The Total and Final Demise of the Chamish "Conspiracy >Theory" > > > > >Ordinarily I would not waste your time with the "conspiracy theories" of >Barry Chamish. But since the very last pieces of "evidence" Chamish has >been able to present were thoroughly discredited and "resolved" in a weekend >Maariv expose, the time has come to address the subject here and put it to >rest once and for all. >There is a more important reason though. In the past few years, the Israeli >Right was discredited severely by its inability or unwillingness to separate >and distance itself from Chamish and his ravings. If the Right now hopes >to influence the state of affairs in Israel, what with Oslo collapsing, it >must completely disassociate itself from such nonsense. >In the past, some on the Right have been sloppy about keeping away from the >Chamish "theories" and staying at arm's length from Chamish himself. These >included some at the Arutz 7 radio station, some in Women in Green, and >occasionally Chamish ravings were even distributed on a mailing list from >the Professors for a Strong Israel. (The board of the Professors for a >Strong Israel by the way completely rejects Chamish theories and has decided >that they will not be distributed at all on any medium of the organization.) >Since Chamish began his campaign as Oliver Stone wannabe, several other >people have published similar imitation "theories" in books and magazines. >Rightist demonstrators can be seen with T-shirts that read "Who REALLY >Killed Rabin?" > Conspiracies are the hobgoblins of small minds. > Weak people sometimes lash on to conspiracy theories because >they >represent a painless rationale for failure. How cannot one fail when a >massive all-powerful cabal conspires against one? >Israel's leading proponent of silly conspiracy stories the past seven years >has been Barry Chamish, a self-styled "journalist". Chamish spent much of >his previous career chasing space aliens and documenting abductions by >UFO's. Really. >After the >Rabin assassination, Chamish developed a series of "conspiracy theories" >asserting essentially that assassin Yigal Amir was in fact a "patsy" who did >not kill Rabin, that Rabin was killed by other shooters on some sort of >mysterious grassy knoll. These were in turn part of a grand conspiracy by >Israeli intelligence forces working somehow for an even larger conspiracy >directed by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in the US, which in turn >apparently has ties to space aliens. Really. >Since then Chamish has promoted his "theories" among some of the margins of >the Israeli Right. >This failure to distance itself from Chamish has caused, as noted, >tremendous harm to the Israel "Right", which has lost credibility. Indeed, >other than Yigal Amir himself, I can think of no one whose actions have so >effectively discredited the Israeli Right in recent years. More than one >person has suggested (in jest?) that Chamish works for the Labor Party >Establishment as an agent provocateur to delegitimize the Right. >Chamish's "theories" are, I suppose, no sillier than thos invented a way to >make scarves radioactive, which they cannot be, that such a scarf would give >someone cancer, and that it gets cold enough in Israel for people to wear >scarves. As for Chamish's "mysterious" car mishap, we have only his word >that it even occurred, and his word is hardly reliable. Even if it is true >he did have some sort of accident (not exactly a rarity in Israel) and that >the mechanic at the garage told him that he had "never seen such a >mechanical problem," as Chamish asserts, my mechanic has says the same about >my car all the time. > The rest of the Chamish "mysteries" are briefly summarized as >follows: >Question: Why were there shouts of "blanks, blanks" right after Amir fired? >Chamish's answer: Because Amir was shooting blanks. Real Answer: People >commonly think actual gunfire is of blanks at sites of shooting. At all >those school shootings in the US, people nearby thought someone was shooting >blanks or fireworks. Real bullets do not sound like the Hollywood version >and mislead people. It is also possible Amir himself yelled "blanks" to >avoid being gunned down by Rabin's guards. Amir denies this, but his word >is not exactly the most reliable. >Incidentally, the same conspiracy theorists who insist they believe Amir >when he denies yelling "blanks blanks" have a different problem. If Amir is >a patsy who did NOT murder Rabin, evidently no one bothered to tell Amir. >Yigal Amir pled guilty and still insists he murdered Rabin. The conspiracy >theorists have yet to explain away this mystery. >Question: How come the blood-stained page with the poem from which Rabin >read had four holes in it whereas Rabin was struck by one bullet? Chamish: >Must be shooters from the grassy knoll shooting extra bullets. >Real answer: Either the page was just folded or maybe it had loose-leaf >holes in it from the time BEFORE it was even printed with the poem, or the >holes were punched afterwards to place it in a file. >Question: How come it took 20 minutes of so to get the wounded Rabin to a >hospital that was 5-10 minutes away? >Chamish: More proof of conspiracy. >Real answer: Try to navigate the narrow streets to Ichilof Hospital from >the square in the dark and you will know. Then try to imagine doing it with >a wounded prime minister in your back seat. When my wife went into labor >the first time, I had trouble finding the hospital. >Question: How come the door of the car in