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The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman created a bit of controversy this December when he wrote:
I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.
Well, now some of the logistics of our Representatives’ enraptured response to Bibi’s speech are beginning to surface. The Democratic Party apparently had a conductor to signal these moments: Democratic National Committee head, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
From Scott McConnell’s review of Peter Beinart’s new book, The Crisis of Zionism (emphasis is mine):
A year later, when Obama stated that the 1967 borders should be the starting point for renewed two-state negotiations—an American position for more than a generation—Netanyahu delivered what Beinart describes as “one of the most extraordinary humiliations of a president by a foreign leader in American history.” Fresh from speaking at AIPAC’s annual conference, Netanyahu replied that there was no chance of Israel withdrawing to “indefensible lines.”
Then Netanyahu went before a joint session of Congress. Each member of Congress had a single gallery pass to give out, and most gave theirs to their largest AIPAC donor. With the hall packed with supporters, Netanyahu received one thundering ovation after another. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who as head of the Democratic National Committee plays a key role in party fundraising, used arm motions to signal to her colleagues when to stand and applaud, and they rose and clapped at Netanyahu’s most controversial statements.
Concluding from this that America was unlikely to help, the Palestinian Authority tried to secure United Nations backing for a state within the 1967 borders. [...]
(h/t to Justin Elliott from Salon)
Wonder if the President, whom the Israeli Prime Minister humiliated that afternoon, ever called Wasserman-Schultz to ask whose side she is on?
Originally posted at AlterPolitics
65 Comments
That is too effing creepy.
Next time, she should hold up a hoop at the entrance to the hall so they can all jump through on the way to their seats.
Haha! :) That might allow their constituents to get an accurate perception about what is happening there.
The reason why the Democrats and Republicans applauded their Zionist frontman is because there is no difference whatsoever between them in their fanatical loyalty to Apartheid Settler State called Israel. They are fanatical in their loyalty to it because the loathsome apartheid ideology called Zionism is part and parcel of America’s true values. Just like the shameless American support for the Apartheid Settler State called ‘Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek’ was a reflection of America’s true values.
In common with the overwhelming majority of the people of the Middle East I grow weary of these increasingly threadbare attempts to pretend that there is some difference between “Republicans” and “Democrats” and between America and Israel. You Americans slaughtered we Irakis in one of your seemingly endless wars of hatred and aggression and your Zionist frontmen continue to slaughter Palestinians in the same seemingly endless war. You are preparing to do the same now to the Iranians.
America = Zionism.
Mohammed Ibn Laith.
In all honesty, I don’t believe many in our Congress could even find Israel on the map. They know so little about its history, and they also believe their constituents are as ignorant about it as they are.
This means they are literally ‘for sale’ to powerful lobbyists and to wealthy individuals who make this their number one issue.
I guarantee you that any Congresspeople who have actually been to Israel, went via paid junkets by AIPAC, where they saw ONLY things that AIPAC wanted them to see.
Oh really?
When was that? The 1974 visit by Kissinger to Zuid-Afrika? The Sanctions imposed in 1986? The US pressure in between those dates? Turnhalle? Namibia? Rhodesia/Zimbabwe? (That’s turned out well, lots of well fed people there, stable currency, vibrant economy).
Current Asia purchases of farmland in Africa (the last adventure like that by the British was so successful)?
“Wonder if the President, whom the Israeli Prime Minister humiliated that afternoon, ever called Wasserman-Schultz to ask whose side she is on?”
He already knew the f’ng answer, and he never would have become President without pledging allegiance to the same f’ng country.
Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel @ AIPAC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_yA8J-oGQk
Hilary pledged her allegiance at AIPAC numerous times, but it wasn’t enough:
Hilary, 2008 audition. Make you puke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbB8WsB7lYk
Biden 2016, early audition tape!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0ZIJdN05QE
This tactic might also have something to do with the cheers:
Sibel Edmonds interview:
“GIRALDI: So the network starts with a person like Grossman in the State Department providing information that enables Turkish and Israeli intelligence officers to have access to people in Congress, who then provide classified information that winds up in the foreign embassies?
