Trump surprised Israel no longer has 'total control over Congress,' warns Gaza war hurting global support

Comment: Trump has lost the little credibility that he had with these statements. And Israel controlling Congress is a good thing?? Israel must really have a serious hold on him.

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Fox News

President Donald Trump said Friday that Israel's support in Congress and around the world has declined in recent years.

In an interview with The Daily Caller, Trump said that because of left-wing U.S. politicians rallying against Israel and the growing unpopularity of its war in Gaza, the country is losing influence.

"Israel, you would understand this very much, Israel was the strongest lobby I've ever seen. They had total control over Congress, and now they don't, you know, I'm a little surprised to see that," he said.

Trump, who has been a strong ally of Israel during his presidency, defended Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza but said he has observed how it has hurt the country's global image.

"So, they're gonna have to get that war over with. But it is hurting Israel. There's no question about it. They may be winning the war, but they're not winning the world of public relations, you know, and it is hurting them."

He recalled how criticizing Israel was never as common as it is today, as high-profile Democratic members of Congress — including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. — who have criticized the war in Gaza and accused the country of killing innocent Palestinians.

"There was a time where you couldn't speak bad, if you wanted to be a politician, you couldn't speak badly. But today, you have, you know, AOC plus three, and you have all these lunatics, and they've really, they've changed it," he said.   

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In defiance of voter base, DNC rejects resolution calling for Israel arms embargo

Mondoweiss | Michael Arria

On Tuesday, Democratic National Committee (DNC) members at the party’s summer meetings rejected Resolution 18, which called for the recognition of a Palestinian state, a ceasefire in Gaza, an arms embargo, and a suspension of military aid to Israel.

Instead, members backed a status quo resolution introduced by DNC Chair Ken Martin, which simply called for more aid to be allowed into Gaza and a two-state solution. Despite the support, Martin went on to withdraw the resolution.

“I know that there are some who are interested in making changes today, but as we’ve seen, there’s divide in our party on this issue,” said Martin. “This is a moment that calls for shared dialog. It calls for shared advocacy, and that’s why I’ve decided today, at this moment, listening to the testimony and listening to people in our party, to withdraw my amendment and resolution.”

Martin says he will establish a task force “comprised of stakeholders on all sides of this” so that they can “bring solutions back to our party.”

Resolution 18 had faced opposition from lobby groups like Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI).

“Should it advance, it will further divide our Party, provide a gift to Republicans, and send a signal that will embolden Israel’s adversaries,” claimed DMFI president and CEO Brian Romick. “As we get closer to the midterms, Democrats need to be united, not continuing intra-party fights that don’t get us closer to taking back Congress.”

Polling has consistently shown that Democratic voters are, in fact, united on Israel. A majority of them oppose the genocide in Gaza and want the Israeli government held accountable for its actions in the region.

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Israel's international isolation has begun

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss

 

 U.S. and global politics surrounding Israel are shifting rapidly as the world recoils in horror at Israel's starvation of Gaza. Here are several lessons the left should take note of.

We've never lived through such rapid change in the politics of Israel as we are now. Two nights ago more than half of Democratic senators - 27- voted to block some arms sales to Israel. A day before that, the UK and Canada said they will recognize a Palestinian state at the U.N, echoing France's recent statement.

These are steps that advocates for Palestinians thought might be years away. But today the world is shocked by Israel's starvation of Gaza, and the mainstream press is at last reporting the charge of genocide.

Israel's international isolation has begun.

 

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Recruiting American Spies for Israel

Philip Giraldi

Unz Review

Israel never loses an opportunity to promote what it perceives to be its interests. That any nation would do just that most of the time should surprise no one, but Israel is perhaps unique in terms of how assiduously it works at creating situations that favor it through the use of corruption of foreign governments and subversion of existing institutions. For most countries, the actions of a minority that seeks to advance the interests of a foreign nation would face strong resistance, but Israel manages to get away with what it does due to the presence of powerful and wealthy diaspora communities, most particularly in the Anglophone countries, but also in France.

