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Revision as of 00:17, 30 March 2006 by 69.22.249.79 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Barry Chamish is a Canadian-Israeli UFO and conspiracy theorist. He lives in Modi'in, Israel.
Chamish wrote several books of which the best-known is Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin? In this book, Chamish blames the Rabin assassination on Shimon Peres, at that time Israel's minister of Foreign Affairs, and on the Shin Bet instead of the convicted assassin Yigal Amir. Chamish as yet has produced little or no evidence that anyone other than Amir killed Rabin, and Amir himself allegedly continues to insist that he is the assassin. He also claims that the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped by space aliens in league with the Illuminati.
Other theories of some note include the accusation that J.F. Kennedy was assassinated by the Mossad and Lyndon Johnson so Johnson could continue the Vietnam War , that the Hurricane Katrina disaster was an act of God in retaliation to the Gaza withdrawal and that Baruch Goldstein "was framed for a massacre he did not commit". Chamish claims that Yoko Ono was behind the assassination of John Lennon and that the song Imagine is about the New World Order.
Representing Ariel Sharon as a "violent gangster"
Chamish served in an Israeli tank division during the 1982 Lebanon War. He has written extensively about what he views as Ariel Sharon's and Shimon Peres's mismanagement of the war. At the time Ariel Sharon was Israel's minister of defense and Shimon Peres was the country's opposition leader. Chamish accuses Sharon of sending his brigade deep into Lebanon after receiving orders from former Prime Minister Menachem Begin to advance no more than 20 kilometers beyond the border, and then sending word back to Begin that the advance had indeed halted at 20 kilometers. Chamish's brigade ran into heavy fire, and the brigade was given no air support, resulting in half of it being destroyed. Chamish maintains a very low opinion of Sharon based on a number episodes in Sharon's public life , painting a representation of a violent gangster.
Chamish also described the drowning of former Israeli minister Rafael Eitan, who was swept away by a wave while working on a dock in Ashdod, as a "hit" by Prime Minster Ariel Sharon. No evidence was provided. On a recent TV show in Israel, Chamish's closest associate, David Rutstein, admited that he was sent 10 years ago by the FBI to spy on JDL activities in the US .
Conspiracy theories blaming Shimon Peres
Chamish claims that Yigal Amir did not shoot Rabin and has written on this extensively. One of Chamish's websites carries the name yigalamir.com, after the assassin of the late prime-minister of Israel. Members of Yigal Amir's family told Yedioth Ahronoth in January, 2005, Israel's most sold daily, that "they object to Chamish's ideas, and that they have no right to publish such a website. They added the campaign angers Yigal Amir himself." .
Chamish has also accused Shimon Peres of the death of former Utah Congressman D. Wayne Owens the founder of the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation and head of the Middle East Peace Center because "he raised congressional concern about Palestinian-sponsored terrorism... the ire of some Israeli activists" and because Owens uncovered supposedly fraud he had put himself at risk:
- Barely a fortnight before, Rep. Owens learned the Ginosar scandal broke in Israel. He was either terrified or furious. It's a tossup. If he was terrified, it was because it wouldn't be long before his direct ties to Stephen Cohen would implicate him deeply in the scandals. If he was furious, it was because he finally learned how badly he had been scammed by Peres, Abraham, Masri and Cohen. Either way, he threatened to blow the whistle on the Peres Peace Center. He was poisoned at dinner and dead on a beach by 9 PM. Rep. Owens is now another notch on Peres' gunbelt.
In his explanation for the "Sharon stroke mystery", Chamish explains that this was a murder attempt by Shimon Peres and Yoram Rubin. While he gives no explanation why Peres and a bodyguard would want to kill the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, let alone any evidence, Chamish tells us that before his death Sharon wanted to appoint the Israeli president Moshe Katzav as his deputy and not his close political affiliate Ehud Olmert. Also he explains that Sharon was about to allow business people to build a casino in the dismantled Gush Katif settlement block. Chamish himself had a stroke in February 2006. After arguing for weeks that Sharon could not have had a stroke due to natural health problems, Chamish is at a loss to explain his own stroke other than as a conspiracy of space aliens or CFR plotters.
Typically no evidence is provided for such murder theories, apart from sometimes loose associations between individuals.
