Rahm Israel Emanuel: Will Handle U.S. Domestic Policy for Israel
Dennis Ross: Will Handle U.S. Foreign Policy for Israel
By Mohamed Khodr
November 13, 2008
Courtesy Of Information ClearingHouse
"Right and wrong are the same in Palestine as anywhere else. What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party that committed the offence and has turned a deaf ear to the victims.”Sources For Article:
-- Prof. Arnold Toynbee, British Historian
“The nation which indulges towards another---a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. ..a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification …Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.”
--President George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
"Our attachment to no nation on earth should supplant our attachment to liberty."
--Thomas Jefferson: Declaration on Taking Up Arms, 1775. Papers 1:201
"I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent interests of the community."
--James Madison, Federalist No: 10: Warning of “Factions/Special Interests” acting against the National Interest
November 13, 2008 "Information Clearinghouse" -- -Despite such warnings from our founding fathers against the corruptive influence of a minority “faction/special interest group”, our government has nevertheless surrendered, pandered, implemented, paid and died for the vital interests of a small foreign nation, Israel. America has in effect “outsourced” its foreign policy and national interests to this foreign nation to the detriment of its own interests---political, economic, military, credibility, moral leadership, and friendly alliances around the world.
In effect, our Israeli shackled government would rather expend our treasury, our military youth, sacrifice our economic interests around the world, than dare challenge, change, or have the moral and just courage to even allow a political debate on this destructive “special relationship”. a nation condemned and despised around the world as a rogue brutal military occupier of an entire people living under its American paid for boots, uniforms, rifles, tanks, bullets, missiles, rockets, cluster bombs fighter jets, access to our latest technology and spy satellites, bulldozers, fences, barbed wires, walls, and concentration camps. The Nazism of Germany and the Apartheid of South Africa live in Israel’s policies with our government’s full knowledge, support, political protection, and funding. Many courageous people, including compassionate humanitarian Jews in and out of Israel have made this comparison. Israeli men and women like Uri Avnery, Professor Israel Shahak (deceased), Prof. Illan Pappe, Prof. Avi Shlaim, Israel Shamir, Journalists Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, and many others who work for peace and justice in the Holy Land.
“On the morrow of a persecution in Europe in which they had been the victims of the worst atrocities ever known... the Jews' immediate reaction to their own experience was to become persecutors in their turn... In 1948, the Jews knew, from personal experience, what they were doing; and it was their supreme tragedy that the lessons learnt by them from their encounter with the Nazi German Gentiles should have been not to eschew but to initiate some of the evil deeds that the Nazis had committed against the Jews”
--Famed British Historian Arnold Toynbee, “A Study of History”
“What do we have to do with apartheid? Does a separation fence constitute separation? Do separate roads for Jewish settlers and Palestinians really separate? Are Palestinian enclaves between Jewish settlements Bantustans?.. Roadblocks and inspections at every turn; licenses and permits for every little matter; the arbitrary seizure of land; special privileges in water use; cheap, hard labor; forming and uniting families by bureaucratic”
--Yossi Sarid, Haaretz April 4, 2005, “Yes, it is Apartheid” (former Knesset Member)
“What is not so understandable, not justified, is what it (Israel) did to another people to guarantee its existence…Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden?....Somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic, as if the Palestinians were not Semitic.. People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful”.
--Former South African Archbishop Desmund Tutu, “Apartheid in the Holy Land”, Guardian April 29, 2002
“Israeli Fascism is alive and kicking. It is growing in the flowerbed that produced the various religious-nationalist underground groups of the past: the group that tried to bomb the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount, the underground that tried to assassinate the Palestinian mayors, the "Kach" gang, the perpetrator of the Hebron massacre Baruch Goldstein, the murderer of peace activist Emil Gruenzweig, the murderer of Yitzhak Rabin and all the underground groups that were uncovered at an early stage before their deeds could bring them to public notice”.
