Israel Matzav

Obama pal criticizes prominent Democrat for going to Israel

Obama buddy Rashid Khalidi has criticized Illinois Democratic Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. for joining 80 other members of Congress and visiting Israel during the Congressional recess (Hat Tip: UncleWalterK via Twitter).

Among the 81 who went on this "Magical Mystery Tour" was Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. While there, the Democratic congressman met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders but clearly deemed it unnecessary to undertake any real fact-finding, choosing instead to stick to the scripted tours laid out by lobbyists for Israel.

If 'lobbyists for Israel' are scripting these meetings, why are any 'Palestinians' included on the schedule?

According to David Kreizelman, who leads AIPAC's Israel office, "The question isn't so much going away with a different attitude, it's going away with more information. They have to go back to their constituents who are saying, 'We want (government help) and you are voting to give money to Israel.'"

Is that really what Jackson will do? Return home and tell his constituents that Israel should be getting billions from U.S. taxpayers while infrastructure and schools decay and unemployment rises in his district? Adding insult to injury, instead of going to Americans hard-hit by the economic downturn, this money is used by Israel to subjugate, humiliate and segregate millions of Palestinians.

The 'billions' are a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions of wasteful spending that the Obama administration has incurred in the last two and a half years. Cash for clunkers. Obamacare. Quantitative enhancement. The jobs that each cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to create and pay almost nothing. Michelle's vacations. Date night in New York. Need I go on?

As far as 'subjugating, humiliating and segregating' the 'Palestinians,' that's a load of nonsense. The 'Palestinians' are better off than any other Arabs other than Arab rulers anywhere else in the Arab world without exception. Funny how Khalidi doesn't object to the billions that have been given to the 'Palestinians' that have been used to buy weapons for terrorists, pay 'salaries' to the families of 'martyrs' and terror masterminds, and to pad Arafat's bank account and pay for the extravagant living style of his widow in Paris. Shouldn't that also bother Jackson's constituents Rashid?

One thing is certain: Rather than spend his time touring Israel, and seeing what the flacks for Israel wanted him to see, Rep. Jackson could have stayed home and met with constituents facing difficult times. Instead, he followed the lobbyists to the Holy Land, where he urged Palestinian leaders to recognize Israel "as the homeland of the Jewish people." Absent in his statement was any demand for Israeli recognition of the rights of Palestinians in what they also regard as their homeland.

Congressional fact-finding missions are routine. And maybe Jackson felt that given that ISRAEL has recognized the 'Palestinians' 'rights' to a homeland, there was no need for him to say anything about that, while given the 'Palestinians' continuing refusal to recognize Israel's right to a homeland, there was a need to say something about that.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's repeated insistence that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state is entirely at odds with the principles of the modern-day United States and a throwback to an era in which the U.S. was considered a white state. Recognition of Israel as the Jewish state formally reduces Israel's 1.4 million Palestinian citizens to second-class citizenship. It's as if Jackson thinks that none of the goals and principles of the civil rights or anti-apartheid movements should apply to Israel, and instead that Israel should be allowed to lift its Jewish citizens above its Palestinian citizens — to say nothing of Palestinians in the occupied territories living under illegal occupation.

Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and Islamic Republic of Mauritania. How come you don't object to any of those Rashid? Why are those okay, but a Jewish state is not?

If the congressman had chosen to stray from the well-worn partisan path laid out by AIPAC, he certainly would have drawn different conclusions than those included in a peculiar opinion piece he wrote for the Jerusalem Post earlier this month.

And maybe he wouldn't have because AIPAC told the truth.

Jackson explicitly lectured Palestinians for not using nonviolence, ignoring a long tradition of nonviolent resistance by occupied and disenfranchised Palestinians. In so doing he also implicitly placed blame on Palestinians for their miserable lot, apparently forgetting that it is they, not the Israelis, who are subjugated.

Non-violent, Rashid? Non-violent?

Jackson also approvingly quoted Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who has called for the forcible transfer of Israel's Palestinian citizens and whose stances have regularly been criticized internationally for their thinly veiled bigotry. The day that a prominent African-American and the son of a civil rights icon embraces a man like Lieberman for the sole purpose of greasing wheels in Washington is a sad one for anyone who cares about equality and justice.

Lieberman never called for the forcible transfer of 'Palestinian' citizens 'Israeli Arabs'. He called for a land swap - swapping land which is mostly Arab populated within the 1949 armistice lands for land that is mostly Jewish populated outside them. And the fact that Khalidi (and the Arabs who live there) refers to them as 'Palestinian citizens' is precisely why that kind of swap makes sense to some people (I don't like it but that's a separate issue). Saying that Lieberman advocates forcible transfer is an out and out lie.

But then, why would anyone expect anything different from Khalidi?

Labels: AIPAC, Avigdor Lieberman, Barack Hussein Obama, Jesse Jackson Jr, Rashid Khalidi, United States Congress

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:35 PM