The Israel Lobby in the United States has been subjected to some scrutiny thanks largely to the impetus provided by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s groundbreaking study The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. More recent revelations have come from undercover journalism undertaken by al-Jazeera, which has demonstrated how British Jewish groups and parliamentarians have worked together with Israeli Embassy intelligence officers to remove public officials believed to be critical of Israel. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, has been on the receiving end of a campaign to replace him for his alleged anti-Semitism solely because he has condemned Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. A second al-Jazeera investigation demonstrated how The Lobby, cooperating with the Israeli Embassy, has been controlling discussion of the Middle East in the United States, which should have surprised no one.

Europe indeed appears to be a hotbed of anti-Semitism, or so Israel and its friends would have us believe. Leaders in France, Germany and Britain feel compelled to frequently address the issue, making the equivalent of a war on anti-Semitism a principal objective of government. The United States has joined this effort, appointing a Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism whose job includes reporting other countries’ treatment of Jews and Israel.

The newest wrinkle comes under the category of Lawfare. It consists of hate crime laws that are directed against anyone criticizing Jews and, increasingly, Israel. In fact, any criticism of Israel is frequently being seen as a criminal offense, a trend that is also evident in the United States at the national, state and local levels, where Jewish groups have also been quick off the mark in claiming that anti-Semitism is surging. Freedom of speech in the western world has been diminished as a result.

Diaspora Jews are well entrenched in the media, which has enabled them to promote a narrative favorable to Israel no matter what it does, to include a repetitive dose of holocaust guilt that plays out from Hollywood and elsewhere in the media. The assiduously cultivated message for the public is that Jews are always the victims, never the aggressors, even when IDF snipers shoot Arab children and medical workers during protests.

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UK Israel Lobby Adds Muscle as US Lobby Weakens

JonathanCook 
Jonathan-Cook.net 

For decades it was all but taboo to suggest that pro-Israel lobbies in the United States such as AIPAC used their money and influence to keep lawmakers firmly in check on Israel-related issues — even if one had to be blind not to notice that that was exactly what they were up to.

 

When back in February U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar pointed out the obvious – that U.S. lawmakers were routinely expected to submit to the lobby’s dictates on Israel, a foreign country – her colleagues clamored to distance themselves from her, just as one might have expected were the pro-Israel lobby to wield the very power Omar claimed.

But surprisingly Omar did not – at least immediately – suffer the crushing fate of those who previously tried to raise this issue. Although she was pressured into apologizing, she was not battered into complete submission for her honesty.

She received support on social media, as well as a wavering, muted defense from Democratic grandee Nancy Pelosi, and even a relatively sympathetic hearing from a few prominent figures in the U.S. Jewish community. 

The Benjamins Do Matter 

Omar’s comments have confronted – and started to expose – one of the most enduring absurdities in debates about U.S. politics. Traditionally it has been treated as anti-Semitic to argue that the pro-Israel lobby actually lobbies for its chosen cause – exactly as other major lobbies do, from the financial services industries to the health and gun lobbies – and that, as with other lobbies enjoying significant financial clout, it usually gets its way. 

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House passes bill to force Trump to nominate “anti-semitism” head who would monitor criticism of Israel

Alison Weir
If Americans Knew

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 411-1 for a bill that would force President Trump to nominate an anti-Semitism envoy, a position that has been vacant since he took office. The definition of anti-Semitism the position uses includes certain criticisms of Israel.

The bipartisan bill upgrades the current position of Anti-Semitism Envoy to an ambassador rank, which requires the job to be filled within 90 days.

The law states that the Special Envoy shall “serve as the primary advisor to, and coordinate efforts across, the U.S. government relating to monitoring and combating anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incitement in foreign countries.”

The bill, H.R.221- Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Act, was sponsored by Rep. Christopher H. Smith [R-NJ-4] and has 87 co-sponsors. Smith’s largest campaign donor was NorPAC, a pro-Israel political action committee.

To become law the bill must next be passed by the Senate and then be signed by the president. If Trump vetoes it, Congress can override this through a two-thirds vote.

The position of anti-Semitism envoy was created in 2004 over the objections of the State Department, which said it wasn’t needed. It was urged by Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs Natan Sharansky, who had formulated a new definition of anti-Semitism that includes criticism of Israel.

Previous envoys before or after serving serving in the position worked for the Israel lobbying organization AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

The second envoy, Hannah Rosenthal, adopted the Sharansky definition of anti-Semitism for use by the State Department. This is part of an international campaign to insert the new Israel-centric definition in governments and other bodies around the world.

