Tag Archives: Israel Lobby

America’s Neo-Conservatives are Trotskyites

Here is a brief summary of the general understanding of what neocons believe:

1 They agree with Trotsky on permanent revolution, violent as well as intellectual.
2 They are for redrawing the map of the Middle East and are willing to use force to do so.
3 They believe in preemptive war to achieve desired ends.
4 They accept the notion that the ends justify the means – that hard-ball politics is a moral necessity.
5 They express no opposition to the welfare state.
6 They are not bashful about an American empire; instead they strongly endorse it.
7 They believe lying is necessary for the state to survive.
8 They believe a powerful federal government is a benefit.
9 They believe pertinent facts about how a society should be run should be held by the elite and withheld from those who do not have the courage to deal with it.
10 They believe neutrality in foreign affairs is ill-advised.
11 They hold Leo Strauss in high esteem.
12 They believe imperialism, if progressive in nature, is appropriate.
13 Using American might to force American ideals on others is acceptable. Force should not be limited to the defense of our country.
14 9-11 resulted from the lack of foreign entanglements, not from too many.
15 They dislike and despise libertarians (therefore, the same applies to all strict constitutionalists).
16 They endorse attacks on civil liberties, such as those found in the Patriot Act, as being necessary.
17 They unconditionally support Israel and have a close alliance with the Likud Party.

www.lewrockwell.com/2013/07/ron-paul/neo-conned/

Twitter sued £32m for refusing to reveal anti-semites

open quoteIn January, a French court ruled that Twitter must hand over the details of people who had tweeted racist and anti-semitic remarks, and set up a system that would alert the police to any further such posts as they happen. Twitter has ignored that ruling, and now the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF) is suing it for €38.5m (£32.8m) for its failure.

The case revolves around a hashtag — #unbonjuif (“a good Jew”) — which became the third-most popular on the site in October 2012. The UEJF took Twitter to court, demanding that those who had tweeted anti-semitic remarks using the hashtag be named by Twitter so the police could prosecute them for hate speech.close quote (Read more)

How Obama Beat the Israel Lobby

Yes, the mighty Lobby didn’t get what it wanted, for now. It seems Sen. Schumer gave up ground here in exchange for a leadership position later.

open quoteI am not one for admitting I am wrong but sometimes the evidence is so overwhelming that I have to say it. I was wrong.

Specifically I have been repeatedly wrong when I said that the Israel lobby could not be defeated unless and until the President of the United States confronted it directly. In that situation, I always believed the United States would prevail. I did not understand that a deft president could beat the lobby through indirect means — by quietly using his authority to prevail.

But that is what happened when the Obama administration first nominated and then achieved the confirmation of former Senator Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense.

There of course are those who accept the line put out by the lobby, most notably its main component AIPAC, that it was neutral on Hagel.

That is just silly. If AIPAC was neutral, it could have ended the whole battle against him by issuing a statement that it recognized a president’s right to choose his own cabinet. That might not have stopped Republican groups like Bill Kristol’s Emergency Committee ror Israel or Sheldon Adelson’s Republican Jewish Coalition from pursuing their smear campaign against Hagel, but it would have stopped the very mainstream Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee from joining the attack. AIPAC’s public silence on a campaign waged by its closest allies demonstrated what it wanted: Hagel’s defeat.

President Obama outsmarted the lobby by ignoring it. He understood that if he could get Sen. Chuck Schumer to endorse Hagel, then the game would be over. That is because Schumer, a Jewish senator from New York, is the de facto leader of the lobby’s forces in Congress.

Usually a hardliner on all matters relating to the Middle East, Schumer might have been expected to oppose Hagel and thereby give a signal to his fellow Democrats that doing so was the safe pro-Israel position. Had he done that some Democrats would have felt that they had better oppose Hagel.

With most Republicans already on record as opposing his nomination, just a shift of a few Democrats would have killed the nomination. Schumer’s announcement in support of Hagel guaranteed that not a single Democrat would oppose him.

So what convinced Schumer to stand with Obama on Hagel? My friends on Capitol Hill, who without exception correctly predicted Schumer’s position, tell me that it was made clear to him that he could not oppose Obama on Hagel and still expect to become leader of Senate Democrats when Harry Reid retires.close quote (Read more)

AIPAC Goes Public: It Intends To Exempt Israel From Sequester

open quoteThe great Congressional Quarterly reporter Jonathan Broder has gotten AIPAC to go on the record with its plans to exempt Israel from sequestration. (I can’t provide link as CQ is by subscription only.)