EDMONDS: Absolutely. And we also had Pentagon officials doing the same thing. We were looking at Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. They had a list of individuals in the Pentagon broken down by access to certain types of information. Some of them would be policy related, some of them would be weapons-technology related, some of them would be nuclear-related. Perle and Feith would provide the names of those Americans, officials in the Pentagon, to Grossman, together with highly sensitive personal information: this person is a closet gay; this person has a chronic gambling issue; this person is an alcoholic. The files on the American targets would contain things like the size of their mortgages or whether they were going through divorces. One Air Force major I remember was going through a really nasty divorce and a child custody fight. They detailed all different kinds of vulnerabilities.”
GIRALDI: So they had access to their personnel files and also their security files and were illegally accessing this kind of information to give to foreign agents who exploited the vulnerabilities of these people to recruit them as sources of information?
Blackmail is easy when you control Department of Homeland Security. Lieberman, Michael “Mossad” Chertoff, Jane Harman, etc. Harman was in charge of DHS oversight while working with AIPAC to protect them during an espionage investigation, along with Haim Saban:
http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2009/04/20/1004472/why-the-harman-leaks-smell-to-high-heaven
Edmonds interview:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/article/2009/nov/01/00006//
It’s not just our Congress Critters that are bought off by the Israeli Lobby, take a gander at what the Brits just did to the Liberal Democrat MP, Baroness Tonge…
Liberal Democrats support for Pro-Israeli Lobby-A Simple Question…
“Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby” 48 minutes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H88gVDrIlPs
Damning.
I’ve volunteered to fdl book salon to host Peter for The Crisis in Zionism, which has not been scheduled yet. Haven’t heard back yet, but hoping I will.
Yeah, Jane Harman pretty much exposed herself as a foreign agent in that incident.
Thanks for the video. Just watched it now. I had heard about the controversy last week, but hadn’t kept up w/ it.
From the video, it sounds like Brits are as fed up w/ being vilified for criticizing Israel as Americans have are.
That would be awesome, ET…! I wonder if Peter would participate…! ;-)
Mahalo for the great diary…! ;-)
I hope he agrees to do it. That would be awesome!
The thing about Peter Beinart is that he has been rather vocal about the realities on the ground in Israel, but I still consider his ideas on resolving the conflict to be rather timid.
In some ways, he is trying to placate the Left (including the BDS supporters, who see the 2 state solution as pretty much impossible now), while still trying to remain relevant to the far right American likudniks, who continue to cover-up and help perpetuate the ethnic cleansing and solidification of apartheid.
Which puts him in the vicinity of a “bold” step taker who’s ideas will actually accomplish nothing. If he wants two states, he needs to take BOLD and FAST steps, because the train has already left the station, and it’ll take something monumental to catch it now.
That is my humble opinion anyways, for whatever it is worth.
Thank you so much. :)
Speaking of BDS: The Park-Slope Food Co-op boycott of Israeli goods was defeated. <= for those who were waiting to hear
In all honesty all one has to do is look at how they behave to see that what they believe in is the “manifest destiny” of the United States of America and its regional frontman Israel.
Also in all honesty the persistence of the American “left” in refusing to admit what is very plain indeed to those of us who actually live in the Middle East is why more and more of us consider you to be at best imperialist dupes and at worst active opponents to our struggle to throw off American tyranny in our homelands.
Mohammed Ibn Laith
American actions in your region have been despicable. No arguments from me there.
As far as the American Left, we are not refusing to acknowledge the pain and suffering inflicted by American policies in your region. What the American Left has been coming to terms with, and trying to change, is our powerlessness in influencing American policy, both domestic and foreign.
Moneyed interests rule the Capitol, and Obama’s ‘bait & switch’ has made it clear to us just how powerless we actually are.
