When Republican Presidential contender Senator Ted Cruz announced his intention to run before a packed audience at Liberty University in Lynchburg Virginia, the one line in his speech that drew themost applause was “Instead of a president who boycotts Prime Minister Netanyahu, imagine a president who stands unapologetically with the nation of Israel.” I do not know if those who were cheering were really aware of what Cruz was saying, but the preposition “with” committing President Cruz to some kind of ad hoc equal partnership with a foreign government was both unseemly and ultimately un-American. A President of the United States should be prepared and expected to advance only American interests.
There is no ambiguity in Cruz. As keynote speaker for a conference held last September by the newly formed In Defense of Christians group, he demonstrated that even in front of Middle Eastern Christians it was necessary to play the Israel card, bringing Jewish “persecution” into the discussion before walking off stage. Just before exiting, he said, “If you will not stand with Israel and the Jews, then I will not stand with you. Good night, and God bless.”
A day after Cruz and Liberty it was Jeb Bush’s turn. He repudiated James Baker, his father’s secretary of state, after Baker had mildly criticized Netanyahu’s rejection of a possible Palestinian state, with Bush’s press spokesman asserting “Governor Bush’s support for Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu is unwavering.” In a follow-up op-ed last Wednesday, Bush cemented his credentials as a worthy heir to his brother George in terms of intellectual vacuity by opposing nuclear negotiations with Iran before asserting “The Obama administration treats announcements of new apartment buildings in Jerusalem like acts of aggression.” Jeb is apparently unaware that there are half a million settlers on the West Bank on stolen Palestinian land.
I know it will come as a shock to many of you, but politics is money and gaining high office in American politics requires kissing the ass of a tiny, far away rogue state who has attacked us at least twice and whose disappearance from the map tomorrow would affect nobody in North America, except in a positive way, with the exception of some “defense” contractors.
Take the right position on Israel and you can raise 1/4 million, Senate candidate is advised
Everyone’s sending this around today. It’s part of a fundraising memo for Michelle Nunn’s campaign for Senate in Georgia,published at Vox. Say the right thing on Israel and you can raise a quarter-million dollars.
Matthew Yglesias says we all know about this, but journalists are inhibited to describe the importance of this money because it’s an “anti-semitic trope.”
To anyone who’s familiar with Democratic Party fundraising — particularly for non-incumbent underdogs, who typically have trouble raising money — this won’t be too surprising.
Jewish donors are very important to Democratic Party finances, some of these donors have strongly held hawkish views on Israel, and the financial clout of AIPAC is the stuff of legend. At the same time, talk of rich Jews throwing their financial muscle around to influence policy in favor of Israel touches far too many anti-semitic tropes to be regularly mentioned in political discourse. But the concrete world of political fundraising doesn’t leave a ton of time for beating around the bush, so we get a little window here into how it looks to the finance people: if Nunn wants to maximize her donations, she needs to take the right stance.
Right. Everyone knows it, no one can talk about it. It’s been estimated that on the Democratic side at the congressional level on up, Jews account for half to two-thirds of the funding.
Now here is the same story told in a different way. Tim Mak at the Daily Beastasked some leftleaning congress-peoplewhy they weren’t reflecting the grassroots outrage over Gaza:
Democrats, when asked a question about Israeli operations in Gaza, had two standard responses: irritation, or else a statement of their broad support of Israel, without going into specifics. It was as if the very mention of Israel turned the question into a hostile interview.
“Look, man, I’m a politician, with multiple constituencies. Why should I alienate one just so that you can write a story?” Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison angrily told The Daily Beast. Ellison, a stalwart progressive, was the first Muslim-American elected to Congress….
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a darling of the left who identifies as a democratic socialist, was curt. His tone changed suddenly when the topic shifted from the Veterans Administration bill that he had been shepherding through Congress to Israel’s operation in Gaza.
“That’s not where my mind is right now,” he told the Beast.
Democratic Rep. Sandy Levin said he was on his way to a meeting and didn’t have time to discuss the issue. (He did, however, stop for another reporter, who asked about transportation funding.) When Rep. Krysten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona, was approached, she simply repeated that she supports the right of Israel to defend itself.
There has been essentially no congressional criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
[Acquaintance’s scold:] “Walk around Harvard and the Kennedy School, what are the names on the buildings? Taubman, Rubenstein, Belfer, Weiner. Where do you think the money is coming from in academia?”
