I guess Schumer didn't coordinate with the White House and anti-Semitism is alive and well in America
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
When Chuck Schumer
came out against the Iran sellout on Thursday night, I considered the possibility that he had coordinated with New York's Junior Senator,
Kirsten Gillibrand, and with the Obama White House, so that Gillibrand would come out in favor so that the White House would have one New York vote, and Schumer could protect his Senate seat by coming out against. I should have known better.
The Obama White House - and the entire Left wing of the Democratic party (the so-called 'progressives') have gone to war against Chuck Schumer. The tweets embedded above are the least of it. For example, the Left-leaning Jewish Tablet Magazine has
all but called out the Obama administration for being anti-Semitic (more at
Memeorandum).
What we increasingly can’t stomach—and feel obliged to speak out
about right now—is the use of Jew-baiting and other blatant and
retrograde forms of racial and ethnic prejudice as tools to sell a
political deal, or to smear those who oppose it. Accusing Senator
Schumer of loyalty to a foreign government is bigotry, pure and simple.
Accusing Senators and Congressmen whose misgivings about the Iran deal
are shared by a majority of the U.S. electorate of being agents of a foreign power, or of selling their votes to shadowy lobbyists, or of acting contrary to the best interests
of the United States, is the kind of naked appeal to bigotry and
prejudice that would be familiar in the politics of the pre-Civil Rights
Era South.
This use of anti-Jewish incitement as a political tool is a sickening
new development in American political discourse, and we have heard too
much of it lately—some coming, ominously, from our own White House and
its representatives. Let’s not mince words: Murmuring about “money” and
“lobbying” and “foreign interests” who seek to drag America into war is a
direct attempt to play the dual-loyalty card.
It’s the kind of dark, nasty stuff we might expect to hear at a white
power rally, not from the President of the United States—and it’s gotten
so blatant that even many of us who are generally sympathetic to the
administration, and even this deal, have been shaken by it.
Schumer's announcement has also brought
Stephen Walt's anti-Semitism out of the woodwork.
Schumer has also said that he will
vote to override an Obama veto of a resolution of disapproval of the deal. That means that Schumer's fallout with the 'progressives' may be permanent.
Credo Action is not alone. Dylan Williams, the political director of J Street, a Jewish group campaigning for the Iran deal, tweeted last night, "Seeing lots of Democratic heavy-hitters noting that, unlike the #IranDeal, there are alternatives to Chuck Schumer."
Steve
Rabinowitz, a Democratic communications consultant who works with
Jewish organizations, told me Friday that Schumer was in a "lose-lose
situation." At the same time, Rabinowitz speculated that Schumer could
turn it into a win-win and retain progressive support to be Democratic
leader in the Senate if he voted against the deal initially but didn't
press his colleagues to do so, and then voted against overriding an
Obama veto of the resolution of disapproval.
"Now we just have to
see if he really whips his colleagues, I hope not, and if there is a
veto override vote, what he does," Rabinowitz told me. "If he doesn't
whip his colleagues, and he votes with the president after a veto, then
he will have a way to have it almost both ways. I am disappointed, but I
get it. I get all these members and Jews going the other way, it bums
me out, but I get it."
Based on what his staff told me Friday,
however, that's not the plan: Schumer will stand against the deal no
matter what. The question now for New York's senior senator is whether
progressive Democrats who support the Iran nuclear agreement will go the
other way on Schumer's candidacy to lead his party in the Senate after
Harry Reid retires.
Schumer may have blown his chance to be party leader in the Senate (even that is doubtful, because the vote will be one of his Senate colleagues and I haven't heard any of them attacking him). But his apparently principled stand will likely mean he will keep his Senate seat.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Charles Schumer, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Israel Lobby, Obama's anti-Semitism, Stephen Walt, United States Senate
Al-Jazeera starts US broadcasts with Jew-hating conspiracy theorist Stephen Walt
Al-Jazeera started broadcasting in the United States on Tuesday, and its first guest was Jew-hating conspiracy theorist
Stephen Walt.
Walt rose to prominence as co-author of a conspiracy book about Jewish manipulation of American foreign policy and has been referred to by prominent liberal journalist Jeffrey Goldberg as someone who “makes his living scapegoating Jews.”
It wasn't exactly a hard-hitting interview either.
Let's go to the videotape.
In the meantime, al-Jazeera has
sued AT&T for refusing to carry al-Jazeera on its network.
Al Jazeera America has filed a lawsuit against AT&T over its refusal to carry the new cable news network.
Late Monday, the cable provider dropped Current, which switched over
to Al Jazeera at 3 p.m. ET on Tuesday, meaning U-verse subscribers had
no access to the new channel.
...
In a statement, AT&T told The Times that it had not yet seen the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Delaware Chancery court.
"As a result of our inability to come to terms on a new agreement and
due to certain breaches of the existing agreement, we have decided not
to carry Current TV on U-verse," AT&T said in its statement.