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In historic move, Sen. Rand Paul puts hold on $38 billion Israeli aid package

Jackson Richman
If Americans Knew

In a historic move, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) may filibuster against massive aid package to Israel. AIPAC issues action alert to pressure Paul, predicts Congress will pass the aid package - largest in US history

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has a history of being skeptical about U.S. taxpayer funds going towards the Jewish state, has placed a hold on the U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018, which provides Israel with $38 billion in military aid over the next decade.
[Editor's note: This equals approximately $23,000 for every Jewish Israeli family of four.]

This has caused backlash from organizations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

"This bipartisan legislation authorizes full funding of security assistance to ensure Israel has the means to defend itself," AIPAC posted on Facebook with a link to "urge Sen. Paul to stop blocking aid to Israel."
[Editor's Note: Israel has one of the most powerful militaries in the world, including 100 to 400 nuclear weapons.]

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Under Trump, the Israel lobby is a Hydra with many heads

Jonathan Cook

Since Trump took office, the Israel lobby has mobilised four other powerful lobbies: Christian evangelicals, the alt-right, the military-industrial complex and Saudi Arabia

Middle East Eye – 30 May 2018

The Trump administration’s recent steps in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should surely lay to rest any doubts about the enormous, and dangerous, power of the Israel lobby in Washington.

Under Trump, the lobby has shown it can wield unprecedented influence – even by its usual standards – in flagrant disregard for all apparent US interests.

First, there was the move this month of the US embassy to Jerusalem, not quietly but on the 70th anniversary of the most sensitive day in the Palestinian calendar, Nakba Day. That is when Palestinians commemorate their mass expulsion from their homeland in 1948.

By relocating the embassy, Trump gave official US blessing to tearing up the 25-year-old peace process – and in choosing Nakba Day for the move, he rubbed the noses of Palestinians, and by extension the Arab world, in their defeat.

Then, the White House compounded the offence by lauding Israeli snipers who massacred dozens of unarmed Palestinians protesting at the perimeter fence around Gaza the same day. A series of statements issued by the White House could have been written by Israel’s far-right prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, himself.

At the United Nations, the US blocked a Security Council resolution calling for the massacre to be investigated, while Nikki Haley, Trump’s UN envoy, observed to fellow delegates: “No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has.”

None of these moves served any obvious US national interest, nor did Trump’s decision the previous week to tear up the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran that has long been reviled by the Israeli government.

In fact, quite the contrary: These actions risk inflaming tensions to the point of a regional war that could quickly drag in the major powers, or provoke terror attacks on US soil.

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Caitlin Johnstone: 15 Thoughts About Israel

Caitlan Johnstone
Medium.com

1. I hate writing about Israel. The accusations of anti-semitism which necessarily go along with literally any criticism of that nation are gross enough, but even worse are the assholes who take my criticisms of the Israeli government as an invitation to actually be anti-semitic. They really do hate Jews, they really do think that every problem in the world is because of Jews and they post Jewish caricature memes and calls for genocide in the comments section on social media and it’s incredibly gross and I hate it. It feels exactly as intrusive, jarring and violating as receiving an unsolicited dick pic. But the Israeli government keeps committing war provocations and massacring Palestinians, so it’s something I’ve got to talk about.

2. Anti-semitism (or whatever word you prefer to use for the pernicious mind virus which makes people think it’s okay to promote hatred against Jewish people) is a very real thing that does exist, and I denounce it to the furthest possible extent. Anti-semitism is also a label that is used to bully the world into accepting war crimes, apartheid, oppression, and mass murder. Both of those things are true.

3. There were dozens of Palestinians killed and well above a thousand injured in the Gaza protests over the US moving its embassy to Jerusalem yesterday. I haven’t found any report of so much as a single Israeli injury. The only way to spin this as the fault of the Palestinians is to dehumanize them, to attribute behaviors and motives to them that we all know are contrary to human nature. To paint them as subhuman orc-like creatures who are so crazy and evil that they will keep throwing themselves at a hail of bullets risking life and limb just to have some extremely remote chance of harming a Jewish person for no reason. This is clearly absurd. A little clear thinking and empathy goes a long way.

