The curious timing of the anti-Islam video

Isn’t interesting that right before the US presidential election, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu champing at the bit to involve the US in a war against Iran over its nuclear program, along comes an anti-Islam video, which sat practically unnoticed on the web until an Arabic translation was added, that has set off riots and mayhem in some 20 Muslim majority countries in condemnation of the US?

Coincidence or planned? Police will tell you they don’t believe in coincidence. Yet no one is questioning the timing of this incident and your editor is likely to be trashed as a conspiracy theorist for even raising the question.

While Israel has repeatedly said it had no hand in making this video, which is now being called the work of an American-Egyptian Coptic Christian, doth Israel protest too much?

Netanyahu has made no secret of his desire to see Mitt Romney, who he thinks is more amenable to Israel’s wishes, become the next US president. While we lose no love for Barack Obama, Romney’s incredulous reaction to the storming of the US Embassy in Cairo, followed by the murders of US Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Steven and three others in Benghazi, is another example that he is not ready for prime time and may have put the White House out of his reach, unless he gets some help from those who control the electronic voting equipment.

Whether this was a fortuitous incident, from Netanyahu’s perspective, or a plot gone awry because he miscalculated Romney’s ability at statecraft, Israel may become the loser in its desire to make war on Iran.

Israel has a long history of subterfuge, assassinations, attacks, overt and covert, on its perceived enemies and spying on the US. William John Cox in his article, The separate security interests of the United States and Israel, notes, “Israel is not included in the ‘Five Eyes,’ a designation that allows the U.S., Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand to share top secret information. It is understood that the Five Eyes do not spy on each other.”

Cox wrote, “A CIA report confirms that U.S. officials in Israel assume that all of their political conversations are monitored. The report stated that in addition to political espionage, Israel targets ‘a considerable portion of their covert operations to obtaining scientific and technical intelligence.’”

Whether it’s the pot calling the kettle black, according to Cox, “Today, the CIA considers Israel to be the primary counterintelligence threat to its operations in the Middle East. In other words, U.S. secrets are more vulnerable to Israeli spying, than any other government in the area, including Iran.”

Given this history, along with Netanyahu’s obsession with Iran and his desire to see Obama replaced by Romney, since Obama hasn’t given Israel the go-ahead to bomb Iran or join in that suicidal endeavor, is it too much to ask cui bono from Muslim riots over a poorly made, amateurish video?

While the US has much to atone for over the killing of innocent brown people (Muslims and non-Muslims) and the destruction of their countries, it had nothing to do with the making of this video and the only decent thing Washington can do is appeal to the governments of the countries involved to show they are in charge by putting out the flames or lose US aid.

Bev Conover is the editor and publisher of Intrepid Report. Email her at editor@intrepidreport.com.