Neocon DOD Undersec. Douglas Feith's law partner is a right-wing Zionist settler

The big news this week is Israel's surprise attack on an adandoned Palestinian militant camp in Syria. I am working on a big analysis of that situation which will be here in a bit. In all the hubbub, I just ran across this piece in the Guardian which clarifies how closely important neo-cons are linked to the Israeli settler movement, and hence have an incentive to perpetuate the occupation.

For those of you who are still comfortable with neocons, you might want to avoid this Guardian article which reports that Doug Feith's law partner Zell is a ardent supporter of the settler Gush Emunim movement and an Israeli living in the West Bank.

Hence, Zell has a personal stake in continuing the occupation, and like Feith has used his legal training to argue in favor of expanding West Bank settlements. He is the Zell of "Fandoz.com," the one working with that greaseball Chalabi's nephew to hook international businesses into Iraq. This ought to be bigger news, but of course anything involving settlers gets muted in the media...

Zionist settler joins Iraqi to promote trade: Chalabi's nephew and US lawyer turned rightwing Israeli activist offer help and advice on doing business with Baghdad

An ultra-Zionist Israeli settler has joined forces with the nephew of the Iraqi leader Ahmad Chalabi to promote investment in Iraq.

The venture - which has excellent connections with the Pentagon and the new Iraqi government - is the first joint Israeli-Iraqi business project publicly documented since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Sam Chalabi's "partner for international marketing" is Marc Zell, a rightwing Zionist lawyer who has offices in Jerusalem and Washington and previously ran a legal practice with Douglas Feith - now a leading Pentagon hawk with responsibility for the reconstruction of Iraq.

Until recently, Mr Zell - an Israeli citizen - was the registered owner of the Iraqi firm's website. Registration was transferred to Sam Chalabi's name on September 25 - the day after Mr Zell's ownership of the site was revealed by an article on Guardian Unlimited.

Data buried in the "Iraqi" website's source code has not been changed, however, and shows that the content was produced by a member of Mr Zell's Jerusalem office staff.

American-born Mr Zell, 50, became interested in Zionism in the mid-1980s and made several trips to Israel - one of them sponsored by the Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) movement, which claims the territories occupied in 1967 were given to Israel by God.

In 1988, at the start of the first Palestinian uprising, Mr Zell moved with his family to the Jewish settlement of Alon Shevut on the West Bank, acquiring Israeli nationality.

The settlement was surrounded by barbed wire and sometimes came under attack, but the Zells said it was an ideal place for children. "It's like a small town in Iowa," they told Jewish Homemaker magazine.

In the 1996 Israeli election Mr Zell campaigned for the rightwing Binyamin Netanyahu and was also at one time a member of the Likud party's central committee and policy bureau.

Since then, he has been a frequent spokesman for settlers.

In a recent law journal article, written with a colleague, Mr Zell argued that the right of return for Palestinian refugees "is not only ungrounded as a matter of law, but also unjustified in historical retrospective".