4. Trump could have prevented all this violence by doing what previous administrations had done and keeping the US embassy in Tel Aviv. Experts warned that this would happen. Trump ignored them. He is ultimately responsible for the mounting pile of corpses resulting from this provocation.

5. The Trump campaign was given $25 million by billionaire oligarch Sheldon Adelson (the largest campaign donation made by anyone to any candidate), who provided a further $5 million for Trump’s inauguration. Adelson is a sociopathic pro-Israel hawk who once called on the US to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran. He was present at the opening of the Jerusalem embassy, getting what he paid for.

6. Any position on Israel that is determined by words made up by dead men thousands of years ago is intrinsically invalid. Saying the Jewish people are more entitled to Israel than those who were living there seven decades ago because of some superstitious voodoo written in obsolete religious texts is not an argument. Religious freedom is important, and it’s important to be able to believe whatever you like, but your beliefs do not legitimize your actions upon other people. If you murder someone in the name of Allah, you have murdered someone. If you kill 58 people because you feel some ancient scripture entitles you to a particular section of dirt, you have killed 58 people. Your internal beliefs do not give you a free pass for your egregious actions upon others.

7. Israel is very dangerous and completely unsustainable, but its interests are aggressively promoted by powerful plutocrats and lobby groups. It’s like if fracking was a place.

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Advocating for Israel pays well: Salaries of nonprofit heads

If Americans Knew

Heads of nonprofits that support Israel receive compensation in the hundreds of thousands of dollars up to, in a few cases, over a million dollars. 

Politicians reaping money from the Israel lobby (e.g. Tom Cotton received close to a million dollars from the Emergency Committee for Israel; Haim Saban and his wife donated $11.5 million to pro-Clinton super PACs, along with large sums to the Clinton Foundation) are not the only ones to benefit from supporting Israel.

Executive directors of nonprofits that support Israel receive compensation in the hundreds of thousands of dollars up to almost $2 million.

The Forward recently compiled a list of their earnings. It reported that Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center received $818,148 and that his spouse and his son also work for the center, giving them an annual total $1.4 million.

According to the Forward the Hiers were not alone in surpassing a million dollars compensation – in 2016, the CEO of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland received compensation of $1.3 million, and in 2014 the CEO of Boston’s Jewish federation received almost $2 million.

Below are some members of the Forward’s list for 2016.

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An Al Jazeera Reporter Went Undercover with the Pro-Israel Lobby In Washington

The Intercept

Britain’s broadcasting regulator on Monday concluded that Al Jazeera did not violate any rules in its controversial undercover investigation exposing the Israeli embassy’s campaign to target British citizens critical of Israel, a campaign that included attempts to destroy the careers of pro-Palestinian British politicians.

The move by the communications regulator, known as Ofcom, clears the way for a follow-up documentary focused on Israeli influence in the United States, the existence of which has previously been suspected but had yet to be made public. Clayton Swisher, director of investigative journalism for the Al Jazeera Media Network, confirmed it on Monday to The Intercept. The goal of the British complaint may partly have been to delay publication of the follow-up American version, he said. “At the very same time [as the London investigation]–and we can safely reveal this now–we had an undercover operative working in tandem in Washington, DC. With this UK verdict and vindication past us, we can soon reveal how the Israel lobby in America works through the eyes of an undercover reporter,” he said.

The four-part series “The Lobby” dug into the Israeli embassy in London, as well as several other pro-Israel lobby groups, and their campaign to “take down” British Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan. 

The investigation led to the resignation of a top Israeli official in London, as well as a high-profile complaint that Al Jazeera had broken broadcasting regulations in the United Kingdom. One of the complaints charged the investigation with anti-Semitism, but the government board ruled that imputing such a motive to a film critical of Israel would be akin to calling a series on gang violence racist. 

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‘America First Not Israel’: Detroit billboard urges US to restrict influence of Jewish Lobby

RT

A billboard in Detroit stating ‘America First Not Israel’ is causing controversy and accusations of anti-Semitism. The advertisement was paid for by the Deir Yassin Remembered group, which aims to make American’s more aware of the plight of Palestinians

 

The billboard can be seen 8 Mile Road in the city, and was placed there by Deir Yassin Remembered, which is based in New York. Detroit has one of the largest Arab populations in the United States, however it also has a sizable number of Jewish inhabitants.