--Uri Avnery, Counterpunch, “Prof. Ze’ev Sternhell’s Warning on the Growth of Israeli Fascism—It Can Happen Here (Israel)”, September 29, 2008
In launching his presidential campaign, Obama, like all his predecessors, knew that as a democratic candidate the path to the White House must first gain the support and approval of Jewish Americans. Thus in January 2008 he showed his allegiance to the Star of David by writing a letter to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad (a staunchly Pro Israel Neocon and pusher of the Iraq, Afghan Wars) asking him to vote against a U.N. Resolution condemning Israel’s catastrophic siege of Gaza, with 1.3 million Palestinians, an illegal collective punishment that’s depriving the population from food, water, medicines, fuel, education, and health care, in direct violation of the U.N. Charter and the Fourth Geneva Convention despite Israel’s signatory to both. Obama wrote:
“All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on Palestinian families. However, we have to understand why Israel is forced to do this. The Security Council should clearly and unequivocally condemn the rocket attacks… If it cannot bring itself to make these common sense points, I urge you to ensure that it does not speak at all”
Pander on Mr. President Elect to the right wing Jewish lobby that controls the very body you serve in, the Senate, as well as the White House. AIPAC usually writes Congressional legislation and resolutions, did they write this for you?
The political, economic, academic, and media power of the Israel Lobby is unsurpassed in the history of America. Jewish monies, amounting to fifty to sixty percent of contributions to the Democratic Party, in conjunction with AIPAC, a most powerful Israeli lobby, ensure that no debate or criticism of Israel ever surfaces. Any who dare challenge Israel’s illegal and brutal occupation and theft of Palestinian land pays a heavy price in smears, loss of credibility, employment, even receive death threats
President Jimmy Carter, who gifted Israel with a peace agreement with Egypt, endured the vilest attacks by many Jews around the world, especially in Israel and its second homeland, America, for his book, “Palestine—Peace or Apartheid”, to the extent that the he was not invited to attend the Democratic Convention held in Denver.
In a Los Angeles Times interview Carter said this: ““A debate in America is an absolutely hopeless dream. “There is not a single candidate in America, for governor, for House of Representatives, for Senate or for president that would dare say anything that was not acceptable to Israel.”
Dual loyalty of Jewish Americans has always been a persistent question in political discourse (see Counterpunch article below).
Your choice, Mr. Obama, of Senator Joe Biden was another pandering signal of your allegiance to Israel as he’s proudly proclaimed, “I’m a Zionist” in an interview with ShalomTV. During his V.P. debate he proudly asserted that no one in the Senate is a better friend of Israel than him. Speaking to the National Jewish Democratic Council on September 23, 2008, Biden sold his soul, Obama’s, and our national interest for Jewish votes and contributions. He said:
“I’ve spent 35 years in my career dealing with issues related to Israel. My support for Israel begins in my stomach, goes to my heart and ends up in my head. And I promise you, I guarantee you, I guarantee you. I would not have joined Barack Obama’s ticket as vice president were I in any doubt, even the slightest doubt, that he shares the same commitment to Israel that I share. I guarantee it. It’s that simple. That is a fact.”
--Senator oe Biden; Vice Presidential Candidate
"The Israelis control the policy in the Congress and the senate ... somewhere around 80 percent of the senate of the United States is completely in support of Israel -- of anything Israel wants...."
-- Senator William Fulbright, Chairman Senate Foreign Relations Committee, October 7, 1973 on CBS' "Face the Nation".
"I am aware how almost impossible it is in this country to carry out a foreign policy [in the Middle East] not approved by the Jews. [Former Secretary of State George] Marshall and [former Defense Secretary James Forestall] learned that….. Terrific control the Jews have over the news media and the barrage the Jews have built up on congressmen.... I am very much concerned over the fact that the Jewish influence here is completely dominating the scene and making it almost impossible to get congress to do anything they don't approve of. The Israeli embassy is practically dictating to the congress through influential Jewish people in the country"
--Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in February 1957 quoted in Fallen Pillars , page 99, by Donald Neff
"I've never seen a president --I don't care who he is-- stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles your mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what's going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people understood what grip those people have on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens don't have any idea what goes on." –
--Admiral Thomas Moorer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington Report 12/1999, p.124 quoting from Andrew Hurley's book, "One Nation Under Israel”
-- AFTER 9/11: “Why do they hate us? Pentagon’s Answer
“Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights”
-- US Defense Department’s Defense Science Board: (Christian Science Monitor: 11/29/2004). .