This is a reminder that you cannot honestly describe the formation of Middle East policy without acknowledging that Jews are principals in the establishment, and Jewish wealth is a significant factor in public life.
Walt wasn’t naive; he was brave, he had tenure and decided thatthe cost to his ambitionwas worth his freedom to state his beliefs. Maybe Yglesias and other MSM journalists should emulate him now that another 1000 Palestinians have been slaughtered.
not so long ago, anyone saying that Jewish donor money made an even-handed approach to Israel-Palestine a pretty dead letter would be deemed ipso facto an anti-Semite.
More to the point, such a view would not be allowed into print in any mainstream outlet. It would be regarded as an anti-Semitic trope – even if it were factually true.It’s as if a libel law did not allow for the truth as a defense!..
It’s also a matter of record, I think, that there is no way I could have written or published anything along these lines before the blogging era. Having my own space to think out loud, outside the parameters of an existing institution, without all the caution around the subject that was baked deep in Washington journalism, was critical to my changing views in response to changing facts. The intimidation had an effect. It was designed to.
The good news is that America is finding a way to talk about this, and American Jews, confident and unthreatened, are participating in the conversation.
Chris Christie, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Jeb Bush came to grovel at the feet of this rich monster, whose only interest is that whomever gets his money must put Israel first and War with Iran at the top of the agenda. What does that say about their character? Kasich thanked Adelson for asking him to come. Said Kasich:
“Hey, listen, Sheldon, thanks for inviting me,” according to multiplereports. “I don’t travel to these things much, but this was one that I thought was really, really important. God bless you for what you do.”
Eric Alterman wrote:
If a Jew-hater somewhere, inspired perhaps by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, sought to invent an individual who symbolizes almost all the anti-Semitic clichés that have dogged the Jewish people throughout history, he could hardly come up with a character more perfect than Sheldon Adelson.
www.mondoweiss.net
Adelson would install Netanyahu in the White House if he had his druthers — Avnery
Once again we count on Israeli journalists to shine a light on American politics.
First, here’s a headline and subhead from Ha’aretz: “Jewish money corrupted the Jewish state: Diaspora Jewish philanthropists, showering money on Israeli politicians, helped ripen the field for corruption; Olmert’s conviction is just a case in point.”
“early on in his career he [Olmert] came into close contact with too much Jewish money. I apologize to our more faint-hearted readers who may find that combination troublingly reminiscent, but the sad fact that Jewish money has corrupted a generation of leaders of the Jewish state is inescapable.”
Uri Avnery’s latest column is also about Diaspora Jewish money, in the person of Sheldon Adelson, corrupting both the U.S. and Israeli political process.
Flanked by Israeli bodyguards, Adelson grilled the American hopefuls. And what was he demanding from the future president of the United States? First of all and above everything else, blind and unconditional obedience to the government of another state:
Israel.
Wait, I didn’t know that about the bodyguards. Alex Kane and Annie Robbins filled me in. Politico:
He showed up 20 minutes late to a Friday morning RJC board meeting, zipping up to the entrance on his scooter flanked by two Hebrew-speaking bodyguards.
And three black bodyguard applicants sued in 2011 saying that the team is all Israeli:
[Adelson’s] “Executive Protection Team,” which for the past 14 years “has been comprised exclusively of former Israeli citizens who are white males.”
Back to Avnery:
Everything Adelson does is done openly, proudly, shamelessly. I wonder how ordinary Americans react to this spectacle of one billionaire – especially a Jewish one – choosing their next president for them.
We are told that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe and across the globe. In the crazy mental world of the anti-Semites, Jews control the cosmos. And here we have a Jew, straight out of the pages of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, trying to appoint the ruler of the mightiest country on the planet.
But I have no doubt that his right-wing Zionist passions come first. If he succeeds in installing his favorite in the White House, the US will become totally subservient to the extreme right-wing in Israel. He might as well put Netanyahu in the Oval Office.
Now reflect that NPR just did a long story about Adelson’s financial influence, without mentioning the word Israel once.
This is the direct cost of US support for Israel since 1947. It does not include indirect costs, such as 9/11 and the growth of the police state in the aftermath. It is the sum of figures given in the US Army War College study listed below and the costs of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars:
Put differently, Israel accounts for almost half of the US national debt. Let that sink in for awhile.
