning investigative reporter and author of several books on intelligence-related issues, Mr. Aarons exposed Nazi war criminals "down under" and prompted changes to Australian federal law. He lives in Sydney, Australia, where he formerly worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
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