A Historic Election:
“In his speech, Obama intends to remove any doubts that the Democratic Party's donors and constituents, many of whom are Jewish, may have about his support for Israel”. (Haaretz, see link below)
To say that your election is a historical sentinel event is an under statement. You rose in this nation to the highest office in the land upon the ashes of the millions of African slaves ripped from their land, transported like cattle, bought and sold as property, killed, abused, raped, and hung from gallows; yet in your victory speech you ignored the advocacy and struggle of African American organizations, primarily the NAACP, and civil rights leaders who paved your path to glory and who in tears thanked God that they lived to see the election of an African American, men like the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Representatives John Lewis and Charles Rangel, Ambassador Andrew Young, Ida B. Wells, Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks, W. E. B. Du Bois, Roy Wilkins, Julian Bond, and so many others who gave so much so that you can fulfill the dream and the promise of Dr. King’s America Odd how in all your speeches you never mentioned Dr. King by name.
But you did mention and thank the two people (both Jewish) most responsible for your successful campaign:
“To my campaign manager David Plouffe, my chief strategist David Axelrod...you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done.”
--President Elect Barack Obama’s Victory Speech November 4, 2008
Obama’s First Appointment: Rahm Emmanuel as Chief of Staff: “Son of a terrorist”.
Will ensure a domestic policy supportive of Israel.
The appointment of Rahm Emmanuel as your Chief of Staff will have immediate negative repercussions in Congress and around the world. Emanuel is a known hawk and Zionist. His appointment will ensure that U.S. domestic policy will benefit Israel. damn U.S. interests. He will be the gateway to all information that reaches you, thus America and the world will understand that only Pro Israel agendas need apply to the White House.
In an interview with the Israeli Hebrew paper, Ma’ariv 11/6/08, Rahm Emanuel’s father, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, said this of his son’s influence on you.
"Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel,"Why wouldn't he be? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."
Rahm’s father insults all Arabs in this statement but this hardly raises a hair in the media nor was it denounced by his son, nor more importantly by Mr. Obama. Obama condemned and distanced himself from friends who came under deliberate smears and media attacks for “insulting” Jews, but Arabs are unworthy of his support, being the American untouchables. What if this was an Arab insulting Jews, do you think you’ll ever be President?
You probably are aware that Dr. Benjamin Emanuel was a member of the Jewish terrorist group, Irgun (led by Menachem Begin) that was responsible for wide ranging terrorist attacks against both the British and Palestinians. Irgun famously massacred an entire village, Deir Yassin. Menachem Begin even boasted of this terrorist massacre of the village in his book “The Revolt”.
Rahm Emanuel served as a volunteer in the Israeli Army during the first Gulf War, protecting his beloved Israel, rather than serve in the U.S. military.
In the Israeli paper, Haaretz (11/7/08 “U.S. Jews laud Obama pick of Rahm Emanuel for Chief of Staff”)
William Daroff, the director of the Washington office of the United Jewish Communities (UJC), an umbrella organization representing 155 Jewish Federations and 400 independent Jewish communities across North America was quoted as saying: “Rep. Emanuel is also a good friend of Israel, coming from good Irgun Stock”.
In the same article another Jewish American leader, Ira N. Forman, Executive Director of the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) said: "Obama made an outstanding selection (Rahm Emanuel) His voting record and leadership in support of the U.S.-Israel relationship are outstanding."
“Rahm Emanuel has a long history of militarist ideology behind him. His father was a member of the ultra-right-wing terrorist organization Etzel that killed British civilians as part of their anti-British struggle in Palestine in the 1940s. Emanuel, himself a citizen of Israel as well as the United States, has been one of several Congressional leaders enforcing the "Israel Lobby" consensus on the Democrats, in the process shutting out the peace voices that believe Israel's security would be better served by the U.S. putting pressure on Israel to end the Occupation, move the Wall to inside the pre-67 boundaries, and remove the settlers from the West Bank or tell them to live there as Palestinian citizens.”
--Rabbi Michael Lerner, (barackobama.com) November 7, 2008, “Rahm Emanuel is no Reason for Hope or Celebration”, November 7, 2008***
DENNIS ROSS: Will Ensure a Foreign Policy supportive of Israel as he’s done under Clinton and Bush.
Your campaign announced that Dennis Ross will be your top adviser on Israel and Iran Ross is now at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (founded in 1985 by AIPAC’s Martin Indyk)). He is also the First Chairman of the newly established Jerusalem based think tank, The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, founded by the Jewish Agency. He was a staunch supporter of the Iraq war. His appointment will be a recurrent nightmare and devastating blow to peace in the Middle East, especially to the Palestinians, doomed to occupation and refugee status as long as our Presidents and Congress have Israel as an albatross around their cowardly necks.
In addition to Ross, Obama’s Middle East policy advisors reads like a Who’s Who of Jewish Americans, all staunch supporters of Israel at any cost to this nation.
Obama's other key Middle East Advisers include:
* Anthony Lake: Served at Director of the National Security Council under Clinton
* Mara Rudman: Former National Security Council Assistant to President Clinton. Works on MidEast issues.
* Dan Shapiro and Eric Lynn: Advisors and Liaisons to the Jewish community. Lynn was an intern at AIPAC.
* Daniel Kurtzer: An orthodox Jew appointed by Bush as Ambassador to Israel.
* Martin Indyk: Former research director at AIPAC, founding executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, AIPAC’s influential think tank. Served under Clinton at the National Security Council on Arab-Israeli issues, Iraq, Iran and South Asia. Served two terms as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
* Former Representative Mel Levine: Served on House Foreign Affairs Committee, Former Board Member of AIPAC Board, and John Kerry’s former Top Mideast Advisor. His Quote: “By every rating and criterion, [Senator] Kerry’s votes have shown 100 percent solid support for Israel. That’s well understood in his home state of Massachusetts, but not yet throughout the rest of the country.”
* Lee Rosenberg: AIPAC treasurer and strong Obama supporter: In an interview with Ynet.com (2/3/08) he was quoted as saying: “Rosenberg says that the Security of Israel "is the global and policy issue that I care most about" and rejects claims that questioned Obama's commitment to the Jewish Stat. . "He's always been a strong supporter of the security of Israel," he says.”
From Obama’s early political campaigns in Chicago, Jewish monies and support have been at the heart of his campaigns for which he expresses eternal gratitude for the “support of so many friends in the Jewish community, dating back to my first days in public life in Chicago”.
Mr. Obama, you’ve received the most sought after seal of approval in your run for the Presidency, an approval only given to the lucky few who’ve shown their true patriotic allegiance, no, not to America, but to Israel. You’ve received the approval of AIPAC, a self identifying lobby group that has thumbed its nose on U.S. law requiring it to register as such. How clever that the acronym, AIPAC, stands for the American Israeli PUBLIC AFFAIRS Committee, and not the American Israeli Political Action Committee.
“AIPAC has stressed that it is satisfied with Obama’s positions on the Middle East; a spokeswoman recently told the New Republic: “Like all the leading presidential candidates, the senator has a strong record on issues of importance to the pro-Israel community.”
During your presidential campaign you’ve adopted every Pro Israel/AIPAC policy toward the Palestinians, Iran, and the Middle East. Among them.
1. Among the first to support Israel’s devastating invasion of Lebanon in 2006 claiming that Israel was simply defending itself against terrorism.
2. Lead sponsor in the Senate of Legislation promoting Divestment from Iran.
3. Among sponsors of the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2007
4. No negotiations with Hamas and Hezbollah
5. No condemnation of Israel’s brutal two year siege of Gaza with 1.3 million people.
6. No Palestinian “right of return”
7. Strong supporter of more aid to Israel.
8. Jerusalem as an undivided eternal capital of Israel (slightly backtracked on this)
9. While condemning Iran’s nuclear program (Iran signatory to Non Proliferation Treaty) supports Israel despite Israel’s 200 -300 nuclear weapons and a non signatory to the NPT)
Missing from your pandering speeches to AIPAC and Jewish organizations was any mention of the Arab Peace Plan, land for peace formula, occupation, illegal settlements, settler violence, Israeli human rights abuses, violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, total siege of Gaza, thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including children, and just as importantly---Israel’s direct violation of Section 4 of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act that stipulates that American weapons can legally only be used for internal security or self defense. Israel’s decades’ long bombing and killing of civilians by American weapons clearly violates this law, but no government has had the courage to challenge Israel. History and experience say that like all your predecessors (with exception of Eisenhower) you won’t dare either. .
In fact, Mr. Obama, I can guarantee that five days after your inauguration, January 27, 2009, you will join most of Congress and your administration officials in celebration of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day established by the United Nations in 2005 at the behest of the Bush Administration. Perhaps you’ll be at the U.S. taxpayer built and funded Washington D.C. Holocaust Museum. No other historical holocaust is so recognized and funded by us, the taxpayers.
Your immediate abandonment of “CHANGE” soon after you were elected is already disturbing and bodes ill for your presidency. You’re potential appointees are mostly recycled Clinton officials who are primarily Pro Business, and Pro Israel Jews who offer you protection from the fabricated “Jewish Problem” raised against you by right wing Jewish organizations and individuals.