There are of course costs for which no accounting is possible including the loss of respect and prestige the US once enjoyed though much of the world as the only non-colonial great power after decades of being Israel’s personal bitch, hypocrisy as the US continues the charade of brokering a “peace process” with a partner who has no interest in it whatsoever. Rather than promoting human rights around the world, in Israel the US is funding ethnic cleansing and apartheid. This for a nation that has a GDP per capita just below that of France.
Israel is not our ally. It is not our friend. It is in fact our greatest enemy.
Cost of Israel to the US
www.councilforthenationalinterest.org
Our uniquely massive support for Israel has cost trillions of dollars and multitudes of lives. It has diminished our moral standing in the world, lessened our domestic freedoms, and exposed us to unnecessary and growing peril.
The majority of Americans – as well as our diplomatic and military experts – oppose this unique relationship. Yet, the lobby for Israel continues to foment policies that are disastrous for our nation and tragic for the region.
If we are to have Middle East policies that serve the national interest, that represent the highest values of our founders and our citizens, and that work to sustain a nation of honor, decency, security, and prosperity, then it is essential that all Americans become active and informed. Below are the facts:
American taxpayers give Israel over $8 million per day
(See report from Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress)
This to a nation of about 7.5 million people – smaller than New Jersey. Israel has received more American money than any other nation on earth. It is more than we give to all the starving countries of Africa put together.
From 1950-53 Israel’s financial influx from the U.S. was one billion dollars; Israel at that time had 1.6 million inhabitants.
In the past 40 years, American taxpayers have given Israel approximately $200,000 per Israeli family of five.
This costs us even more:
US aid to Israel is given in a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year
Since the US is operating at a deficit, this means that we borrow the money, give it to Israel, and then pay interest on it long after it is gone.
Israel, on the other hand, makes interest from it. Congress has mandated that Israel’s aid be immediately deposited to an interest bearing account with the Federal Reserve Bank.
Additional financial costs: $3 trillion
* About $1.5 billion to Egypt and $843 million to Jordan is dispensed annually under arrangements made to induce these countries’ friendly relations with Israel.
* Billions of dollars have been lost to U.S. manufacturers because of the Arab boycott engendered by Israeli actions.
* Enormous and continuing costs to U.S. consumers of petroleum, which surged to such heights that it set off a world-wide recession during the Arab oil boycott imposed in reaction to U.S. support of Israel in the 1973 war.
Americans have a higher unemployment rate than Israel and 10 million families are reportedly sliding into foreclosure; yet Americans continue to give tax money to Israel.
Costs of the Iraq war: hundreds of thousands of lives & over $3 trillion
The same parties are pushing for a similar attack on Iran.
The Lobby for Israel overrules US experts
U.S. policies in the Middle East rarely reflect U.S. interests and values.
Instead, over the objections of a multitude of State Department and Pentagon analysts, they are largely driven by a variety of factors:
1. Special-interest lobbying. Fortune Magazine rates one of the many lobby organizations working on behalf of Israel, AIPAC, as the second most powerful lobbying Washington. Many analysts consider the pro-Israel interest group the most powerful lobby in our nation. It consistently drives U.S. policies, to the detriment of Americans.
By the late 1960s Senator William Fulbright found that U.S. aid to Israel was being secretly funneled back to lobbyists in the U.S., who would use it to lobby for still more U.S. money to Israel.
2. Israel partisans in the U.S. government and media: The efforts of a growing number of individuals with close ties to Israel (some are neoconservatives, others are neoliberals) who often hold key positions in U.S. administrations, the State Department, Pentagon, and media.
The US Ambassador to Israel stated that all US Middle East policies are predicated on their effect on Israel. This is a highly inappropriate practice and one that is replicated in no other region. US policies should be based on American interests and priorities, not those of a foreign nation.
4. Israeli-centric news reporting by the U.S. media consistently misportrays the current situation and the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
5. Hollywood movies and television shows, which often play a significant role in shaping attitudes and beliefs. These shows, frequently produced by individuals with ties to Israel, depict Arabs and Muslims almost always negatively, Jews and Israelis almost never negatively, and Christians both positively and negatively.