He writes of the “battalions” of AIPACers who descended on Congress today to demand “tighter sanctions against Iran, relief for Israel aid from automatic spending cuts, and a new designation of the Jewish state as a ‘major strategic ally,’ a status that would help insulate Israel from any further aid cuts.

At the top of their agenda is convincing lawmakers to support a new Iran bill (HR 850) from House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., and supported by ranking Democrat Eliot L. Engel of New York, that would extend existing sanctions targeting Iran’s energy and financial transactions to include an even broader range of its commerce with the rest of the world. Several senators are working on a measure which is expected to be even more expansive.

The grassroots lobbyists also asked lawmakers to find some way to shield the $3.1 billion in annual U.S. aid to Israel from the automatic across-the-board spending cuts that took effect on March 1. Under the sequester, Israel stands to lose $155 million. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.

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Israel’s Education Ministry rejects findings of a study that determined that Arab texts rarely demonize Israel or incite hatred against Jews

open quoteIsrael’s Education Ministry has rejected the findings of a study funded by the U.S. State Department that determined that Palestinian textbooks rarely demonize Israel or incite hatred against the Jewish people and that both sides use the texts to present children and students with a one-sided view of their conflict.

“Dehumanizing and demonizing characterizations of the other are rare in both Israeli and Palestinian books,” according to the study, titled ”Victims of Our Own Narratives?,” funded by the U.S. State Department and carried out by Palestinian, Israeli and American academics.close quote (Read more)

Is Rand Paul A ‘Christian Zionist’?

open quoteJoining Netanyahu in his denunciation of those pushy Americans was none other than “libertarian” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Gooberville). Fresh from a recent trip to Israel paid for by the American Family Association, a Christian fundamentalist activist group, the “libertarian” Senator and wannabe presidential candidate declared:

“’That’s an arrogant and presumptuous point of view and doesn’t further progress on anything,’ the senator said, and he returned to that view throughout the call as he discussed the location of Israel’s capital and Israeli settlements. Paul decried U.S. politicians who display ‘this flippant and arrogant’ attitude about internal Israeli affairs, saying that ‘no one can really know as much as people in the region’ about such matters. ‘It is not up to the U.S. to dictate’ to mayors and West Bank officials where housing goes, Paul added. Paul said he considers himself more pro-Israel than some pro-Israel audiences because ‘I’m for an independent, strong Israel that is not a dependent state, not a client state.’”

Siding with a foreign leader against an American President is always problematic for any US politician, but lest one think this is an example of political courage on Sen. Paul’s part, consider the context of his remarks. US military aid to Israel now exceeds $3.5 billion a year – not counting the value of special projects like the “Iron Dome” missile defense system the Senator is so enthralled by. Those billions pay for a program of systematic ethnic cleansing: Arabs are being forced off their lands, and “settlements” are being erected on the ruins of their former homes.

Surely the Senator – who, despite appearances, is no dope – knows this. And if he didn’t know it, surely he was educated on the subject in his meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas – although, oddly, in all the news reports of Paul’s trip to Israel, where hear nothing about this scheduled encounter.

. . . .

Pretending not to grasp the significance of the settlements issue, or of the larger issue of Palestine and the two-state solution, simply will not do – not for an alleged “leader” of the libertarian wing of the GOP, and certainly not for a somewhat over-eager presidential candidate who flaunts his ambitions. Since Israel could not exist – let alone bomb, invade and subjugate its Palestinian and Lebanese neighbors – without extensive US military and economic aid, it is viewed as America’s regional proxy. This is what “the people in the region” know and Sen. Paul appears not to want to know.

Paul has long since backed off his stance of wanting to end aid to Israel: he now says he would do it gradually, and would start cutting the aid budget by immediately ending it for countries “where they burn our flag,” singling out Egypt and Pakistan and specifically exempting Israel.

Previously under attack by the Israel lobby for saying US aid to Israel ought to be ended – and just because he is, after all, his father‘s son – the Israel trip was meant to make amends, and Paul earned plaudits from the Lobby in this country for his efforts.

The Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin took a breather from her frantic campaign to impugn the character of Chuck Hagel to give the lesser Paul a thumbs up, having earlier contrasted him favorably with his father.

