Cutting off the head of the snake: Ken O’Keefe on beating the bankers, Israeli brutality, and the 9/11 ‘gift’
By Craig McKee“We don’t want war. But we have war – all the time. Why? Because the bankers run the world, and war is the best thing for them.” – Ken O’Keefe
He is passionate, fearless, charismatic, and very blunt.
To be sure, human rights activist and former U.S. Marine Ken O’Keefe says things some people don’t want to hear, things that jolt them from their complacency about the tyranny and deceptions that pervert our world. The message he has to offer is not an easy one to accept for so many who have had their perceptions molded by the mainstream media, mainstream entertainment, and mainstream politics.
Recently, O’Keefe concluded a North American speaking tour with appearances in Montreal (April 23) and Toronto (April 28 and 29) that both I and fellow Truth and Shadows contributor Barrie Zwicker attended. We also had the opportunity to sit down together with O’Keefe for more than two hours the night before the first of those talks at Concordia University in Montreal. (Zwicker co-organized the two appearances in Toronto the following week, one at the Beit Zatoun Cultural Centre and the other at the University of Toronto.)
O’Keefe told his audiences that we won’t solve our biggest problems until we understand that we have been subjugated by an international financial system that concentrates power in the hands of an ultra-rich and very shadowy elite. And this elite routinely uses war as a tool to increase its power.
“I’ve travelled all over this world, and we are all basically the same,” he said in his first Toronto talk. “We don’t want war. But we have war – all the time. Why? Because the bankers run the world, and war is the best thing for them. Not only does it provide more profits for them but more importantly it divides people. What can divide people more than killing each other?”
“We’re consenting to the destruction of our world,” he said.
O’Keefe is escorted into Beit Zatoun by police.
It’s not about fighting for power, he contends, it’s about using the power we already have.
In addition to being an ardent 9/11 truther, O’Keefe is an unrelenting advocate for the oppressed people of Gaza who endure a murderous occupation of their land by Israel. His critics call him an anti-Semite, but this does not stop him from calling attention to the inhuman treatment of the Palestinian people.
“You cannot help but be inspired by the Palestinians,” he said. “They have they been facing a monstrosity – completely abandoned, not just by the world but by their Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters in the region. Totally abandoned.”
O’Keefe, who renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2001, goes beyond Zionism to criticize “Jewish power” and “Jewish supremacism.” This has made him controversial – even among some who oppose the New World Order, the 9/11 false flag, and the exaggerated and destructive influence of Israel. But he is not deterred, explaining that Palestinians are enduring such incredible hardships because we’ve been convinced there are certain people we can’t criticize and certain things we can’t say.
While his Montreal appearance was uneventful (also speaking in that day-long event was the author of Wiki vs NWO, Grant Elder), the first of his two Toronto talks was met with a small but vocal protest from the Jewish Defence League. The second of those talks has resulted in an investigation by the Toronto Police Hate Crimes Unit into whether O’Keefe was guilty of breaking Canada’s hate crimes law.
According to Canada’s Criminal Code, section 318 (Hate Propaganda), a hate crime has been committed when someone communicates statements “other than in a private conversation, that willfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group.” There are defences that can lead to an acquittal, and they are:
“(a) if he establishes that the statements communicated were true; (b) if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text; (c) if the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he believed them to be true; or (d) if, in good faith, he intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters producing or tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada.”
B’nai Brith Canada, an organization that advocates for the Jewish community and enthusiastically supports the State of Israel, says it filed a complaint with the Toronto Police Service claiming that O’Keefe had engaged in “hate speech.” B’nai Brith has also complained to the University of Toronto for allowing O’Keefe to use their facility. (Oddly, police spokesperson Const. Caroline de Kloet confirmed that an investigation is underway, but she denied that they had received a complaint from B’nai Brith. She would only say that the complaint had come from another party.)
On the B’nai Brith website, the organization’s position is made very clear in a statement with this heading: “Neo-Nazi Ken O’Keefe spreads hatred at U of T.”
From the statement:
“O’Keefe represents a type of virulent and murderous antisemitism not usually heard in Canada’s public spaces,” said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada. “He propagates the malicious lie of Jewish control over the media, government, judicial system and financial sector, and even accuses Jews of assassinating former U.S. President John F. Kennedy and staging the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Worst of all is his deplorable claim that Jews invented the Holocaust in order to ‘steal Palestine from the Palestinians’.