–Israel has stolen U.S. technology, and passed it on to other nations, some of them U.S. adversaries.
The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty
In 1967 Israeli forces attacked a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Liberty, killing 34 Americans and injuring 174.
An independent commission in 2003 by extraordinarily high-ranking U.S. military officers and officials found that Israel had committed an act of war against the United States, the US President had recalled rescue aircraft, and that the President had ordered a cover-up on the incident.
These statements, recorded in the Congressional Record, were not reported by U.S. news media.
Israeli ethnic expansionism has caused regional misery, instability, and continual conflict
Israeli aggression (Israel initiated all of its wars except one) and its violations of international law, human rights conventions, and UN resolutions, have created enormous hostility against it throughout the world. The US, as Israel’s number one funder, is increasingly imperiled by hostility created by Israeli actions.
Nuclear weapons pose danger both to the region itself and far beyond
Israel has refused to sign the nuclear proliferation treaty and the British American Security Information Council has found that in Israel “nuclear weapons are being assigned roles that go well beyond deterrence.”
While US intelligence agencies have so far found no indication that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, Israel’s possession of these weapons, combined with its history of aggression, create a compelling motivation for other nations in the region to acquire them for deterrence.
Israel frequently uses American weapons in violation of US laws, killing and maiming large numbers of civilians, women, and children.
Since this is funded by American tax payers, and shielded by the U.S. government, it is causing dangerous hostility toward the U.S. abroad.
Damage to civil liberties and the American way of life
This dangerous and unnecessary peril (diplomats note that before Israelthe US had no enemies in the region) has caused Americans to tolerate dangerous infringements on our libertyand violations of our Constitution.
This is causing deep damage to our character as a nation.
We would be far safer and our nation far healthier by heeding the wisdom of George Washington, the father of our nation:
“…nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.”
These policies create tragedy and destruction abroad and at home. It is time to change them.
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Journalist Gareth Porter talks about his new book, “Iran, A Manufactured Crisis.” This book will probably not make the New York Times list of bestsellers, but in this 30 minute talk about it, he not only proves that the hysteria over Iran’s nuclear weapons program and the resultant decade of sanctions against it’s innocent civilians is not only entirely based on lies, but he identifies who is behind nearly all of those lies. Drumroll please…Israel.
The American people don’t want war. The Iranians don’t want war. Nobody wants war, except the Israelis, and the treasonous American Israel-firsters, Fundy Christian nutballs and evil NeoCon scum. At this very moment they are bribing their way to a veto-proof majority over their sanctions bill. Every GOP senator is on board except two (Rand Paul is dithering but for now he is one of them). The Democrats are for the most part holding back (for now) but even from them there is silence rather than support for their President. Obama stands virtually alone.
From an Iranian standpoint, if this bill passes, the interim agreement is dead. The Americans will have proven to be an untrustworthy negotiating partner. What nobody is telling you, for obvious reasons, is that there is no need for another stick aimed at the Persians. The world will know everything they are doing for the next six months. If they were to make the smallest move towards initiating a weapons program, all deals would be off, they are would be an international pariah; the neocons would be held prescient in the eyes of the world. It is the other hand that Netanyahu (and the Saudis) are terrified about…that the Iranians would keep their end of the bargain leading to a permanent agreement, the lifting of sanctions and the beginning of the normalization of Iranian relations members of the US empire. Peace. Then Netanyahu, Kristol and the rest would be expose as the evil, lying bastards they are and attention would suddenly focus on the injustices inflicted upon the Palestianians by these criminals.
This can not stand, therefore we must have war. It won’t be our war, but rather Israel’s and Saudi Arabia’s. Will China and Russia sit on the sidelines as we initiate an unneccessary, illegal and immoral war on a peaceful country with which they conduct billions of dollars in business?
Of course the effect on a fragile, hydrocarbon fueled economy will be disastrous regardless. There is an option. We can agree that Israel and Saudi Arabia are simply too evil and dangerous to allow to exist and wipe them from the face of the earth. That would be a war worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.
A Blank Check For War on Iran
Tuesday – January 14, 2014 at 12:05 am
By Patrick J. Buchanan
As we approach the centennial of World War I, we will read much of the blunders that produced that tragedy of Western civilization.
Among them will be the “blank check” Kaiser Wilhelm II gave to Vienna after the assassination by a Serb terrorist of the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand.