See also: Yitzhak Rabin assassination conspiracy theoriesUFOs, Freemasons and United States
Chamish further links his conspiracy theories with the roles of Freemasonry and the New World Order. According to Chamish, a heretical Jewish sect called Frankists (followers of Jacob Frank, himself a Sabbatian), which involve many German and Polish dynasties, including the House of Rothschild, have joined a wider Freemasonic conspiracy (including the Bavarian Illuminati), which he claims are under Heilil as mentioned by Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel. Both of these elements together seem to resemble the positions of American short wave radio host William Cooper. He claims that people are frequently abducted from Israel by UFOs. ]
In the Versailles banquet hall disaster, where a floor collapsed during a wedding, 23 persons were killed and 300 more injured. Chamish, without quoting any evidence, deducts that this was a sort of general rehearsal for the American set-up of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, in which almost 3000 persons died.
Chamish has distributed alleged photos of a secret US base in Israel , the existence of which is denied by both countries and numerous skeptics who claim the pictures are merely composites .
Chamish has also written a book about UFO sightings in Israel.
Ben Gurion and Eshkol
Chamish has also written about the allegedly hidden roles of Israeli Prime Ministers David Ben Gurion and Levi Eshkol. He has attempted to trace the whereabouts of many Jewish Yemenite immigrant children who were taken from their parents after they arrived on aliyah in Israel from Yemen. He writes that Ben Gurion recklessly allowed at least 6000 of these children to be fatally exposed to nuclear radiation for purposes of nuclear experimentation.
In his book Shabtai Tzvi, Labor Zionism and the Holocaust, Chamish also claims that Levi Eshkol was a secret Sabbatian, and that the Israel labor party was based on the teachings of Sabbatai Zevi (1626-1676) the false Messiah who became an apostate to Judaism by converting to Islam.
Miscellaneous theories
Barry Chamish connects the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip with the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans, because Gush (Katif) and Gulf start with GU and Katrina and (Gush) Katif start with KAT. He points out that the remainder of the latter words, after subtracting KAT and rearranging rina, is "if rain". Chamish told Aaron Klein, the Jerusalem reporter of the World Net Daily: Simple human beings cannot fully understand what is going on, but the events certainly must be connected. It's statistically impossible to have two such great natural disasters like the recent tsunami in Asia and Katrina right after each other. This is the hand of God. He is saying something. This view is also accepted by many religious Jews and not just conspiracy theorists.
Chamish also accuses Natan Sharansky of being a "liar" who hid his alleged role of KGB double-agent and is not the heroic refusenik that many are led to believe.
He currently has a website and newsletter devoted to a rich variety conspiracy theories about Israeli politics. The long list of theories includes "explanations" for the deaths of Ofra Haza and Leah Rabin who died from natural causes and Rafael Eitan who drowned after he was sweeped away when working on a dock in the port of Ashdod.
Criticism on Chamish's work
The conspiracy theories by Barry Chamish were critically addressed, among others, by Prof. Steven Plaut in the Jewish Press weekly and the Jerusalem Post daily . Daniel Pipes has dismissed Chamish's work as "nonsense" . The Outpost dedicated in March 2002 an editorial item on Barry Chamish, including the following criticism on Chamish's "methodology" :
Chamish literally spouts conspiracy theories. Does the Israeli government claim that Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi was murdered by Arab terrorists? Chamish knows better. Prior to his death, writes Chamish, "Zeevi went on the war path against Peres, which was not a wise strategy. Others have tried and others have died." Chamish hints darkly at connections between Peres and the French and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He writes: "It would have been no trouble for Peres and the French to order the PFLP to knock off Zeevi. All we have to do is prove it." (There's unconscious humor for you. Chamish? Proof? A ramble down free association lane is Chamish's notion of "proof.") Chamish promises that the "answer, ultimately will lead to the same organization which murdered Yitzhak Rabin." (Peres, needless to say, was behind that one too.)
Chamish's articles are routinely carried by neonazi, Holocaust denial , and other anti-Semitic web sites.
Additionally, Chamish has been repeatedly convicted of libel in Israeli courts. .
External links
Websites and web-based articles
- Personal website of Barry Chamish
- Template:He icon"The History of the World according to Chamish", Eli Ashad, Eretz Hatzvi, November 5, 2005
- "Three Organizations Denounce 'Investigation' of Pollard Case", "Justice for Jonathan Pollard" press release, June 25, 2003
- "Ties of 'Conspiracist' Barry Chamish to neo-Nazi Organizations", an anti-Chamish website.
- Israelite Roots website BritAm criticises Chamish
Journal and press articles
- A review of Chamish's book "The Last Days of Israel", Middle East Quarterly by Daniel Pipes (7th review on the page)
- Steven Plaut: "Israel's Plague of Conspiracism" in the Jewish Press
- Paranoid fantasies, from the Editor, Outpost, January 2002, p. 2
- The Chamish Conspiracy, from the Editor, Outpost, March 2002, p. 2 & 10