“How can Jewish students, staff or faculty work safely on campus when a neoNazi is allowed to spout lies and hatred against them just down the hallway?”
I have no idea what safety has to do with anything. And no matter what anyone might feel about what was said at the talk, this was a peaceful event where several hundred peaceful people came to hear O’Keefe exercise his right to free speech. Of course, in Canada we do have laws (I’m embarrassed to say) that can lead to the imprisonment of someone challenging the official narrative of World War II and the Holocaust.
JDL protests outside Beit Zatoun while police watch. (Craig McKee photo)
It is also ironic that B’nai Brith accuses O’Keefe of engaging in hate speech while they level the wild and false charge that he is a neo-Nazi. One could argue that they are promoting hatred against him.
The University of Toronto’s director of media relations, Althea Blackburn-Evans, said in an interview that the group that rented the auditorium for the O’Keefe talk has been permanently banned from booking space on the campus. She admits this is a rare response to a complaint from the community.
“Of course, freedom of speech is paramount but we also very much, of course, value diversity, inclusion, and mutual respect. That is something that is ingrained in all our policies,” she said. “We absolutely don’t tolerate any racism or discrimination, and some of the comments that were made were concerning enough for us to say this isn’t going to happen again on our campus.
“We want to feel that all members of our community feel welcome here and feel respected and don’t feel discriminated against.”
So let me get this straight. Anyone who rents space on the U of T campus for a lecture must ensure members of the community feel “respected” and “included”? It’s comforting to know that popular, non-threatening speech is going to be protected there. As for diversity, I have no idea what she meant by that. It actually seems that the university is worried about too much diversity – of thought. It seems that they are fine with freedom of speech until the wrong group is offended.
War and the head of the snake
The central point in O’Keefe’s presentations, as I pointed out, is that real source of power in our world and the real source of conflict and brutality, is the financial system, which he calls “the head of the snake” and which he says is used to control countries and individuals through debt.
“If you ask me, the bankers rule the world,” O’Keefe said in Montreal. “They have an infinite supply of money, and with that they have bought everything and everyone that can be bought. And they punish those with honor and integrity, and they reward pedophiles, immoral psychopaths and sociopaths. They want to be gods; they want total control.”
As O’Keefe argues, one of the mechanisms for transferring wealth and power from the masses to the ruling elite is through the use of contrived wars. These wars depend on deceptions for whatever public support they receive. And one of the key ways we are deceived into supporting wars is through the false flag.
“Every major war is started and engineered almost always with a false flag,” he said. “Who do the politicians work for? They work for the fucking bankers.”
Of course, the most important false flag in recent decades was the supposed “terrorist attack” of 9/11. O’Keefe calls this event a “gift” for the world because its sheer scope exposed how the elite use deception to justify their wars. He says this false flag was so big and so obvious that is has led many to become aware of this tactic and to see through the real reasons for war.
“Fifteen years ago nobody knew what a false flag was,” he said.
There is considerable evidence, O’Keefe contends, that Israel was complicit in 9/11 along with a “treasonous” element in the U.S. government.
“I think it’s really quite obvious – the fingerprints of who is responsible are already in the public realm,” he says.
O’Keefe points out that only those of Israeli origin were arrested on or shortly after 9/11 on suspicion of being involved. Of course there were the “dancing Israelis” who were seen celebrating the attack on the Twin Towers and who later admitted on Israeli television that they were sent to “document the event.” (This, of course, proves foreknowledge.)
Some of those arrested, O’Keefe says, were stopped with explosives in their vans, some were later given lie detector tests that they failed, and all were released and deported on the order of then Homeland Security head and U.S./Israeli dual national Michael Chertoff.
“[Chertoff] quietly sent these people home with no further investigation. What we have at the least is obstruction of justice, which is a serious criminal offense given that this is the biggest terrorist attack in U.S. history.”
O’Keefe dismisses the famous “28 pages” (which allegedly point to Saudi involvement in 9/11) as being a deliberate distraction to put us off the track of the real culprits. He points to Saudi Arabia’s ties to Israel and calls the country one of the most “grotesque” on the planet.
“The Saudis played a minor role; they supplied the patsies, basically. Mohamed Atta running around in strip clubs in Florida having sex with a stripper, snorting cocaine, drinking booze, and you’re supposed to convince me this guy was on a jihad?”
