Thread by @RBrulin

Feb 6, 1983: @nytimes Front Page:"18 Die in Bombing at PLO Center in Beirut" by @tomfriedman
Bombing claimed by mysterious group, the FLLF.
Feb 2018, Ronen Bergman published book revealing that ISRAEL created the FLLF.
Since: US media has remained SILENT about revelations
THREAD

Here is a link to the NYT's article:
nytimes.com/1983/02/06/wor…
This car bombing was such big news that it also made the Front Page of the @washingtonpost that day: washingtonpost.com/archive/politi…

In the words of Thomas Friedman, the explosion "blew the license plates off a nearby car & the shutters & windows out of many apartments in the neighborhood." The streets were "choked w/ bloodstained glass & clothing" & terrified people scrambled to escape the burning buildings

The Washington Post explained that the blast "was caused by 130 pounds of a special high explosive" and was "equivalent to more than 300 pounds of TNT.describes similar scenes," before describing similar scenes of "pandemonium" in the streets

As both Times &Post noted, this bombing was latest in series of car bombings targeting Palestinians & their leftist allies & which mysterious group, Front for Liberation of Lebanon fm Foreigners (FLLF) had taken responsibility for. And to Palestinians, Israel was clearly involved

Attacks (mostly car bombings) that the FLLF claimed responsibility for between 1979 and 1983 killed HUNDREDS of civilians and are included in the "terrorism databases" of both START and RAND. At the time, this represented the biggest campaign of terrorist car bombings ever seen

In February 2018, Ronen Bergman published "Rise &Kill First," a remarkable history of Israeli "targeted killings" where author, w/ his extraordinary access to Israeli officials, confirmed what Palestinians had claimed for 25 years:
Israeli senior officials CREATED & RAN the FLLF

This is all the more remarkable because at the time (early 1980s) Israeli officials were in the midst of a huge communication offensive to convince the rest of the world (& esp the US) of the seriousness of the "terrorist threat" the Palestinians posed to the whole Western world

In a stunning example of the mendacity of this discourse on "terrorism," Ariel Sharon took the pages of the NYT to explain that Israel's invasion of Lebanon was necessary to defeat the evil of "terrorism" EXACTLY at the time when he & other Israeli officials were running the FLLF

Since Bergman's book was published, it has been reviewed everywhere, translated in 17 languages & named (rightly!) in numerous end-of-the-year lists of best books of 2018
BUT his revelations about the FLLF have NOT ONCE BEEN MENTIONED in the US media

In May, I wrote about Bergman's revelations, about their significance for anyone interested in the birth of the "discourse on terrorism" in Israel & US, and about the COMPLETE silence about these revelations in the US media & from US "terrorism experts": mondoweiss.net/2018/05/remark…

It is now February 2019, and the silence continues. Not a single "terrorism expert" I have contacted on Twitter about these revelations has replied to me. Nor have any of the reviewers of Bergman's book when I have asked them why they failed to mention his FLLF revelations.

I also noted in a thread last year that the fact that ISR created & ran FLLF appears to confirm allegations by former US Ambassador to Lebanon John Dean that Israel was behind an attempt on his life in 1980, and I called on US journalists to investigate

https://twitter.com/RBrulin/status/1001815647842652161

Finally: Thomas Friedman still writes for NYT. Since publication of Rise & Kill First by his NYT colleague, he has not written a word about fact that we now know that Israeli officials were behind the terrorist car bombing he wrote about on the Front Page on February 6, 1983

I also wrote about this for @alaingresh in French:

https://twitter.com/RBrulin/status/1092431185056288769

And, translated in Arabic, here;
orientxxi.info/lu-vu-entendu/…
Bergman's book has not been published in France yet. French "terrorism experts" that I have contacted about this have mostly remained silent...

As I have noted before: Rise & Kill First will soon be published in Israel. I wonder how these revelations about FLLF (ie that Israeli very senior officials created & ran a "terrorist" group that killed hundreds of civilians) will be covered there, compared to the US. Wait & See

Finally: role played by major "terrorism experts" (esp. @hoffman_bruce & others at RAND) in ERASING very existence of FLLF & any suggestion that ISR might have played any role in these "terrorist" attack was CENTRAL to the construction of the Israeli / US discourse on "terrorism"

Note: Hoffman blocks me (since I published piece in FP Magazine criticizing his arguments for excluding US supported death squads fm his def of "terrorism") but I know he HAS read Rise & Kill First... & must have "missed" the FLLF revelations since he hasn't mentioned them since

For those interested in that Foreign Policy Magazine piece (and in the very problematic arguments used by too many "terrorism experts" to conveniently exclude US supported death squads from their study of "terrorism") : foreignpolicy.com/2012/08/20/ter…

Been trying to get US media to cover revelations for months. This silence (again: we now KNOW that ISR senior officials were behind campaign of terrorist bombings AT VERY TIME they claimed to be "fighting the absolute evil of terrorism" in Lebanon) has been truly remarkable

From December 31, 2018:

https://twitter.com/RBrulin/status/1079436735333969920

Note: Some on Twitter have accused me of "anti-semitism" for writing that article while refusing to address actual facts of the case I make there.
A reminder: ALL these revelations come fm Bergman's book & Israeli officials who described the FLLF operation to him on the record

As this case shows:
Sometimes, "conspiracy theories" are true
Sometimes, "black flag" operations are real
The danger:
When the media covers up such cases, the cover up can then be used by some to defend all the other (blatantly untrue) "conspiracy theories" out there

Over the years several books mentioned FLLF& included accusations that ISR was probably behind attacks
Khalidi: Under Siege,Fisk: Pity Nation,Sayigh: Armed Struggle,Clifton: God Cried,Davis: Buda's Wagon
Bergman is FIRST to have Israeli officials admitting to their role on record

Importantly: These books were either NOT reviewed in US press or, when they were, accusations vs Israel were dismissed as amounting to "conspiracy thinking."
Now that Israeli officials are on the record, US media/ terrorism experts have chosen to simply be SILENT about the topic.

To give you an idea of the ability of certain pundits to completely misrepresent Bergman's revelations, here is @MaxBoot, a year ago:

https://twitter.com/MaxBoot/status/958026705725091840

Needless to say: admitting that Israel resorted to "terrorism" would force pundits / experts / pols to face a Pandora's Box of hard questions, not the least of which questions related to the legitimacy of the use of armed force in response to / in defense against "terrorists"

This point is especially important because the early 80s happen to be the time when the US fully adopted for the first time Israel's position on the legitimacy of the use of force vs "terrorists," a position until then fully rejected by the International community in its entirety

In other words: The US adopted Israel's position on the legitimacy of the use of force vs "terrorists" & states that gave them support PRECISELY at the time when Israel was sponsoring what was, at the time, the largest "terrorist" car bombing campaign in history!

Note that EVEN @democracynow completely failed to ask Ronen Bergman about the FLLF revelations when they interviewed him a few months ago, as I tweeted at the time:

https://twitter.com/RBrulin/status/1073218566974005248

A note, on day after Omar grilled Abrams re: US policies in El Salv & Guate: whenever Dems managed to stop US military aid to these countries in 70/80s becoz weapons went to death squad "terrorists" several countries would step in &sell their own weapons. First among them? Israel

Update: Friedman just wrote a piece condemning Ilhan Omar.
There he DOES mention Lebanon.... but only to criticize Omar for not being critical enough of Iran's role in "crushing Lebanese democracy"! Still NOT a WORD re: FLLF revelations!!! nytimes.com/2019/03/06/opi…