THAT is all I need to know about the so-called “Democratic” Party. And yes, Israel was the central contact and intermediary between the US and apartheid South Africa for years, where Israel also trained the death-squad security forces and helped develop their nuclear program.
http://www.fpif.org/articles/democratic_party_defends_israeli_attack
Link
How about something more recent…
Rand Paul blocks Iran sanctions bill…
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) blocked an effort Tuesday to quickly pass a bipartisan bill imposing tough sanctions on Iran, demanding that Congress make clear that the United States is not rushing into another war.
“Our young men and women, our soldiers, deserve thoughtful debate,” Paul, the tea party freshman with libertarian leanings, said on the floor. “Before sending our young men and women into combat, we should have a mature and thoughtful debate over the ramifications of war, over the advisability of war and over the objectives of war.”
Paul wants Senate Democrats to allow a vote on his amendment that says that nothing in the measure “shall be construed as a declaration of war or an authorization of use of force against Iran or Syria.” Right on, Rand Paul, but…
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who tried to quickly pass the measure on Tuesday, protested Paul’s decision to stand in the way.
“I really am terribly disappointed,” Reid said on the floor…
Wtf…?
The tragic thing about this is that it is finally going to lead America to classic, traditional, western, antisemitism and that is going to simply tear the USA apart.
I am not anti-Israel or Jew. I believe most of them are wonderful people. I wonder if they ever had the concern that came to my mind the other day. If we go into another war for Israel, there could be an anti-Semitic backlash in this country. The American people have had enough. We are tired of being used by everybody, from AIPAC to GE to Goldman Saks.
I do not agree. There is a long and very dishonourable history of violent American liberal imperialism. I am not interested not even a little bit in whether an American imperialist is one of America’s so-called “liberals” or one of its so-called “conservatives” (it is not as if even in domestic policies that there are any but the most superficial differences between them in any event). What I am interested in is that they are American imperialists and that “American liberal” and “American conservative” alike agree that America has the right to violently subjugate the peoples of the Middle East and rape their childrens’ futures.
Well no thank you massa, I am not a house ni**e* and I am not a field ni**e* I’m a sand ni**e* and I’ll do whatever it takes whatever it takes to drive your country and its Zionist satrapy from my home and from my neighbour’s home.
It may be that there are Americans who truly believe that imperialism is wrong but as you rightly say there aren’t enough of them to make a difference to your ruling class’ policies and actions. There aren’t enough of them to seriously affect your ruling class’ actions and policies either in America or abroad. They might be able to prevent at least the worst domestic excesses if they were to truly put a spirited resistance but I see no sign of a desire to do that.
Mohammed Ibn Laith
Wouldn’t a bit of traditional anti-semitism be better than an attack on Iran? Isn’t a little bit of traditional anti-semitism appropriate, given what so many Jews support? I think it is. Let’s call a spade a spade.
I think your analysis is a little one-sided, but I can’t really blame you for being pissed off.
I don’t think so. And one reason why is because the very biggest critics on Israel’s policies and AIPAC’s influence are American and Israeli Jews. There is a HUGE battle underway in the American Jewish community about Zionism, AIPAC, and its affects on U.S. interests.
I disagree with you. The powerful 1% write U.S. policies. It is not the numbers of liberals that is the problem. The powerful moneyed interest groups, despite their imperatives not reflecting the interests nor the will of the majority, wield all the influence in Washington. And this not only affects our foreign policies, but our domestic economic policies.
Case-in-point: we are the richest country in the world, and look at our abominable health care system, in terms of costs, quality, and uninsured. Worst in the industrialized world. Yet our health care providers and insurers are some of the wealthiest of all Americans.
Sie sind eine verabscheuungswurdige antisemitischen Nazi-Schwein und fick dick.
Y’all have a nice day.
That is a horrible, appalling thing to say. Hatred of any group is never appropriate. Individuals should be called out, but never should disgust by their actions be displaced onto others.
Whose mine? Please tell me how my analysis is being one-sided? I merely pointed out what was reported to have been done.
Sie sind ein Ehrenmann. Danke ihnen von ganzem Herzen.
In English, please?
I just translated using Google. Thank you very much for your kind words.