But the real smoking gun that O’Keefe produces is the inexplicable behavior of two billionaires, Larry Silverstein and Frank Lowy, who bought the lease to the World Trade Center complex in July 2001. He explains that the Port Authority of New York, which owned the buildings, had been involved in a longstanding court case to absolve itself of liability for the cost of removing the asbestos, a case it lost in 2001.
“You could not just demolish the buildings because of the asbestos,” O’Keefe said in Montreal. They lost, but for some reason Silverstein and Lowy agreed to take on that incredible liability, which had been estimated to be in the billions of dollars. They did this just six weeks before 9/11, and they doubled the amount of insurance on the buildings should a ‘terrorist attack’ take place.”
O’Keefe uses a hypothetical to explain why it is relevant to specify that the two businessmen were Jewish:
“I want you to imagine that two Muslim billionaires stepped in and decided to buy the lease on the Twin Towers thereby transferring the liability from the Port Authority to themselves and then immediately proceeded to double the insurance policy on the buildings. Imagine if it was two Muslim billionaires that did that. And imagine these Muslim billionaires bought these buildings six weeks before those buildings … and, importantly, also took over security to the buildings in the six weeks leading up to those buildings turning to dust right before our eyes.
“Who in their right minds would believe that billionaire businessmen would make such a purchase and accept liability? It makes no sense at all unless, of course, you’re a couple of billionaire businessmen who happen to happen to have very intimate relations with the so-called Jewish State of Israel.”
O’Keefe further cements the case by pointing out that Silverstein has admitted to being close friends with Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu and speaking to him weekly for more than 20 years.
One thing that O’Keefe is convinced is holding the 9/11 Truth Movement back is the time spent internally fighting over details of what materials were used to bring the towers down, etc. He says we should stay away from focusing on areas of disagreement and instead direct our attention to our agreement that 9/11 was a false flag. (He did, however, respond to a direct question in our interview about whether a large plane hit the Pentagon: “It is evident that a plane of that size hitting the Pentagon is ridiculous,” he said. “It defies the laws of physics.”)
The traumatization of Palestine
While O’Keefe has a broad perspective about how our world is being controlled, his passion has roots in the plight of the Palestinians, who continue to be victims of one of the most brutal occupations in the world.
“A lot of what I do comes from my relationship with the Palestinian people,” he explained.
As well as founding the Truth Justice Peace Human Shield Action to Iraq in 2002, O’Keefe was a member of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in 2010, which was seeking to break an Israeli blockade and bring humanitarian supplies to Gaza. His vessel, the Mavi Marmara, was attacked and boarded by Israeli forces in international waters, and nine activists were killed (a tenth spent four years in a coma before dying in 2014).
In his Montreal talk, O’Keefe told the story of one victim, 19-year-old American Furkan Dogan, who O’Keefe explained was initially shot several times by Israeli soldiers despite being unarmed. And as the activist lay on the deck of the ship, critically wounded, an Israeli commando stood over him and fired a shot into his face, killing him.
“He was executed,” O’Keefe said. “Absolutely. 100%. No doubt about it. This is another example of how Israel has a free pass, how Israel can do anything.”
O’Keefe was responsible for disarming one soldier, who was later released unharmed (as were two other captured Israelis). To learn more about this, I highly recommend this interview from 2010 that O’Keefe did with the BBC program Hardtalk, which you can also see at the top of this article.
In his second Toronto talk, he told the story of Samouni family from Gaza that had been ordered out of their homes and into a building by the Israeli military a day prior to the house being targeted with several rockets. Twenty-seven members of the 97-member family were killed although not all died right away. For several days, no one was permitted to leave the house, including children who had to stay with the dead bodies of their parents.
“The situation was more grotesque than you can imagine,” O’Keefe said, “because of course when they were hit some of the family members went outside to seek medical attention. But the Israelis shot at them when they went outside, so they quickly realized that was not an option.
“There was no water, no heating, no food. It was horrendous.”
He explains that the residents of Gaza have to cope with incredible amounts of stress given the military assaults and the daily mistreatment they’ve had to endure.
“Every single person in Gaza suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder to one degree or another. Every one of them,” he says. “I think about this a lot, when I’m back in the UK or other Western countries – when you hear a helicopter we don’t think much of it. But when Palestinians hear a helicopter going by, especially children who have had loved ones blown to bits by helicopters that fire rockets at them, I tell you what, it’s fucking terrifying.