Phil Klein exulted in the birth of “Zionist non-interventionism,” which apparently means we pay the bills and don’t bother the Israelis as they ethnically cleanse Palestine of the Palestinians. Seth Lipsky, writing in the New York Post, hailed Paul’s comments as “the most supportive of Israel since Sarah Palin.”

Dave Weigel reveals more of the tortured rationalization for Paul’s conversion on the road to Jerusalem:

“I asked Paul to revisit the settlement question. Had his trip taught him anything that was being incorporated into his new thinking?

“’One question is: If I’m the mayor of Jerusalem, or if I’m looking at places in the West Bank and settlements in the West Bank, obviously there’s either advisability or inadvisability with regard to ultimately finding places to build, whether it’s antagonistic or provacative,’ said Paul. ‘Where I distinguish myself, though, is while there might be right or wrong answers to these questions, it’s not American politicians’ business to be dictating the answers. The answers need to come from the participants who live on the ground in these areas. I think it’s just presumptuous and arrogant of us to think, well, we’re going to go down to a roadmap of Jerusalem and decide where the neighborhoods can be expanded? It did influence me some that I did see the map of the neighborhoods, and I did see that there are neighborhoods being expanded in the Arab areas as well as the Jewish areas of Jerusalem, but the comments I heard from officials were: What does America want? Do they want there to be a religion test on who’s going to buy land? How would we feel in America if land that was designated for development, we said you have to prove what religion you are before you can build on the land? You can see how it’s a funny sort of bias we’re asking for, how we want them to develop the land.’”

Shorter Sen. Paul: Who cares about “right” and “wrong”? Let the Israelis go wild with our tax dollars.

. . . .

Having been granted observer status by an overwhelming vote of the General Assembly – with even America’s European allies deserting Washington – why shouldn’t the Palestinians participate in the UN? Sen. Paul and his flock of “born again” Israel Firsters don’t want that to happen because it recognizes the legitimacy of Palestinian statehood – and delegitimizes the occupation. There are many humanitarian services the deprived and long-suffering people of Palestine might enjoy as a result, but the petty cruelty of “born again” Rand would deny them even that.

So the Senator did go see Abbas, and took the opportunity to threaten him with sanctions – and to demand that he drop the “no more settlements” precondition for resuming the peace process. Of course, not even that kind of servility to the Greater Israel lobby will satisfy the Jonathan Tobins of this world, but no one can say Sen. Paul didn’t try. close quote (Read more)

Jewish Democrats slam Paul addition to key panel

open quoteThe National Jewish Democratic Council lashed out Friday over the recent appointment of Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky to the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, citing his “deeply disturbing record when it comes to the US-Israel relationship.”

In a statement released Friday by the NJDC, its president David Harris said that Paul’s “membership in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee should be raising red flags and provoking severe concern across the pro-Israel community.” Harris also hit out at the GOP, calling its decision to place Paul on the panel “simply outrageous.”

“The overwhelmingly pro-Israel American public deserves much better than a radical ideologue on the Senate’s primary diplomatic committee who has demonstrated a singular obsession with slashing aid to the Jewish state,” the NJDC chief added.

Paul, one of four new Republicans on the committee whose appointments were first reported Thursday by Foreign Policy magazine, has recently reached out to the pro-Israel community and is slated this month to visit Israel accompanied by Christian Zionists.

Unlike his father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a perennial presidential contender who has laced his arguments against assistance for Israel with harsh criticisms of the Jewish state, the younger Paul casts his opposition to assistance as a matter of independence for Israel from undue American influence.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, a fierce opponent of US foreign aid who is being touted already as a likely 2016 presidential candidate, is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Sunday for his first-ever visit.

Paul is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres on Monday, the senator’s 50th birthday.close quote (Read more)

Canadian Defense Department removes report on killing of Canadian soldier by Israeli forces

open quoteThe Defence Department has quietly removed from the Internet a report into the killing of a Canadian military officer by Israeli forces, a move the soldier’s widow says is linked to the Conservative government’s reluctance to criticize Israel for any wrongdoing.

Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener and three other United Nations observers were killed in 2006 when the Israeli military targeted their small outpost with repeated artillery barrages as well as an attack by a fighter aircraft.

. . . .