Traditional anti-semitism is nothing more nor less than the hatred and persecution of Jews because they are Jews and for no other reason. It is a despicable and evil thing and those who engage in it deserve harsh retribution.
How very very very typically American of you to suggest that hating and despising somebody because of what they are rather than what they do.
– Then you Americans wonder why so many of us despise you and everything you stand for.
By all means let us call a spade a spade. You can start by calling your President, Martin Luther King, Jesse Owens, Trayvon Martin, the traditional synonym for “spade” once you’ve done that feel free to call me a “sand nig**r”.
Mohammed Ibn Laith
Aren’t you violating your own ideal? On one hand, you commendably articulate how vile it is to hate and despise “somebody because of what they are rather than what they do.”
Then you use that one American’s statement as justification for hating ALL Americans.
I can sympathize why people would be furious with America for their destructive policies in your region. I am furious with America for those same policies, and yet I am an American.
Yes, yes, your ruling class do as they please. And they do so without effective opposition from American so-called “liberals” – You say that it is not their relatively few numbers that is the reason why “liberal” opposition is ineffective – very well, why is their opposition so ineffective?
My contention is that it is because their opposition is pro forma only. That they are the “loyal (and permitted) opposition” and that that is all they are. That they lack the will to mount an effective opposition. That the real political dialogue and struggle in the USA is between rightwingers and extreme rightwingers.
Mohammed Ibn Laith
I have experienced at first hand how you Americans behave towards sand nig*e*s and all the time mouthing lies about democracy and human rights. If you wish a domestic example I invite you to consider your country’s long and vile tradition of vigilante lynching. Once you have done that explain to me how the killer of Trayvon Martin is not part of that tradition.
Mohammed Ibn Laith
The U.S. is hypocritical on the democracy and human rights counts. Agreed. All I am suggesting to you is that your critique of the U.S. is pretty much on par with many progressives.
No one here is denying the slaughter and ethnic cleansing of native Americans, the slavery of Africans, and the discriminatory laws up until the 1960s. If you are asking me to defend the country on those historical blights, it’s not gonna happen. They are indefensible.
The only thing I can defend is myself, for not having been alive when most of those things were happening. And for being adamantly against those things as they from time to time reappear.
Because our electoral process is wide-open to unlimited corporate and special interest money AND because of a failed educational system (and propaganda programs that masquerade as ‘news’).
If politicians see that our health care system is corrupted at the core, and see that it is in the public interest to tear it down, the entrenched interests who profit from that broken system will shovel hundreds of millions of dollars into their or their opponents political coffers to ensure they maintain that highly exploitable system.
Those same moneyed interests will run scare ads on television to terrify the low educated voters that ‘communists’ are taking over their health care.
It is a mess, plain and simple.
My point was that when he wrote:
That he was engaging in typically American behaviour. By extension I was making a further point that, assuming you have actively opposed such behaviour amongst your fellow Americans that you are not typically American.
Mohammed Ibn Laith
But that is actually atypical behavior by most Americans. Yes, America has bigots, just like every other country on the planet, but I think that in this country (especially in major metropolitan areas) there have always been many immigrants, and most people are tolerant of others.
If that wasn’t the case, you wouldn’t have had such huge immigration over the last two hundred years. People came here, because they felt they would be safe and could start new lives and find their ways.
Not in my experience, not in the experience of innumerable Asians, not in the experience of the peoples of Central and South America, certainly not in the experience of indigenous Americans. Need I go on?
This argument too falls, they escaped one tyranny, and promptly set up one of their own. Now their descendants having behaved brutishly abroad are reaping the consequences of that behaviour. Shortly before my father (may his memory be blessed) was killed by that death squad known as the American army, he wrote this:
Usually at this point of this argument – which I have had many times before with one or other of your compatriots, the argument is advanced that America was founded by people fleeing tyranny and seeking religious and political freedom. This ignores that the “pilgrim fathers” lacked the courage to do what their puritan brethren in England and Scotland did and bring down the tyrant and his government. Instead they ran away to the “new world” leaving others to do what was necessary.
Mohammed Ibn Laith.