“The extent to which this whole population has been victimized is really impossible to measure.”
O’Keefe: a passionate defender of the Palestinian people. (Craig McKee photo)
“That tells you a lot about the state of our world, what’s really going on, and who is really in charge,” he said. “On a physical level, the amount of power within this tiny percentage of the human population, the Jewish population, is simply stunning. Less than two percent of the human population and it pervades all the top levels of the corporate world, the banking sector, the mass media, they own Hollywood, they’re in the Supreme Court, they run the courts largely.
“This is what the Palestinians have been facing, an enemy with no mercy towards its enemy … [It is like] the Palestinians are less than dogs, and the way they are treated is a pure indication of that. And this is what they’ve been facing for many decades, and I would argue that the reason they’ve been facing this for so many decades because we’re not even allowed to speak honestly about what they’re facing.”
O’Keefe argues that the fact that we are not supposed to criticize Israel or challenge the official history of World War II, and the Holocaust in particular, has made it much more difficult for the Palestinians to struggle against their oppression and the continuing theft of their land.
“There is nothing to say to defend what Israel does,” he said, although he added:
“I’ll be happy to embrace my Jewish supremacist brothers and sisters when they see the error of their ways and they see how destructive that mentality is, not only for others but for themselves.”
What seem to be disastrous Western policies in the Middle East, he contends, are actually part of a wider plan that is actually achieving just what its architects intend. He says that the long-term plan for Israel is to become a new empire and to expand into a number of neighboring countries (known as the Greater Israel Project).
“Is the intention to have peace?” he asks. “Hell, no. Actual real peace in Palestine and in Israel would be the end of Israel, would be the end of the Jewish state, because eventually peace will result in one person one vote, and there will be a majority of Arabs in that region again especially if the right of return is respected. And what does that mean for a supremacist Jewish state? It’s the fucking end of it, so of course they don’t want peace.”
O’Keefe becomes very animated when he discusses the subject of the “fight” against ISIS and where this new “threat” is really coming from.
“We train these fucking psychopaths,” he says. “We fucking protect them. We provide them sanctuary in Turkey and Jordan. We provide them the weapons. Look at them running around with our weapons all over the place. They’re getting the money, they’re getting the weapons, they’re getting the training, and they’re getting the protection of the mainstream media who are presenting them as a real enemy we’re really fighting. In fact, they’re our creation and they’re there to justify our aggressive policies in the region.”
What can we do?
While known for his criticisms of the system as it currently exists, O’Keefe is actually devoting himself to an initiative aimed at creating positive solutions to the problems the world faces. His plan is called World Citizen Solutions, which in its first phase begins with a simple social contract based upon three elements:
- I affirm my natural rights: the right to life, the right to freedom of expression, the right to travel, the right to self-defence
- I obligate myself to respect the natural rights of everyone else on this planet (“If we don’t want to be invaded, if you don’t want to be lied to, if you don’t want to be killed, if you don’t want to be raped then you don’t do that shit, and you don’t pay for that shit,” he said.)
- And I agree to respect the planet
He explains that there would be a one-time cost for signing up – just $12 for those in developed countries. The plan is for legal briefs to be prepared for any country so that anyone who refuses to pay taxes that will go towards imperialistic wars and other things that contravene the world citizen contract can receive help in defending themselves legally.
O’Keefe says he understand that the idea of world citizenship raises concerns that it will lead us towards a New World Order and world government. He says that this is not a gateway to any kind of centralized power. He says the contract just affirms that we are free people who will exercise their natural rights while respecting the rights of others and the planet.
“The peace I seek is peace through justice, not peace at the barrel of a gun.”
One comment O’Keefe made more than once in the times I saw him was very interesting. It had to do with how we go about convincing others about we’re all being deceived. The point he made was they we should stop worrying so much about waking up the masses. He said we should focus on reaching those who are open to this plan.
“You can lead a horse to water…,” he said.
O’Keefe says there is good reason to be optimistic about the future if we are willing to take action to take regain our freedom and control of our own lives. He points out that alternative media are reporting on the subject of false flags routinely now, and people are not being fooled by these types of events the way they once were.
“Consciousness is rising at a pace like never before,” he said. “If we decide to do the right thing, we can have a better world. It’s up to us.”
037 Ken O'Keefe -CapricornRadioTV
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