President Obama's love-in (transcript here) with Prime Minister Netanyahu today demonstrates that the adage that "politics stops at the water's edge" does not apply to the Middle East. The President invited Netanyahu to Washington to get relations back on course (i.e., make AIPAC happy) as we go into the critical fundraising quarter for the November elections.
When it comes to all matters relating to Israel, foreign policy is politics. And politics is fundraising.
That is how Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's meetings with President Obama and other administration officials this week should be viewed. Nothing significant has changed since Obama last met with Netanyahu and conveyed his displeasure with Israeli behavior. Israel is still expanding settlements in Jerusalem, still expelling Palestinians from their homes, and still maintaining the blockade of Gaza. Of course, the blockade has been eased but only after the IDF attacked the flotilla, killing 8 Turks and one American. (Has any American's death ever gone as unprotested as this one?)
Nonetheless, it was all smiles at the White House today. It was embarrassing to watch.
David Makovsky, who works for the AIPAC cutout, the Washington Institute for Near East Peace, explained what's going on in today's Washington Post. "As we get closer to the midterm elections, if there was a gap, it's narrowing.... I think the blowup in March between Obama and Netanyahu has led each side to realize that they've gone too far, and they've got to dial it down."
Makovsky's opening reference to the "midterm elections" is the key. The United States has to make things right with Israel or the Democratic Party will pay a price, quite literally.
Israel's loquacious ambassador, Michael Oren, correctly predicted that, unlike the last White House meeting between Netanyahu and Obama, there would be photographers on hand to record the two leaders making nice. And those photographs will go to all the right people.
"We are going to have a lot of photographers," Oren said. Laughing, he added: "There are going to be more photographers there than at the Academy Awards."
Of course, neither side (with the exception of loose cannon Oren) is likely to admit that this meeting is about politics. They will say that they are about getting negotiations started, although with Israel busily expanding settlements in Jerusalem, it is hard to see how that will happen.
The Palestinians have no great incentive to negotiate with a prime minister whose government solidly opposes any dismantling of settlements, not now and not ever. They can be forgiven for believing that the Washington meeting is a charade, designed to appease a lobby whose members are threatening to punish the Democrats unless Obama capitulates with a smile.
And, of course, that happened. Obama even said that Israel will continue to get a pass on nuclear proliferation issues because "given its size and the threats against it, Israel has unique security requirements."
This World Cup goes to AIPAC yet again!
Some readers think I exaggerate the influence of the lobby. I don't (I used to work at AIPAC and on its favorite stomping ground, Capitol Hill and I know how it operates).
The latest evidence of the fear and trembling produced by the lobby was evidenced last week when it was revealed that General David Petraeus was upset and worried by a column I wrote in March. I praised him for testifying that the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict threatens all US interests in the Middle East, including our troops. (All the information below comes from a column by Phil Weiss of Mondoweiss, who has possession of the original emails).
The story starts on March 16, 2010 when Petraeus testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee:
The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests... Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the [region] and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.
I then wrote a Foreign Policy Matters piece praising Petraeus for telling the truth about how the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate hurts America. It was called "On the Middle East, It's Palin vs Petraeus."
Almost immediately, a State Department official named Michael Gfoeller forwarded my article to Petraeus with a simple message; "Sir: FYI. Mike."
Nineteen minutes later Petraeus sent my piece to Max Boot, the uber-neocon Wall Street Journal columnist:
From: Petraeus, David H GEN MIL USA USCENTCOM CCCC/CCCC To: Max Boot Subject: FW: On the Middle East: It's Palin vs Petraeus As you know, I didn't say that. It's in a written submission for the record...
Petraeus meant that the words I quoted cited were not in his oral statement. They were in a 56-page document, titled "Statement of General David H. Petraeus, U.S. Army Commander, US Central Command before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the posture of US Central Command, 16 Mar 2010."
Of course, the statement submitted for the record is the official statement. It is the statement that was cleared for use by his superiors. It is policy.
Boot responded four minutes later:
"Oh brother. Luckily it's only media matters [sic] which has no credibility but I think I will do another short item pointing people to what you actually said as opposed to what's in the posture statement."