Al Jazeera America is part of the global Doha-based news organization
financed by the royal family of Qatar. In the United States, AJAM is
available in about 49 million of more than 100 million cable homes via
Comcast DISH Network, DirecTV and FiOS.
It is not available on Time Warner Cable, which dropped Current when it
was sold to Al Jazeera America's parent company. Al Jazeera executives
are currently in negotiations to regain carriage on Time Warner Cable
systems, but those negotiations are likely taking a backseat to the
operator's heated disagreement with CBS.
Current was sold to al-Jazeera by
former US Vice President Al Gore. Gore thinks they're a
great station.
Labels: Al Gore, al-Jazeera, conspiracy theories, Stephen Walt
'Israel lobby' author Stephen Walt tells State Department why US foreign policy fails
On Friday, a few days after Chuck Hagel was confirmed as Secretary of Defense by the Senate, the State department heard from Stephen Walt, co-author of the paranoid screed that claims that the mysterious 'Israel lobby' controls the world. Walt's topic was
the failure of American foreign policy (Hat Tip:
Ricky G).
Stephen Walt, coauthor of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy and
professor of international affairs at Harvard University, was the
featured speaker at the Secretary’s Open Forum on Friday afternoon. His
topic: “Top reasons American foreign policy fails,” according to a copy
of the event flyer posted in the hallways of Foggy Bottom.
It is unclear how high the U.S.-Israel relationship ranked on Walt’s list.
One State Department insider provided the announcement flyer to the Free Beacon and expressed concern that the Department would host such a divisive figure.
Walt’s speech, which took place as Secretary of State John Kerry
traveled overseas on his first diplomatic tour, came days after the
Senate confirmed Chuck Hagel as secretary of Defense on a sharply
divided vote of 58-41. Walt emerged as a strong supporter of Hagel’s
nomination, defending the former Nebraska GOP senator’s remarks that the
“Jewish lobby” “intimidates” elected officials on Capitol Hill.
...
Walt celebrated Hagel’s confirmation in an item posted on his Foreign Policy
magazine blog two days before his State Department remarks, while
cautioning his followers that “it would be a huge mistake to conclude
that the lobby’s clout has been broken and that Obama will now be free
to chart a new course.”
The person who chooses speakers for the State Department's open forum is answerable directly to Secretary of State John FN Kerry. Aren't you glad that we reelected President Hussein Obama and that US foreign policy is now being run by the anti-Semitic
three stooges? What could go wrong?
Labels: anti-Israel lobby, anti-Semitism, Barack Hussein Obama, Chuck Hagel, John Kerry, Stephen Walt
Tom Friedman's pettiest column ever
Judging by Tom Friedman's reaction, Americans must be seeing Mitt Romney as having been resoundingly successful during his trip to Israel. As you read Friedman's column, you can see that he's just seething that Romney may actually pull votes away from the anti-Israel Barack Hussein Obama. It's almost as if Republicans are not allowed to compete for pro-Israel votes in Friedman's book.
And perhaps, they're not.
The observation is this: Much of what is wrong with the U.S.-Israel relationship today can be found in that Romney trip. In recent years, the Republican Party has decided to make Israel a wedge issue. In order to garner more Jewish (and evangelical) votes and money, the G.O.P. decided to “out-pro-Israel” the Democrats by being even more unquestioning of Israel. This arms race has pulled the Democratic Party to the right on the Middle East and has basically forced the Obama team to shut down the peace process and drop any demands that Israel freeze settlements. This, in turn, has created a culture in Washington where State Department officials, not to mention politicians, are reluctant to even state publicly what is U.S. policy — that settlements are “an obstacle to peace” — for fear of being denounced as anti-Israel.
Add on top of that, the increasing role of money in U.S. politics and the importance of single donors who can write megachecks to “super PACs” — and the fact that the main Israel lobby, Aipac, has made itself the feared arbiter of which lawmakers are “pro” and which are “anti-Israel” and, therefore, who should get donations and who should not — and you have a situation in which there are almost no brakes, no red lights, around Israel coming from America anymore. No wonder settlers now boast on op-ed pages that the game is over, they’ve won, the West Bank will remain with Israel forever — and they don’t care what absorbing all of its Palestinians will mean for Israel’s future as a Jewish democracy.
Hey Tom - it wasn't the Republicans who decided to make Israel a wedge issue. Support for Israel used to be bipartisan until the Democratic party fell under the control of the Radical Left and the split between Democrats and Republicans who support Israel reached crisis stage.
As to megachecks and super PAC's, we should all be reminded that a candidate named Barack Hussein Obama was the first candidate to turn down the McCain-Feingold money and spend a billion dollars on a campaign. If Friedman has complaints, they should be addressed to Obama, who killed public financing of Presidential campaigns four years ago.
I should also note that the two paragraphs quoted above could have been written by Stephen Walt. Walt's delusions also include AIPAC as a 'feared arbiter' of who is and who is not pro-Israel.
There's one small problem: Barack Hussein Obama is clearly not pro-Israel.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: AIPAC, Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Israel Lobby, Mitt Romney, Stephen Walt, Tom Friedman
Time to stop enriching Peter Beinart
Richard Baehr is
onto something.
Peter Beinart has taken the lessons of Professors Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer to heart. The two professors, one of whom taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and the other at the University of Chicago, were respected in their field, but unknown to the general population. As soon as they took on Israel and its supporters in the U.S. with their essay on the Israel Lobby in 2006, they became folk heroes to the Left and the assorted collection of Israel haters in the U.S., Europe and the Arab world.
Walt and Mearsheimer’s paper in the London Review of Books, (and later their book on the same subject) was poorly argued, poorly researched, and above all fundamentally wrong in its conclusions. (In just one example, despite the authors’ lame attempt to argue otherwise, neither Israel nor its supporters in the U.S. drove the U.S to war with Iraq.)
But none of this had any impact on the authors’ newfound notoriety. Suddenly, they were in demand at more than just dull political science conventions. They had become players. They commanded much higher speaking fees. They earned nice advances and royalties for their book. Getting the imprimatur of two icons of academia for an anti-Israel screed is a big deal.
At universities, where Israel is the least favored nation on the planet and is viewed as the source of much of what is wrong with the world, to have such distinguished professors from elite institutions make the anti-Israel case, instead of members of radical Palestinian or Muslim groups, was like manna from heaven.
Peter Beinart was one of many young editors to circulate through the New Republic in the past 20 years. After leaving the journal, his career seemed to languish a bit and his commentary did not get anyone very excited (nor did it get him noticed very much). He supported the war in Iraq in 2003, and at that point, seemed to fit pretty comfortably into the category of center-left writers who, after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, supported a more muscular U.S. foreign policy.
Then, in early 2010 , Beinart chose to follow the Walt-Mearsheimer model. In an article in the New York Review of Books, he bemoaned the loss of support (and even hostility) for Israel among young educated Jews, and decided that his sympathies were with this camp of Jews who had become alienated from Israel. Beinart argued that future generations of American Jews would be lost to Israel unless it stopped the settlements and agreed to a two-state solution that would include self-determination for the Palestinians.
Baehr goes on to do a great job of tearing Beinart to shreds -
read the whole thing.
On Sunday, Beinart penned an article in the New York Times, which can be summed up in one sentence:
Israel must be destroyed to save it. Just about every right-wing, right thinking pro-Israel blogger you can think of felt the need to respond, all in opposition. Except yours truly. (There's a list
here; I'm linked from it, but only because my friend Soccer Dad discussed it in Sunday's
Media Sampler).
Maybe it's because I live in Israel, and only feel the debate in the US via media accounts, but my feeling is that Beinart is being blown out of proportion. Ron Kampeas - hardly a supporter of the complete State of Israel (or what's often referred to in the media as 'greater Israel') - writes that despite all the hullabaloo surrounding Beinart, there are
almost no takers for his proposal. Even from the 'Zionist Left.'
When I saw Baehr's column, it resonated with me. Beinart is attempting to become a younger version of Walt and Mearsheimer with a big difference: He's Jewish (and in fact, I saw somewhere that he prays in an Orthodox synagogue, which means he's identifiably Jewish). That has the potential to make him even more of a darling with the 'pro-Israel Left' than his academic ancestors. He could get richer than they have become by speaking against the Jewish state.
Unfortunately, we Jews have more than enough experience with those of our own who attempt to advance their own success on the backs of the community. Raphael Magarnik - who writes for Beinart's 'Zion Square' blog (which, by the way, cannot even use the domain name 'Zion Square' because
someone else owns it - heh) -
actually got one thing right:
One of Zion Square's writers, Raphael Magarik, chided those who said Jews boycotting Jews should be out of bounds, and noted that such actions have been commonplace throughout Jewish history.
“To cut from our playbook the best tactic Jews have for censuring other Jews, a tactic that dates at least to the Talmud and has as its targets the likes of Leon Trotsky, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, and Baruch Spinoza -- well, that’s what I call painful and unnatural,” he wrote.
Remember the old joke about whether anyone hears when a bear relieves itself in the woods? If Peter Beinart writes an article, and no one responds to it, will anyone listen? We ought to be boycotting Beinart and not building him up. I feel no need to answer everything he writes.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: BDS, john Mearsheimer, Peter Beinart, Stephen Walt
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Sunday, February 19.
1) The progressive Islamists
In one of his final dispatches, the late Anthony Shadid profiled a Said Ferjani, a Tunisian Islamist in Islamists’ Ideas on Democracy and Faith Face Test in Tunisia. Most of the article profile Ferjani, but in the middle, Shadid writes about the interactions of exiled Islamists in the 1990's:
But no less dramatic was the shift under way within various currents inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. Ghannouchi, his own thoughts evolving in exile, became an early proponent of a more inclusive and tolerant Islamism, arguing a generation ago that notions of elections and majority rule were universal and did not contradict Islam. Early on, he supported affirmative action to increase women’s participation in Parliament, a break with the unrelenting notion of missionary work that so long defined the Brotherhood.
...
In debates that played out across the Arab world, though often ignored by the West, the questions of reconciling democracy and Islam raged from the 1990s on. In the middle of that decade, a young Egyptian Islamist named Aboul-Ela Maadi broke from the Brotherhood and formed the Center Party, declaring its support for elections and the alternation of power and, as important, dissent and coalitions with non-Islamic parties.
Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an enormously influential Egyptian cleric based in Doha, Qatar, often sided with the progressives. (In 2005, he turned heads by declaring on Al Jazeera satellite television that “freedom comes before Islamic law.”) Though the Brotherhood still resents Mr. Maadi for his defection, it has largely adopted his ideas, which had seemed so novel in 1996.
...
Critics view the shifts as tactical, even rhetorical. But the very essence of the debates has marked a fulcrum in the intellectual currents of today’s political Islam.
“Al-sama’ wa’l-ta’a,” went the old Brotherhood ideal, which translates as “hearing and obeying.”
“That’s over,” said Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Islamic scholar based in London and a grandson of Mr. Banna, the Brotherhood founder. “The new generation is saying if it’s going to be this, then we’re leaving. You have a new understanding and a new energy.”
The narrative constructed by Shadid paints a picture of enlightened thought; even Qaradawi is associated with "progressive" thought. But three of the names he cites are neither progressive nor enlightened in any Western sense of the words.
In 1994, Martin Kramer wrote about Rachid Ghannouchi (h/t Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report)
Kramer concluded:
Assuming a valid distinction can be made between Islamists who are “extremist” and “reformist,” Ghannouchi clearly belongs to the first category. Since his last visit to the United States, he has openly threatened U.S. interests, supported Iraq against the United States and campaigned against the Arab-Israeli peace process. Indeed, Ghannouchi in exile has personified the rejection of U.S. policies, even as he dispatches missives to the State Department. A visa for Ghannouchi would signal that the United States has become so confused by Islamist artifice that it can no longer tell friend from foe–and not just in Tunisia.
The Middle East Quarterly transcribed a couple of Sheikh Qaradawi's fatwas in 2004. One was that a woman engaged in a martyrdom operation is allowed to uncover her hair.
Concerning the point on hijab, a woman can put on a hat or anything else to cover her hair. Even when necessary, she may take off her hijab in order to carry out the operation, for she is going to die in the cause of Allah and not to show off her beauty or uncover her hair. I don't see any problem in her taking off hijab in this case.
To conclude, I think the committed Muslim women in Palestine have the right to participate and have their own role in jihad and to attain martyrdom.
No doubt Gloria Steinem applauded that liberating sentiment.
Last year after the New York Times published an op-ed by Tariq Ramadan, which Barry Rubin critiqued. Rubin concluded:
The more the Brotherhood lies, the more suspicious I become. If it came clean about its past, that might mean it was indeed willing to change. If it openly expressed its goals of a Sharia state, it might show itself willing to take a place as one party trying to exert influence on the direction of society (something like this has happened in Iraq). Yet to pretend that the Brotherhood is about peace, love, and democracy is like watching a wolf dressed up as a sheep: you know it’s up to no good.
But then, for the grandson of an antisemitic Nazi collaborator, and son of top aide to another Nazi collaborator, and who himself advocates a totalitarian state, Ramadan has done very well to be hailed as a man of peace by applauding Western intellectuals.
Ramadan is indeed accurate when he says that the Brotherhood’s leadership “has signaled” that now is the time to act in a moderate fashion so as not to “frighten” the West or the Egyptian people. That's precisely what he's doing. Later, when the Brotherhood has a big share of power, it can reveal its true nature and aims. By then it will be too late.
It is a terrible tragedy when a young man dies, especially when he leaves behind a wife and young children. Furthermore Shadid was trying to shed light on the atrocities committed by Bashar Assad against the people of Syria, when he died. Still when it comes to the Muslim Brotherhood, his latest showed a blind spot towards their extremism and hostility towards the West.
2) Walt's flawed thesis
One of America's most respected antisemites, Stephen Walt, has come to the defense of incoming New York Times bureau chief, Jodi Rudoren. (h/t Omri Ceren):
Discourse about this topic has opened up a lot in recent years, but the same tactics are still on display. Case in point: the warning shots fired at the New York Times' new bureau chief in Jerusalem, Jodi Rudoren, which began when the ink on the press release announcing her appointment was barely dry.
What was Rudoren's scandalous transgression? She had the temerity to send a pleasant (but hardly effusive) response to a tweet from Ali Abunimah, who is the author of a book advocating one state for Israel and Palestine. Whatever you may think of Abunimah's views (I happen to think he's wrong on that issue), he's not a violent extremist and there's nothing inappropriate about Rudoren responding to him as she did. Rudoren also tweeted some positive things about Peter Beinart's forthcoming book The Crisis of Zionism.
Well, before you could say "hasbara," Rudoren was being chastised by a familiar list of commentators, including Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon, Shmuel Rosner of the Jerusalem Post, and Josh Block, the former AIPAC staffer who recently led a despicable effort to smear the Center for American Progess. And of course Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, self-appointed Supreme Jurisprudent of What is Permissible to Say about Israel, got into the act as well. (Goldberg's sudden interest in fair-minded reporting is especially amusing, given his penchant for making up lies about those with whom he disagrees.)
I bring this up not to disqualify Rudoren, but there is so much wrong in these three paragraphs. Most notably, Walt's thesis that there's something untoward about pro-Israel partisans pointing out possible prejudices among supposedly objective reporters. Though I won't link to him, Walt's comrade in Israel bashing, Richard Silverstein was out quickly with a post claiming, "Jodi Rudoren, Known for Pro-Israel Reporting." Both sides play the game, just one side's behavior is somehow improper.
I'm not a huge fan of Jeffrey Goldberg, but it was Goldberg's critic who made up the lies. Shmuel Rosner now writes for the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles and unless I read him incorrectly seemed more sympathetic to Rudoren than to her critics. And was Josh Block's accusations about the use of the term "Israel-firster" a smear? I think not.
If someone clings to his thesis despite the preponderance of evidence disproving his thesis and can only marshal questionable data to defend his thesis, he is motivated by something other than academic interest.
Labels: Anthony Shadid, Jodi Rudoren, Middle East Media Sampler, Soccer Dad, Stephen Walt
Well look who's sticking up for Jodi Rudoren
Look who's sticking up for Jodi Rudoren.
He's not exactly
the knight in shining armor that she needs right now, is he?
Okay, I'll save you all from clicking through so as not to give him a lot of traffic. It's Stephen Walt.
Not an auspicious start to her term as bureau chief, is it?
So why would Walt 'defend' her? Because he's not capable of shutting up.
Labels: Jodi Rudoren, Stephen Walt
Sorry John, if you support Gilad Atzmon, you're supporting a Nazi
Three days ago, I reported that Israel Lobby author John Mearsheimer had come out of the closet and
admitted to his anti-Semitism by writing an introduction to a book by Jewish Nazi Gilad Atzmon. Mearsheimer responded in a
lengthy diatribe written on the Foreign Policy blog of his co-author, Stephen Walt, which I tried to read (because it was linked on Memeorandum :-) but found my eyes glazing over within two paragraphs.
Harry's Place went through it all and concludes that
Atzmon is a Nazi, and that Walt and Mearsheimer are providing cover for him.
Walt’s logic goes like this: if you think his co-author is backing a Nazi sympathiser, you prove their “Israel lobby” theories to be right all along.
But that’s just silly. Atzmon is a Nazi, and Walt and Mearsheimer are now providing cover for him.
Here is Gilad Atzmon expressing a classically fascist/Nazi position on Jewish finance, in his new book The Wandering Who, in a chapter entitled “Credit Crunch or Zio-Punch?” [p.30]: “You may wonder at this stage whether I regard the credit crunch as a Zionist plot or even a Jewish conspiracy. In fact the opposite is the case. It isn’t a plot and certainly not a conspiracy for it was all in the open.”
In this phrase, Atzmon reveals he thinks “Jewish” and “Zionist” are basically the same. He accuses Jews of openly causing the credit crunch. Remember, this is the book that Mearsheimer describes as “fascinating and provocative”.
In The Wandering Who, Atzmon interweaves his understanding of Jews today, with antisemitic caricatures, writing in The Wandering Who [p.51]:“Fagin is the ultimate plunderer, a child exploiter and usurer. Shylock is the blood-thirsty merchant. With Fagin and Shylock in mind, the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians seems to be just a further event in an endless hellish continuum.”
We should look closely at what Atzmon is saying here. According to Atzmon, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is only the latest chapter in a “hellish continuum” of Jews plundering goods and exploiting children.
This means that however you consider Israeli actions, they are only the latest in a continuum of wicked actions carried out by world Jewry. In Atzmon’s “continuum” Israeli evil carries on from ancient Jewish evil, in which Shylock and Fagin are not vile racist caricatures at all, but accurately reflect Jews. That is why Atzmon can write in The Wandering Who [p.52]: “Some Jews are rather unhappy with Charles Dickens’ Fagin and Shakespeare’s Shylock, who they regard as ‘anti-Semitic’.