If you decide to punish the Serbs, said the Kaiser, we are with you.
After dithering for weeks, Austria shelled Belgrade. Within a week, Germany and Austria were at war with Russia, France and Great Britain.
Today the Senate is about to vote Israel a virtual blank check — for war on Iran. Reads Senate bill S.1881:
If Israel is “compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” the United States “should stand with Israel and provide … diplomatic, military and economic support to the Government of Israel in the defense of its territory, people and existence.”
Inserted in that call for U.S. military action to support an Israeli strike on Iran, S.1881 says that, in doing so, we should follow our laws and constitutional procedures.
Nevertheless, this bill virtually hands over the decision on war to Bibi Netanyahu who is on record saying: “This is 1938. Iran is Germany.”
Is this the man we want deciding whether America fights her fifth war in a generation in the Mideast? Do we really want to outsource the decision on war in the Persian Gulf, the gas station of the world, to a Likud regime whose leaders routinely compare Iran to Nazi Germany?
The bill repeatedly asserts that Iran has a “nuclear weapons program.”
Yet in both 2007 and 2011, U.S. intelligence declared “with high confidence” that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.
Where is the Senate’s evidence for its claim? Why has Director of National Intelligence James Clapper not been called to testify as to whether Tehran has made the decision to go for a bomb?
Why are the American people being kept in the dark?
Are we being as misled, deceived and lied to about Iran’s “weapons of mass destruction,” as we were about Iraq’s?
The bill says that in a final deal Iran must give up all enrichment of uranium. However, we have already been put on notice by President Hassan Rouhani that this is an ultimatum Iran cannot accept.
Even the reformers of Iran’s Green Revolution of 2009 back their country’s right to a peaceful nuclear program including enrichment.
Senate bill S.1881 imposes new sanctions if Iran fails to live up to the interim agreement or fails to come to a final agreement in six months.
Yet the Senate knows that Iran has warned that if new sanctions are voted during negotiations, they will walk away from the table.
Why is the Senate risking, or even inviting, a blowup in these talks?
When the interim agreement was reached, it was denounced by neocons as “worse than Munich.” Now the War Party piously contends this Senate bill is simply an “insurance policy” to ensure that the terms of the deal are met and a final deal reached.
It is nothing of the sort. This bill is a project of AIPAC, the Israeli lobby, designed to sabotage and scuttle the Geneva talks by telling Tehran: Either capitulate and dismantle all your enrichment facilities, or face more severe sanctions which will put us on the road to war.
What terrifies AIPAC and Bibi is not an American war on Iran, but an American rapprochement with Iran.
Who are the leaders of the push for S.1881? Sens. Mark Kirk and Robert Menendez, the biggest recipients of AIPAC campaign cash.
Last weekend, the Obama National Security Council finally belled the cat with a blunt statement by spokesperson Bernadette Meehan:
“If certain members of Congress want the United States to take military action [against Iran], they should be up front with the American public and say so.”
Exactly. For whether or not all these senators understand what they are doing, this is where their bill points — to a scuttling of the Geneva talks and a return to the sanctions road, at the end of which lies a U.S. war with Iran.
A majority of Democratic senators have thus far bravely bucked AIPAC and declined to co-sponsor S.1881. However, all but two Republican senators have signed on.
If, after Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, the GOP has once again caught the war fever, the party should be quarantined from the White House for another four years.
Press Secretary Jay Carney says that if S.1881 passes, Obama will veto it. The president should tell Congress that not only will he veto it, but that if Israel decides on its own to attack Iran, Israel will be on its own in the subsequent war.
Obama should order U.S. intelligence to tell us the truth.
Is Iran truly hell-bent on acquiring a nuclear bomb? Does Iran have a nuclear bomb program? If so, when did Tehran make that decision?
Matthew Yglesias says we all know about this, but journalists are inhibited to describe the importance of this money because it’s an “anti-semitic trope.”
The 
U.S. policies in the Middle East rarely reflect U.S. interests and values.
By the late 1960s Senator William Fulbright found that 
In 1967 Israeli forces 
This dangerous and unnecessary peril (diplomats note that before Israel the US had no enemies in the region) has caused Americans to tolerate 
We would be far safer and our nation far healthier by heeding the wisdom of George Washington, the father of our nation:
