Check out my piece from Media Matters Action Network.
Mark Kirk, the House member from Chicago who is now the GOP Senate nominee, is the #1 recipient of pro-Israel PAC money in the entire House. In fact, of the top 10 recipients from both Houses, he is the only House member.
Why do the PACs love him?
It is because Kirk is a pure Israel-firster. For Kirk, Israel can do no wrong. Add to that that he sits on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations where he brings home the bacon for Israel big time. Its wish is his command.
I would not categorize him as pro-Israel because that would require supporting an end to the deadly status quo. Mark Kirk is just pro-AIPAC and shaking the trees for all the campaign money he can get by his hate rhetoric about Arabs. Playing like he's "pro-Israel" -- and not just pro lobby -- has paid off very very well for him.
And he's given the lobby not just all the foreign aid it wants but the red meat they love.
During the Gaza war, he famously told a pro-Gaza war pep rally in Washingtom that "it's time to take the trash out" in Gaza. That was at a time when 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians (and 320 children) were being killed by the Israeli army.
Kirk has courted AIPAC since he was a House staffer and now it could pay off big time for the lobbying powerhouse. In the past, AIPAC has had hundreds of senators who took all their cues on the Middle East from AIPAC. But, in Kirk, they will have something else. Their very own senator.
Sen. Mark Kirk (R-AIPAC).
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjmediamatters
To refer to Palestinian families with children & elders (who are under attack in their own homes by a hugely powerful military which uses incendiary weapons) as "trash" which it needs "to take out," is beyond belief. That he would think it, let alone say it out loud, let alone at a public rally in Washington is awful enough, but not to be excoriated for it by other members of Congress, our media & fellow citizens is far worse.
So, let me get this straight...a writer from Media Matters, a group unabashedly antagonistic to Israel...uses his receipt of money from AIPAC (ooohhh, evil) to smear this moderate Republican.
I respect HuffPo, but the vicious animosity towards Israel...and all the cheerleaders who chime in (all purely motivated by "human rights", I'm sure) is mind boggling.
Mr. Rosenberg .....please remind us here on the forum why money from AIPAC is so evil? Do you single out recipients from CAIR or other groups. Have the integrity to explain this....Iand I don't mean you knuckleheads out there in the peanut gallery.
Answer please....................
The trash in Gaza comment is disgusting.
Easy to talk like a bully when some of the biggest bullies in town bankroll you I guess.
All in all - Kirk sure is pretty despicable.
Have some of our elected officials sunk this low to earn campaign money by engendering hatred? Kirk is a walking advertisement of the need for drastic reform in campaign funding. Otherwise, we have surely lost our democratic & humanitarian ideals. The people of Chicago need to take a closer look at the lack morality of the person who is representing them in the US Congress.
No the teabaggers will just cancel the check.
This is one Jewish American who hopes Pollard dies in jail.
Dem Senate candidate Gianoulious may not be ready for prime time yet.
We need to push for a Middle East solution that provides Israel security to the ultimate extent possible, but likely requires an independent Palestinian state. The status quo is just not sustainable, and if, from the article above, Kirk will block those efforts, this will be a step backward.
Strange how GOP support for the rich and demands ofno support for the poor is not at all radioactive.
Must be nice to be more equal than some or most.
Lets get rid of all politicians and replace them with pundits.
How incredible you didn't know that.