which Rabin rode mysteriously >closed itself. >Chamish: More conspiracy. >Real answer: We have only Chamish's word that it did, and in any case my >car's door shuts itself by itself all the time. Especially when people >elsewhere in the car get in or out. >Question: How could Amir have walked into a secured area in which Rabin >would pass? >Chamish: Conspiracy. >Real answer: Incompetence. The same incompetence that prevents the >intelligence services from speaking up when Israeli politicians commit Oslo, >abandon Lebanon, and engage in other folly. >We could run through most of the rest of the Chamish "evidence" the same >way, but let us not waste your time and get to the main issue. >As noted, the hardest part of Chamish's "evidence" to explain away had to do >with assertions that the hospital records were inconsistent and pointed to a >conspiracy. The initial hospital report speaks of signs of Rabin having >been hit by three bullets. It also speaks of Rabin's spine being injured. >The final report speaks of two bullets and no severed spine. Conspiracy? >The hospital personnel, including the medical doctors involved, have never >spoken up until now because they deemed it beneath their dignity to engage >in debate with someone like Chamish. >Now five years after the events, Prof. Mordecai Gutman, the surgeon who took >Rabin into the emergency ward at the hospital, supervised the surgery >attempting to save him, and wrote the reports has spoken out. In Maariv Nov >3, 00. >Gutman is a highly respected surgeon with no known political connections who >would not even have been on duty that night in the emergency ward except >that he was asked to be there in case the rally at which Rabin spoke >produced injuries of protesters, such as from street fights. >The explanations and answers to all of Chamish's "questions" appear in the >interview. The document saying there were three bullets was written when >Rabin was first brought in and the emergency room staff thought there were >three, due to the extent of the injuries. The document was not torn up >later when they had a better picture because it was an internal memo for the >staff and not designed as any sort of official pronouncement. Because one >of the two bullets had hit the spine and bounced around, there were enough >injuries to be consistent, at first glance, with three bullets. There were >two bullets and not three. There were no "exit wounds", as first thought, >which could be consistent with three bullets. One bullet did strike Rabin's >backbone and bounced off. It did not sever the spinal cord, as the doctors >thought in the initial fast inspection, but changed directions, as bullets >do, and caused more internal injuries. There was nothing "mysterious" about >Rabin walking after getting shot. There was nothing to suggest anything >other than the two bullets were involved. The two bullets perfectly matched >Yigal Amir's gun. >Chamish recently collected his "thoughts" about the Rabin assassination into >a book and got it published or paid for its printing. The book would be a >non-issue, except that the Steimetzky's book chain, the largest in Israel, >decided to take it off its shelves for a while due to outraged protests from >the press and public. (The Jerusalem Post book club has also been selling >it, as have some book stores in the US and elsewhere. They also would be >well-advised to drop it from their displays.) >Steimetzky's taking Chamish's book off its shelves was censorship in exactly >the same sense as is Mayor Giuliani's threat to defund the Brooklyn Museum >of the Arts for showing the Virgin Mary in elephant dung. That is, it was >NOT censorship at all. No one is stopping Chamish from saying what he >says or selling his own book. >Indeed I am on record as denouncing Leftist Hebrew University students who >violently prevented his speaking on campus a couple of years back, at which >time I urged everyone to congratulate the Dean who suspended the Leftist >hooligans. > Chamish is not a martyr but a lunatic. >Did the Israeli Left use the Rabin assassination as a bludgeon to revive >Oslo and attack the Right? Yes. Was Avishai Raviv serving as a tool of >the Labor Party to discredit the Right and engage in provocations? >Absolutely. Indeed, I suspect his orders originated with Rabin himself. >Was Rabin a disaster as Prime Minister? Yes. Did Rabin have little regard >for the rules of democracy? Yes. Has the cult of Rabin been used to >perpetuate suicidal national policies? Yes. >And none of that makes the slightest difference with respect to Barry >Chamish and his infantile attention-seeking conspiracy theorizing. >There are many reasons why the Israeli "Right" has imploded and failed.. >Among these is first and foremost the total incompetence and corruption of >the Likud when it held office, and of course its conversion into the >country's leading advocate of Oslo. >Chasing lunatic "conspiracies" will not fix things. Oslo will not be >stopped until the large majority of Israelis is convinced that anti-Oslo >dissidents are correct about the essence and dangers of Oslo. The best way >to prevent this from ever happening is for anti-Oslo dissidents to promote >and repeat the fantasies of Barry Chamish. > >PS. Oh as an afterthought, I understand Chamish is now claiming that I >too am an agent of the CFR because I have urged that his "theories" be >dismissed as nonsense. If anyone knows anyone at CFR, can you >mention this to them? Maybe I can get a check from them to cover the old >overdraft > >