I meant that it is not typical American behavior directed towards others in America of different ethnicity/race/religion.
Yes, American foreign policy in those regions where America wreaked havoc showed complete disregard by our leaders for others’ lives in the world.
One thing that some in the world will never fully appreciate is just how detached (and uninformed) the average American is about the world, and America’s role in it. News is filtered in ways that hide or temper America’s role in horrific injustices. Its covert operations, funding of right-wing groups to launch coups against those countries’ elected leaders. Most Americans are truly ignorant about all of this. Have no clue.
In Cairo speech, when Obama apologized for America’s role in overthrowing Mosaddegh in Iran and installing the Shah, I would guess 95% of Americans were hearing this for the very first time, and had no idea what he was even talking about.
Complete disconnect.
Which is one reason why the emergence of WikiLeaks has terrified our leaders, and has them scrambling to crush it, and any other whistleblower group or individuals.
The U.S. government wants its citizens to be thinking exclusively about their day jobs, and the game on TV, and finding a way to get that new car and McMansion. They don’t want Americans knowing the calamity their government is creating around the world.
!!!!!!!!!
You must give me leave to doubt that the majority of those people whom other Americans refer to as “African” Americans would agree with you.
As to that pack of lies known as the “Cairo” speech – it was a pretty speech. Unfortunately for your president and your government we Muslims in common with the Jews are orthopraxic. When attempting to discern truth we look at people do not at what they say. He made a pretty speech and loyally carried out the policies of his predecessor.
I am not even remotely sympathetic to this argument. Either they perform their duty as citizens or they do not. In this case they do not.
Mohammed Ibn Laith
Certainly, this is one of his predecessor’s policies which President Obama is carrying out loyally and effectively. His government is more effective than that of President George W. Bush and therefore far more dangerous.
Mohammed Ibn Laith
Yes MarkFromIreland, I agree.
I think you are deflecting my point. I only brought up the Cairo speech as it pertained to American ignorance. Not as it pertained to Obama’s credibility. Obama is a fraud.
Perhaps, however I’m going to call a pause to proceedings at this point as I haven’t had the pleasure and privilege of having Mohammed stay with me as a guest for more than a year now and it’s time for dinner.
mfi
*poof*
Not your’s, Laith’s.
You sound hysterical and a bit paranoid.
Self righteous twit for sure. Have a nice day.
I can criticize them collectively. People are criticized collectively all the time. Jews should be criticized collectively for what they are doing, now more than ever. Jews want to start a war with Iran and they want to drag the United States into it to give them cover. Don’t tell me Jews collectively aren’t doing it. They sure as hell are. They should be criticized for it, and as irreverently as possible.
As a opposed to being some lard arsed bigot making cowardly hateful and hate filled comments in safety and comfort, you mean? You went out of your way to make bigoted comments about Jews as a race and an Iraki Muslim called you out on it. You’ve reiterated your bigotry about an entire ethnic group in this comment:
- why don’t you just shag off to Stormfront where you’ll be amongst your own kind?
mfi
Is Israel a Jewish state? Who is head of that state? Who is pushing for a war with Iran? Last time I checked it was a Jew presumably, the head of a Jewish state. Who does he represent? Jews, mostly. Why does Obama have to listen to this head of a Jewish state? Why do all, or almost all the members of congress have to agree with the head of the Jewish state, at least in public? What is AIPAC? Is it run by Christians? As far as I know it’s run by Jews. AIPAC is a generality. Do you understand what a generality is? Apparently not. Are you so intellectually challenged that you think it isn’t Jews trying to start a war with Iran? If it isn’t Jews, who is it? Is it Christians? I don’t think so. Don’t give me this b.s. about how Jew just means a religion. Are you really that much of a mouthpiece for them? Why don’t you go scratch some Jew’s balls, limey?
call222, I am not even going to respond to your antisemitic comments.
I am flagging them as inappropriate.
You can actually delete them as the Poster, CallUp…!
I think I can only edit/delete my own comments. Are you sure? I checked inside the editor. hmmm….
I understand: the Jews make the rules here.