The death of Hess-von Kruedener, a UN observer assigned to the Israeli-Lebanon border, has largely been forgotten.

The Israeli attack on the UN outpost began shortly after noon on July 25, 2006, prompting the UN deputy secretary general to almost immediately call the Israeli ambassador to the UN and complain.

Several hours later another artillery barrage hit the outpost. That was followed by another 16 artillery rounds hitting the base, destroying most of the buildings above ground and blowing the door off the underground bunker where Hess-von Kruedener and his fellow peacekeepers had taken refuge.

At one point, a general in charge of UN operations in Lebanon called the Israeli liaison officer and told him, “You’re killing my people.” Previously, the Israelis halted such attacks when protests were received.

Later that day, an Israeli fighter pilot directed a precision-guided bomb through the door of the UN bunker. The blast from the massive bomb killed the four men.close quote (Read more)

The Crucifixion of Chuck Hagel

open quotethe neocons have a big problem: the American people are not only sick of war, they are sick of the neocons. The same people who told them Saddam had “weapons of mass destruction” stashed beneath his palace, who told them the Iraqis would greet us with showers of rose petals instead of bullets, who reassured them that the war would somehow pay for itself with Iraq’s oil revenues, who insisted Gen. Shinseki was wrong when he said it would take hundreds of thousands of US soldiers to occupy Iraq — these very same people, who should have been long ago discredited and relegated to the Index of Proscribed Pundits, are back retailing the same tired old canards, only this time directed at Iran. Their problem is that nobody believes them — except, of course, in Washington, D.C., world capital of criminal cluelessness.

Washington is different from the rest of the country — and I’m not just talking about real estate values. In the Real America, nobody believes you can spend more than you can take in — in Washington, however, spending more than you take in is not only possible, it’s mandatory. Outside the Beltway, ordinary Americans want to subject the Pentagon to radical spending cuts, and would prefer not to have to cut Grandma’s Social Security so that the military contractors who contribute so much to our incumbent politicians have plenty of tax dollars to spend on presents this Christmas: in Washington, however, real defense cuts are “off the table.” Out in the heartland, the very idea of another war horrifies ordinary folks — in Washington, it gives them a hard-on.

This is the Great Divide, and it is this great yawning chasm that has given the neocons their power: for while a malignant dwarf like Bill Kristol, the little Lenin of the neocons, may inspire revulsion in the average American, in Washington he’s a respected and powerful figure, one whose lust for combat — albeit from a safe distance — counts for much in determining what course our foreign policy will take. In such a town, David “Axis of Evil” Frum, who has “spent his career,” as conservative columnist Timothy Carney put it, “singing odes to war and purging those who wanted peace,” is considered a “moderate” — because he’s calling for tax hikes in order to pay for his favorite pastime.

If we allowed the soldiers in the field to vote on who should be the next Secretary of Defense, President Obama’s first choice, former Republican senator Chuck Hagel — a Vietnam veteran and the recipient of two Purple Hearts, whose work at the Veterans Administration during the Reagan years endeared him to vets — would win hands down. In Washington, however, as the Washington Post averred, he’s outside the “mainstream,” a “fringe” character who’s well to the “left” of our bipartisan let’s-go-to-war-at-the-drop-of-a-hat “consensus.”

It’s a sad commentary on the Washingtonian mindset that a foreign policy “realist” like Hagel is considered the 21st century equivalent of Abbie Hoffman, but these people live in a bubble where the outdated “left-right” paradigm still dictates our political choices. Yet the majority of Republicans out in the country support Hagel’s basic position — caution, retrenchment, paring down the Pentagon — the very stances Hagel is being pilloried for by the likes of Lindsey Graham.

That Washington is America’s Bizarro World was vividly dramatized when Sen. Dan Coates attacked Hagel for — wait for it — being “disrespectful of the military“! What this can mean when applied to a two-time winner of the Purple Heart, a Vietnam vet who was severely wounded in action and spent his entire time at the VA fighting for vets, is beyond me — but, then again, I don’t live inside the Beltway.

We know what this is about: it’s about the fanatic supporters of Israel’s current extremist government demanding absolute fealty to Tel Aviv. The “Emergency Committee for Israel” is running television ads in the Washington, D.C. area screeching that “Hagel is not an option.” They get to determine what America’s options are, don’tcha know — and that’s been true for too long. close quote (Read more)