Then six minutes later, Petraeus sends his idea for a strategy to answer those who might take offense at his suggestion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict harms US interests:
From: Petraeus, David H GEN MIL USA USCENTCOM CCCC/CCCC 2:37Thx, Max. (Does it help if folks know that I hosted Elie Wiesel and his wife at our quarters last Sun night?! And that I will be the speaker at the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps in mid-Apr at the Capitol Dome...)
Boot says that citing Petraeus' friendship with Wiesel would not be necessary because "you're not being accused of being an anti-Semite."
Holy cow!
Not only was I not accusing Petraeus of being an anti-Semite, I was praising him for stating, on the record, what most of the top brass believe - that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the perception that the United States is reflexively on Israel's side, is bad for America. Nor did I distort anything Petraeus said. His only complaint is that he didn't actually "say" the words but included them in his testimony. In other words, I characterized his words correctly. And that worries him!
But then Max Boot comes to Petraeus' rescue and posts (in Commentary, where else?) a blog post called "A Lie: David Petraeus, Anti-Israel." His whole defense of Petraeus consists of the fact that I quote from a "posture statement" (his official statement) not his spoken words. He then goes on to say that the last thing Petraeus believes is that "settlements had to be stopped or that Israel is to blame for the lack of progress in negotiations."
Whatever. The story here is not that Petraeus believes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict negatively effects US interests throughout the Middle East (he clearly does) but the panic that ensues when those sentiments are ascribed to him.
Why the panic? Why the rush to consult neocon Max Boot? Why the nervousness?
You tell me.
President Obama and Congress are infinitely more susceptible to these fears than a four star General (who is constitutionally immune from political pressure). If Petraeus gets this rattled, what can you expect from politicians?
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjmediamatters
In Gaza, I find Palestinians living in tents beside homes that were destroyed in the war a year ago, living in mud homes constructed by the United Nations. One family greets me amid a pool of water and mud, the woman slopping through the filth in her plastic shoes. Her family of 11 children has been dispossessed by a greedy landlord who wanted more money, no war victims these but refugees from society. They were Bedouins. Indeed, their family, the Moughasibs, originally came from a village near the Israeli town of Sderot – yes, that very hamlet so beloved of Hamas' rockets, original name Deir el-Balah, though of course we don't mention that today – and before the 'Nakba', the disaster of the Palestinians, they lived there, in a tent. In a tent before their catastrophe and in a tent after the Gaza war. I splash back to the car, but there is to be a meeting with the Hamas 'Deputy Foreign Minister', Ahmed Youssef. My driver, Ashraf, is worried about my shoes. He washes them, one by one, under a garage hose-pipe and then he cleans the rubber floor of the car . http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/state-of-denial-robert-fisk-searches-for-peace-in-israel-1895568.html
YES - 34 AMERICAN SAILORS ABOARD THE USS LIBERTY MURDERED IN 1967 BY ISRAEL AND 174 WOUNDED WHILE IN INTERNATIONAL WATERS.
How did the US try to hide and conceal facts?
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/ul-boston.html
Why? Because the Jews control 80% the US's finance and the US politicians receive huge favours and bribes and they will never be elected without the support of the friends of Israel.
Is there any end to this oppression, injustice, iniquity and wrong? May not be for the next 50 years or until God Almighty decides to put His scheme into operation to show that justice is not totally dead in the world. After all Hitler's success was temporal too.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby
Rather, by helping Israel in different ways, they are making the brute stronger and more oppressive. Human right organisations which are in the fore-front in such matters are silent.
How long this dance of death and destruction by Israel will continue. If Israel is allowed to do what it is doing and it is not reined in, it will become a danger for the peace and safety of the whole world and its barbarism will not only be confined to Palestine, Syria and Lebanon but will make a large part of the world the target of its brutalities.
In order to protect the world from Israeli bestiality it is essential that effective and concrete steps are taken without delay against it. United Nations and other developed and powerful countries can play an important role in this. WILL THEY COME FORWARD?
http://maxblumenthal.com/feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem/
During the past ten years Israeli brutalities on the poor people of Gaza have crossed all limits. Repeated attacks and storming of Gaza by Israeli forces gives the impression that either it wants to decimate the people of Gaza by use of aggressive force or through blockade by preventing the supply of food and other essentials it wants to compel them to die a lingering death.
During the past one decade Israel has fired thousands of rockets on Gaza and has laid siege around it many times. Last year the ferocity with which Israel had enforced the blockade on Gaza had paralysed the life of its people.
The whole world is watching the naked barbarism of Israel, international human rights organisations are all fully aware of the heart-rending massacre of the innocent people of Gaza by Israel but inspite of all this, no steps are being taken to stop Israel’s cruelties. Reason: THE WORLDS SUPER POWER IS BEHIND ISRAEL. WHO DARES TO CHALLENGE the USA except some dummies getting involved in terrorism out of vendetta.
Check General Ridgway in Korea and General Patten in WW2
(Reuters) - Iran said on Monday it had struck a deal with Brazil and Turkey for a nuclear fuel swap but it was far from clear if that was enough to ease international concern over Tehran's atomic ambitions and avert new sanctions.
Iran said it had agreed to transfer 1,200 kg (2,646 lb) of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey within a month in return for higher-enriched nuclear fuel for a medical research reactor.
In January of this year the USA delivered 5900 tons of weapons to Israel. WHO are they going to use them on? The IAEA says Iran is doing nothing wrong as they are being watched very carefully...Israel says Iran, Syria are there enemies and must be dealt with....The World has lost patience with Israel who causes trouble daily with its neighbors and then cries it is the oppressed...
Silence is more eloquent than loud clamor, let us attend to what is unspoken.
Amid the furor over Iranian duplicity, the IAEA passed resolution calling Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and open its nuclear facilities to inspection.
The United States and Europe tried to block the IAEA resolution, but it passed anyway. The media virtually ignored the event.
The United States assured Israel that it would support Israel's rejection of the resolution -- reaffirming a secret understanding that has allowed Israel to maintain a nuclear arsenal closed to international inspections, according to officials familiar with the arrangements. Again, the media were silent.
Indian officials greeted U.N. Resolution 1887 by announcing that India "can now build nuclear weapons with the same destructive power as those in the arsenals of the world's major nuclear powers," the Financial Times reported.
Both India and Pakistan are expanding their nuclear weapons programs. They have twice come dangerously close to nuclear war, and the problems that almost ignited this catastrophe are very much alive.
Obama greeted Resolution 1887 differently. The day before he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his inspiring commitment to peace, the Pentagon announced it was accelerating delivery of the most lethal non-nuclear weapons in the arsenal: 13-ton bombs for B-2 bombers, designed to destroy deeply hidden bunkers shielded by 10,000 pounds of reinforced concrete.
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=493
The Israeli/Neocon 'Clean Break Plan' and the American/Neocon 'Long War on Terror' are actually two sides of the same coin - Israel and her Neocons are actually the authors of both plans and really both plans are one and the same -
1- Israel, her Israel Lobby and her Neocons manipulate America into full support of Israeli attacks and policies towards Palestinians as well as Israeli policies towards Iraq and other ME states
2- Israel eventually provokes a pushback by Muslims against these US foreign policies which are now fully supportive and permissive of Israeli bellicosity in the region - Osama bin Laden's 911 attack being the model example and the necessary 'Pearl Harbor' pushback the Israel's Neocons needs to launch the 'Long War'/'War against Terror'
3- Israel immediately capitalizes on this Muslim counterattack by manipulating US into ‘Long War on Israel’s Enemies and Terror’ - she merges this 'Long War' in with her 'Clean Break Plan' so the goals become essentially identitical
4- Israel manipulates US into new escalated levels of attacks/outrages against any Muslims fighting back against her Clean Break Plan and ‘Long War on Israel’s Enemies’
5- Israel reinforces this now closed feedback loop and advances her
Isreal has become more reactionary, inward looking and has built a police state waging unending war against its neighbours. Britain has warned the UK citizens not to surrender their passports to Israeli authorities as they may clone their passports to support illegal assassination activities.
Bibi and Lieberman are racists who have openly advocated executing Arab Knesset members and drowning Palestinian prisoners in the dead seas. Once Lieberman called for bombing Aswan dam to punish the Egyptians. In spite of all these, the US considers Israel as a western style democracy.
Fanned and faved!
Israel is the only one in the whole, West Asian region which has the possession of over 200 thermo-nuclear weapons. It has neither signed NPT( but Iran has) nor allowed weapons inspection( Iran has allowed) despite the UNSC resolution 687 of 1991 which call for West Asia Free from Nuclear weapons and WMD.
It has a long record of uprooting Palestinians( about 7 million refugees) occupying all their territories in 1967. The recent UN report has accused Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Why does the world community( read the US) allow Israel to stand above the law.
The Managing director of German Branch of international association of lawyers Against Nuclear Arms(IALANA) Reiner Braun said on 13th April 2010, that there is no substantial evidence that Iran is having a nuclear weapons programme. There are only unproven allegations against Iran
as a true friend of Israel. I know when I visit AIPAC, I am among friends. . Friends who share my strong commitment to make sure that the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable today, tomorrow and forever.
the many things that I admire about AIPAC is that you fight for this common cause from the bottom up. The lifeblood of AIPAC is here in this room — grass-roots activists of all ages, from all parts of the country, who come to Washington year after year to make your voices heard. Nothing reflects the face of AIPAC more than the 1,200 students who have traveled here to make it clear to the world that the bond between Israel and the United States is rooted in more than our shared national interests — it's rooted in the shared values and shared stories of our people. And as president, I will work with you to ensure that this bond is strengthened
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91150432
Gandhi said, Quote “ I do believe that where there is only one choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence….I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than she should, in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour” Gandhi.
Even President Barack Obama acknowledge Gandhi as one of the great souls of our time. Let the American President explain how the defenders of Mavi Mamara(one of the ships of Peace Flotilla) are not the modern examples of Gandhi’s essence.
I have tremendous respect for Gandhi, but to be honest, non-violnece can never be the creed that can be applied under all circumstances. Everything has its limit. Tolerance is a beautiful concept but if one allows himself to be tolerant to the hilt, he will allow his principles and faith to be total disregarded and in turn becomes a hopeless coward selling his soul for a pittance.
He could pick and choose them to satisfy his immoral and unlawful carnal lust. He was the only one possessing a gun, crude weapons, paid body guards and the power, political influence and domination that his caste and wealth could buy.
This is the best analogy for Israels 21st century brute power, domination, military might and unbridled authority in the world. The UNO or the US or no body can do anything to control the thuggery as there was no body to control the thuggery of the landlords of British India about a hundred years ago.
This is the reason why the persecuted believe in the laws of God to come into operation sometime in the course of history. It may come slowly but it is sure to come. A nation like israel will fall by its own weight.
Likewise, there is something in human nature that will resist such conditions, overcoming them eventually, no matter how many generations are involved until there is fairness & justice for all, not for the few.
I doubt it, That is why in Judaism/Christianity and Islam, a hereafter, an accountability after death, a day of judgment is considered an article of faith. This world can not be and should not be the be all and end of life, because the world is unbelievably cruel, unfair and unjust that the perpetrators of crimes enjoy life more freely as their wealth and power protect them. I believe I will see many so called world leaders standing trial in the courtroom of God Almighty.There will be no fooling around, no deceptive advocates, no bribery and no favours.
http://www.gisha.org/index.php?intLanguage=2&intItemId=1848&intSiteSN=113
"There is wide support in Congress for using all means to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power, “through diplomatic and economic sanctions if we possibly can, through military actions if we must,” visiting US Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said Wednesday in Jerusalem.
.
Graham was even blunter.
“The Congress has Israel’s back,” he said, “and never misunderstand that. Whatever relationship problems we have had in the past, it has never seeped over into Congress. The Congress has been united in protection of one of our best allies in the world, the State of Israel.” "
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=180695
Instead abolish political parties and go for a party-less, individual moral based democracy to elect legislators who will elect a President.
The present system is a plutocracy, there is so much of money politics, corruption and bribery and favouritism. Destroy all that and think of a different sort of democracy