It gets far worse.
Indeed, it does.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Gilad Atzmon, Israel Lobby, john Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt
Fuggedaboutit
Remember how Helen Thomas was
going to speak at that anti-AIPAC conference next month?
No more... (Hat Tip:
Dan F).
Helen Thomas, who caused controversy when she called on Jews in Israel to “go back to Europe” last year, reportedly declined to take part in the Move Over AIPAC when it became clear that “several members of the coalition and our grassroots community” involved in the conference were opposed to her attendance.
Thomas was quoted by organizers as thanking Move Over AIPAC for inviting her, saying she hoped the conference’s purpose of countering Israel’s perceived influence in Washington will succeed.
“I am delighted that people are coming together for this gathering and I want to make sure that the focus stays on AIPAC and U.S. policy, not me,” she was quoted saying by the anti-Israel lobby group.
...
Move Over AIPAC has been endorsed by the likes of political scientists Stephen Walt and John Meirsheimer, who wrote a book criticizing the Israeli lobby in Washington, and Jewish Voice for Peace, a leftist Jewish organization involved in attempts to break the blockade on Gaza, according to its Website.
At the time of print several messages and phone calls to Walt, Meirsheimer and JVP went unanswered.
Medea Benjamin, a spokesperson for the event, elaborated on differences of opinion among participants regarding Thomas and her reputation.
“Some within the coalition think that the remarks were anti-Semitic and condemned what she said,” Benjamin said. “Others thought that it was a slip of the tongue and that her extended comments afterwards were a good explanation. Personally, I’ve been an admirer of her for years and her protest of the Iraq war.”
Asked if inviting a speaker who in the past made inflammatory comments about Jews proved the point of the gathering’s critics that it was pushing an anti-Semitic agenda under the guise of an anti-Israeli lobby event, Benjamin responded in the negative.
“The conference is really to talk about –and many of us are Jews- is to work for a policy where Israel and Palestine can live together in peace and get a process started,” Benjamin, who is Jewish, said. “My values are Jewish and I believe in Compassion for all and AIPAC does not represent my Jewish values. Helen Thomas is one of 30 people who have been invited and we are a community of people who cherish Jewish values.”
Bottom line: Helen Thomas is too toxic even for the Walt-Mearsheimer-Code Pink-Jewish Voice for Peace crowd. It's been less than a year. My how the mighty have fallen.
Labels: AIPAC, Barack Obama, Code Pink, Helen Thomas, Jewish Voice for Peace, john Mearsheimer, Medea Benjamin, Stephen Walt
Walt and Mearsheimer featued at anti-AIPAC conference
While supporters of Israel gather in one part of Washington in late May, supporters of terror will gather in another part - presumably to cheer on the terror flotilla that is scheduled to attempt to breach Israel's Gaza blockade at the same time.
AIPAC's
policy conference will take place in Washington May 22-24, while across town a conference of terror supporters and their academic godfathers will attempt to introduce '
new policies' in the Middle East.
From May 21 to 24, 2011, in Washington DC, join CODEPINK, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and a coalition of over 80 organizations at an historic gathering "Move Over AIPAC: Building a New US Middle East Policy."
It is timed to coincide with the annual policy meeting of AIPAC, which will feature Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, members of the Obama administration and hundreds of members of Congress. The Move Over AIPAC gathering will expose AIPAC’s negative influence on U.S. foreign policy and promote an alternative approach that respects the rights of all people in the region.
The impressive list of speakers includes The Israel Lobby authors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, writer Alice Walker, consumer advocate Ralph Nader, authors Nadia Hijab and Phyllis Bennis, Palestinian blogger Laila El Haddad, Jewish Voice for Peace Director Rebecca Vilkomerson, peacemakers Cindy and Craig Corrie, Israeli researcher Dalit Baum, human rights lawyer Noura Erakat, clown doctor Patch Adams, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, union organizer Bill Fletcher, US Campaign to End the Israel Occupation national organizer and human rights advocate Anna Baltzer, Janet McMahon from the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and many more!
There will be trainings, workshops, press conferences, book signings, cultural events, and culminate with peaceful, creative protests outside the AIPAC convention itself.
I'm almost surprised that Samantha Power isn't on the speakers' list.
But actually, this conference is the perfect metaphor for the 'Palestinian' side. It's not a conference about something 'positive' - for example, how to prepare for a 'state of Palestine.' It's a conference that's about something negative, a conference that defines itself as being against someone else's (in this case AIPAC's) narrative. Just like the 'Palestinian nationalist' movement isn't about creating 'Palestine' - it's about destroying Israel.
What could go wrong?
By the way, I know I have some readers in Oregon. If any of you could explain to me why the 'Salem News' is reporting a promotional item for this 'conference' as a news story, I'd much appreciate it.
Labels: anti-AIPAC conference, john Mearsheimer, Salem News, Stephen Walt
Why does this man support J Street?