According to the New York Times, “The New Team” (November 12, 2008) the Jewish Americans listed below, among others, are being considered for senior administration positions. Each can have an important policy impact on MidEast policies, including the educational programs in American schools regarding the possible obligatory teaching of the Holocaust and the marginalization of programs on Arabic, Muslim culture, Islam.
* Richard J. Danzig: For a senior Pentagon position
* Joel Klein: For Secretary of Education. Klein was Superintendent of the New York City School System who succumbed to a ruthless Jewish lobbying group and Pro Israel media pressure to fire Debbie Almontasar, a Muslim educator and principle of a school slated to teach Arabic and MidEast culture. The school was attacked as a “Madrassah” for Jihad, Holy War and militant Islam. Klein replaced her with a Jewish principle. Danielle Salzburg. What else will Klein as Secretary of Education succumb to under the powerful Jewish lobby and media?
* James Steinberg: For Director of the National Security Council
Due to your obvious intimidation by the Israel Lobby regarding the “Anti Israel” position of two Non-Jewish but prominent foreign policy experts, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinki and Mr. Robert Malley, both serving at your request on your foreign policy advisory team, you shamelessly dismissed Dr. Brzezinski’s role as your advisor, an honorable man who’s served this nation with high distinction while accepting Mr. Robert Malley’s resignation, a highly respected diplomat.
If this is how you respond to pressure from the Israeli Lobby during a campaign, how much of our national interest will you sacrifice to their demands?
You’re being warned not to mess with Israel and its powerful Lobby given their domination of Congress, Israel’s second Knesset.
“Even if, in an impossible-to-imagine worst-case scenario, Obama wanted to fundamentally change the US-Israeli relationship, it is unlikely he would be able to do so” Why? In the article Eran Lerman, Director of the Israel and Middle East Office of the American addressed the issue by saying: “To do that, he is going to need to go to Capitol Hill and build coalitions. And coalition-building in Washington is good for Israel because Israel has many friends on the Hill”.
--Jerusalem Post, November 7, 2008, Analysis: So, nu, can we?
“Will Obama be able to take the One-Jerusalem/Israel-first crowd for granted as he wheels around Jerusalem and Tehran? No. As my commenters point out, these elements are deep in American Jewish life; and we're not talking about just voters, but the Jewish establishment, or to be precise the Zionist constituents of the American power structure, from the media to the think tanks to the big-money zip codes of 10022 and 90210….he apartheid conditions in the West Bank are destroying the Jewish state, and that the Israel lobby is standing in the way of progress…..Neo-conservatism really means "transfer." Ethnic cleansing.
–Phillip Weiss (Phillip Weiss website), October 17, 2008
“He (Obama) will have to tell Israel a few home truths: that America can no longer remain uncritical in the face of Israeli army brutality and the colonisation for Jews and Jews only on Arab land. Obama will have to stand up at last to the Israeli lobby (it is, in fact, an Israeli Likud party lobby) and withdraw Bush's 2004 acceptance of Israel's claim to a significant portion of the West Bank. US officials will have to talk to Iranian officials – and Hamas officials, for that matter. Obama will have to end US strikes into Pakistan – and Syria”.
-Robert Fisk, U.K. Independent, Obama Has to Pay for Eight Years of Bush’s Delusions. He will have to get out of Iraq, and he will have to tell Israel a few home truths, November 8, 2008
“The negative (Jewish) campaign glossed over Obama's deep ties in the Chicago Jewish
Community and how he has picked a preeminently pro-Israel foreign policy team”
--Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 5, 2008.
Mr. Obama, after your victory you called the leaders of nine nations among them Israel, naturally. Yet despite our economic, energy, and credit crisis you did not see fit to call one Arab leader in the Middle East, the very region we and Europe called upon begging for increased oil production, their money and investments to shore up our banks and financial system. Despite American, British, and Israeli bombs killing innocent Muslims, these cowardly pandering dictators called you. While their banks are failing their priority is saving American banks.
America and the world have laid their anguished and frustrated hope in your hands for peace and prosperity after the hell Bush/Cheney/Neocons and Israel created around the world. Yet you start with a hand sullied and biased toward special interests, both domestic and foreign, the very groups you promised to end their influence.
Will you have the courage to be America’s president, a president of all Americans, Jews and Gentiles, a president for America’s interests, not Israel’s, a president who will heed the warnings of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison not to have a “passionate attachment” to any foreign nation, to avoid “foreign entanglements” that sabotage our interests, to end the influence of “factions”, i.e. special interests that dominate our national policies?
I for one will go against the tide of Obamaphoria and predict that as far as foreign policy is concerned, especially in the Middle East, you will fail, for America is always ten steps behind the brilliant and inflammatory military and political machinations of Israel and its lobby.
As Ariel Sharon said: “The Arabs may have the Oil, but we have the matches”.
To pay for your domestic programs you will depend entirely on borrowed money. Given the severe financial crisis, astronomical deficits, and debt of our government,t thanks to the influence of special interest groups, both domestic and foreign, you’ll have a very small window with which to maneuver to pay for a semblance of your domestic programs.
But rest assured, given the apathy and disinterest of our population, you can succumb to these special interest groups without a beep from our citizen spectators who put more thought into sales and football games than the future of their children.
Let’s meet four years from now and you can prove me wrong. In the meantime hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims will continue to die at the hands of an Imperial Western-Israeli alliance---the true Axis of Evil. Welcome to another Israel Apartheid Wall---The Washington D.C. Beltway.
Recall the words of the man most responsible for your election as an African American:
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Strength to Love, 1963
Avalon
(George Washington’s Farewell Address 1796: Warning of a “Passionate Attachment” to a Foreign Nation)
The Daily NewsCaster
Joe Biden Video: “I am a Zionist”, Septembe 23, 2008
The Electronic Intifada
“Obama Pivots Away From Dovish Past
Larry Cohler-Esses, The Jewish Week, 8 March 2007
The Forward
“Obama Campaign Appoints Adviser To Coordinate Jewish Outreach”
(“Obama’s Jews”: Harpers; October 2008)
Haaretz Newspaper
“In his speech, Obama intends to remove any doubts that the Democratic Party's donors and constituents, many of whom are Jewish, may have about his support for Israel”.
Y Net News
(Lee Rosenberg’s interview on Barack Obama’s commitment to Israel)
Jeffrey Goldberg
“Obama on Zionism and Hamas”, May 12, 2008 (Interview with Jeffrey Goldberg)
The Jerusalem Post
“Obama the Zionist”, May. 21, 2008
(Obama/Biden on Israel)
(Rahm Emanuel Brief Biography)
(interview with President Carter)
CounterPunch
“Dual Loyalties: The Bush Neocons and Israel”
By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
Former CIA political analysts
“The Israel Lobby” by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
“For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.
Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.”
Obama: Gaza Siege Forced On Israel
(Obama’s Letter to U.S. Ambassador to U.N. “Gaza Siege “Forced on Israel”)
Jews For Obama
(SEE: Barack Obama’s Breakfast Speech on February 24 with Ohio Jews)
“He then said that he will carry with him to the White House “an unshakable commitment to the security of Israel and the friendship between the United States and Israel. The US-Israel relationship is rooted in shared interests, shared values, shared history and in deep friendship among our people … I will work tirelessly as president to uphold and enhance the friendship between the two countries.”: Barack Obama
McCain and Obama Advisers
“A look at Obama and McCain advisers”, By Ron Kampeas · October 28, 2008
The Prospect
Article: “”What Does It Mean To Be the Pro-Israel Candidate?”
“The major candidates in both parties seek the "pro-Israel" label. Now is the time to debate what it means to support Israel, so that a year from now, elected leaders will be able to refer to publicly recognized ideas to justify acting more sensibly”.
--Gershom Gorenberg | January 18, 2008
The New Team
“Obama: The New Team”
Jews 4 Barack: Myths and Facts
Joe Biden’s Speech to Jewish Americans. Obama like me totally supports Israel
Biden and Obama Totally Support Israel
“Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School: Role of Joel Klein, Superintendent of NYC Schools: now considered for Secretary of Education)
*** [Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine, chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, author of 11 books (most recently the 2006 national best-seller The Left Hand of God) and as a member of Rabbis for Obama recently debated Bill Kristol about how Jews should vote in the election.]
(From AIPAC’s own website: A Lobbying Group)
“As America's leading pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC works with both Democratic and Republican political leaders to enact public policy that strengthens the vital U.S.-Israel relationship”.
The New Statesman
(Source for Ariel Sharon quote: “Arabs may have the oil….) --John Pilger: “The big threat in the Middle East is Israel, not Iraq: it could play the nuclear card to blackmail the Americans”, May 14, 2001
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