But of course he
supports J Street.
They're doing everything that they can to make his dream of a world without Israel into a reality.
Labels: Israel Lobby, J Street, pro-Israel pro-peace, Stephen Walt
Mr. Moral Equivalence
Who could make the Itamar terror attack look like it was Israel's fault? Why Stephen Walt, of course.
To say that I am appalled by the brutal murder of an Israeli family in the West Bank settlement of Itamar (near Nablus) is an understatement. Israel's occupation of the West Bank is universally recognized as a violation of international law and depends on force, intimidation, and violence, but there is no justification for anyone to take the lives of an entire family in this way. No good can possibly come from such a senseless act -- not for Palestinians, not for Israelis, and not for anyone else -- and it should be universally condemned.
But while we are at it, we should not spare the other parties who have helped create and perpetuate the circumstances where such crimes are likely to occur.
Let us therefore condemn every Israeli government since 1967, for actively promoting the illegal effort to colonize these lands.
Note that in the first sentence, he condemns the attack, in the second sentences, he says it's Israel's fault, and in the third sentence he says it's not good for the 'Palestinians' (not that it's wrong, but that it doesn't help the cause). In the next paragraph, he goes on to blame Israel.
By the way, 'international law' does not say the 'settlements' are illegal, for reasons I have shown many times, most recently
here.
Later, he goes on to mouth baseless accusations about Israeli 'war crimes,' the 'occupation' (conveniently forgetting how we got to be in this situation), and 'squandering the opportunity of Oslo,' again conveniently forgetting who squandered it.
The name "Fogel" never appears in the article. They are dehumanized. They are just 'evil settlers' in Walt's book.
Stephen Walt is a rank anti-Semite and Harvard is to be condemned and ostracized for continuing to employ him.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Fogel family massacre, Harvard University, Itamar, Palestinian terror, Stephen Walt
Stephen Walt lies again
Stephen Walt has once again
falsified the American position on Israel.
And yet, in a Feb. 2 blog piece published on the Foreign Policy website, Walt writes: Last Friday the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council Resolution condemning Israel's continued expansion of settlements in the occupied territory of the West Bank. The resolution didn't question Israel's legitimacy, didn't declare that "Zionism is racism," and didn't call for a boycott or sanctions. It just said that the settlements were illegal and that Israel should stop building them, and called for a peaceful, two-state solution with "secure and recognized borders. The measure was backed by over 120 countries, and 14 members of the security council voted in favor. True to form, only the United States voted no.
There was no strategic justification for this foolish step, because the resolution was in fact consistent with the official policy of every president since Lyndon Johnson. All of those presidents has understood that the settlements were illegal and an obstacle to peace, and each has tried (albeit with widely varying degrees of enthusiasm) to get Israel to stop building them.
It is rather clear that the "official policy" of the current administration is opposed to labelling settlements illegal. Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, indicated that one of the reasons the U.S. vetoed the resolution was because its disagreement with use of this word.
Walt lies again. No one has asked Americans to die for Israel. And with the exception of the Carter administration, no American administration has called 'settlements' 'illegal.'
Read the whole thing.
Labels: settlements are legal, Stephen Walt, UN Security Council Resolution 242
Stephen Walt gets it wrong again
Here's
Stephen Walt on Libya from January 2010 (Hat Tip:
Martin Kramer).
First, although Libya is far from a democracy, it also doesn't feel like other police states that I have visited. I caught no whiff of an omnipresent security service -- which is not to say that they aren't there -- and there were fewer police or military personnel on the streets than one saw in Franco's Spain. The Libyans with whom I spoke were open and candid and gave no sign of being worried about being overheard or reported or anything like that. The TV in my hotel room featured 50+ channels, including all the normal news services (BBC World Service, CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, etc.) along with contemporary U.S. sitcoms like "2-1/2 Men," shows like "Desperate Housewives," assorted movies, and one of the various "CSI" clones. A colleague on the trip told me that many ordinary Libyans have satellite dishes and that the government doesn't interfere with transmissions. I tried visiting various political websites from my hotel room and had no problems, although other human rights groups report that Libya does engage in selective filtering of some political websites critical of the regime. It is also a crime to criticize Qaddafi himself, the government's past human rights record is disturbing at best, and the press in Libya is almost entirely government-controlled. Nonetheless, Libya appears to be more open than contemporary Iran or China and the overall atmosphere seemed far less oppressive than most places I visited in the old Warsaw Pact.
...
My own view (even before I visited) is that the improvement of U.S.-Libyan relations as one of the few (only?) success stories in recent U.S. Middle East diplomacy. Twenty-five years ago, Libya and the United States were bitter antagonists: U.S. and Libyan warplanes clashed on several occasions in the Gulf of Sidra, and Libyan agents bombed a discotheque in Germany that was frequented by U.S. soldiers. U.S. aircraft attacked Libya more than once, targeting Qaddafi on at least one occasion (and killing his adopted daughter Hannah). Libya was also held responsible for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 (though some recent accounts have questioned its culpability) and it had an active WMD development program and received substantial nuclear weapons technology from the illicit A. Q Khan network.
I guess those 'improved relations' with the United States are why President Obama has been almost silent in the face of the slaughter going on in Libya.
So was Walt duped? Is he just a tool? And by the way, did he visit the same country
Michael Totten did?
Call me unimpressed with Walt's overwhelming brilliance. He's not - as we say in Boston - wicked smaht.
Labels: Libya, Martin Kramer, Michael Totten, Stephen Walt
Stephen Walt puts his foot in his mouth
Let's see Stephen Walt find a way to blame the 'Israel Lobby' for how badly he got
this one wrong. It must be another Jewish conspiracy.
Heh.
Labels: blaming Israel, Israel Lobby, Stephen Walt
Stephen Walt's conspiracy theory
Stephen Walt attacks
Jeffrey Goldberg for disputing Walt's claim that there is no Arab lobby (or no effective Arab lobby as he revises his claim to say
here). Eli Lake notes that Walt is
incapable of distinguishing between opinion journalism and lobbying, mistaking the former for the latter (Hat Tip:
Soccer Dad).
While Lake is undoubtedly correct that Walt has a problem distinguishing between something that is very public and something that is largely very private, there is a much simpler answer to each of the
claims (there are eight of them) that Walt makes.
When voters overwhelmingly support a policy position, that position's coinciding with an interest represented by lobbyists is a redundancy. When voters overwhelmingly oppose a position and that position gets a hearing anyway, that's a lobby's influence. In the case of Israel, the American people are
overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Jewish state both in absolute terms and in terms relative to the Arab sheikhdoms whose bidding is done by Walt and his ilk.
An astounding 93 percent of those polled say the United States should be concerned about the security of the state of Israel. A majority—54 percent—say the U.S. should be “very concerned” about Israel’s security. Virtually the same number care that their elected representatives be pro-Israel. When asked, “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for a candidate whom you perceive as pro-Israel?,” 53 percent say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate they saw as pro-Israel, 24 percent less likely. Even more striking, the same number—53 percent—say they could not vote for a candidate if he were anti-Israel, even if that candidate agreed with them on most other issues.
There is an Israel lobby in the United States, and it's not insidious at all. It's called
the American people.
In fact, if anything, it can safely be said that were it not for the Arab lobby and their patrons' control of a large portion of the World's fossil fuels, no one other than Barack Obama would and the Muslim world would give a damn about the 'Palestinians.'
Labels: Arab lobby, Eli Lake, Israel Lobby, Jeffrey Goldberg, Stephen Walt
Guess who's blaming Israel again
Martin Kramer on President Obama's disastrous trip to the Far East:
So Obama flopped in Asia? Don't you know, it's that damn US support for Israel! Why, if only there were a little Palestinian state (for five or six million people) perched up on that mountain ridge, the 227 million Indonesians would embrace America, China with its 1.3 billion people would be back on its heels, and Asia would be our oyster again! Who says so? Yeah, it's him again (and again, and again...)
It's him indeed.
So where's the connection between this issue and our strategic position in Asia? Indonesia is a potentially crucial partner for the United States (if you want to see why, take a look at the sea lanes in Southeast Asia), and it is also a moderate Muslim country with history of toleration. Yet the Palestinian issue resonates there too, and makes it harder for the Indonesian government to openly embrace the United States. As Kaplan notes in his Times op-ed, "China also plays on the tension between the West and global Islam in order to limit American influence there. That is why President Obama's mission to rebrand America in the eyes of Muslims carries benefits that go far beyond Indonesia and the Middle East."
What Kaplan doesn't say is that the United States' one-sided support for Israel against the Palestinians is an important source of the "tension" that China is exploiting. As the deputy chairman of Indonesia's largest Islamic group, Masdar Mas'udi, put it last week: "The solution of the Palestine problem is key to many problems between the West and the Muslim world… Our hope as Muslims to Obama and the U.S. is not unreasonable: If the Palestine problem could be resolved, it would be more than enough."
So the next time you read about some senator or congressperson denouncing any attempt to use U.S. leverage on both sides to bring about a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, ask yourself why they are trying to undermine the U.S. effort to bolster its strategic position in a region that ultimately matters far more to U.S. security and prosperity. And by making it harder to achieve a workable two-state solution that would preserve its democratic and Jewish character and enhance its international legitimacy, they aren't doing Israel any favors either. Indeed, the remarkable thing about these zealots is that they are managing to undermine the United States' security and Israel's long-term future at the same time.
Someone get the man a psychologist.
Labels: anti-Israel obsession, Israel Lobby, Martin Kramer, Stephen Walt