“The strategy behind this billboard’s statement, ‘America First, Not Israel’, is to drive a wedge between those who feel American interests are not served by fighting wars for Israel, and the Israel-firsters in this country who manipulate our leaders into the false premise that Israel is the ally of the United States,” Henry Herskovitz wrote on the organization’s website. 

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A Personal Note On Jewish Statistics

Gilad Atzmon

The British political establishment is in a state of panic. A poll revealed last week that “a quarter of Jews in Britain have considered leaving the country in the last two years and well over half (58%) feel they have no long term future in Europe.” This could be a potential disaster for British political parties. Eighty per cent of the Tories are members of the pro Israeli lobby, The Conservative Friends Of Israel (CFI), and a similar percentage of Labour and Libdem MPs have vowed their allegiance to Israel through their respective Jewish Lobby groups.  The Jews are clearly a vital source of funding for British politicians. In fact, it has become hard to imagine what British politics would look like without Jewish Lobby’s money.  Though the vast majority of British MPs are friends of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, it has not been established how many of our MPs are friendly with Manchester and Hartlepool.

Apparently a recent poll found that anti-Semitic beliefs are widely prevalent among the British public with 45 percent of Britons agreeing with at least one of these ‘anti-Semitic’ sentiments: a quarter of Britons believed "Jews chase money more than other British people," one in six agreed that "Jews think they are better than other people" and "Jews have too much power in the media."

However, if Jewish leaders want to focus on statistics, they surely know how to scientifically verify whether there is an element of truth in these bizarre baseless arguments that apparently 45% of Brits hold about their Jewish citizens. It would be simple to determine whether, in fact, Jews are over represented in the financial sector or in the media or politics. If Jewish leaders are concerned about the safety of their community members, it would be a good idea to examine these questions closely and think about how to address the issue. Clearly, labeling 45% of the Brits as ‘anti Semites’ is not going to make Jews feel safer in Britain.

I have lived in London, one of the most diverse cities on this planet, for about 20 years. I am surrounded by people from all over the world. Some communities occasionally prefer to voluntarily segregate themselves.  Many communities are subject to harsh and manifested hatred but, somehow, it is always the Jewish community that measures statistically how unlovable the Jews are. Not the Portuguese, not the Afghans, not the Albans, not the Iranians or the Colombians. It is the Jewish leaders who choose once a month to shove in our faces the ‘numbers’ that reveal that anti Semitism is on the rise. I believe that this happens for a reason.

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If the Nobel Peace Prize can be handed to Obama, why not hand it to the Israeli Defence Force?

Robert Fisk
The Independent 

Now I know that the Israeli Defence Forces are famous in song and legend. Humanitarian, courageous, self-sacrificing, restrained, willing to give their own lives for the innocents among their enemies, etc, etc. 

Leon Uris’s Exodus – a racist, fictional account of the birth of Israel in which Arabs are rarely mentioned without the adjectives “dirty” and “stinking” – was one of the best pieces of Socialist-Zionist propaganda that Israel could have sought. Even Ben Gurion agreed, claiming that it was “the greatest thing ever written about Israel”, although he correctly dismissed any literary qualities this nonsense might have possessed.

But when the Israeli ambassador to the US told us (after almost 2,000 Palestinians had been slaughtered, most of them civilians) that the Israeli army should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its “unimaginable restraint” in the Gaza war, I had to glance at the calendar. Was it 1 April, perhaps? Was this some kind of gargantuan joke, so obscene, so grotesquely inappropriate, that it contained some inner meaning, some kernel of truth, which I had missed?

The Nobel Prize for “unimaginable restraint”, according to Ron Dermer, should have been solemnly handed out to an army which much of the world believes guilty of war crimes.

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See also: The Z Factor XIII: Masada and Myth-Making
 

The virtue & necessity of deconstructing 'anti-semitism'

Mark Green
PersecutionPrivilegeandPower.com
via sott.net

Those of us who dare to criticize Israel's centrality in American life are at a real disadvantage. We are disgusted by what we see, but contemporary protocol requires us to show respect and tolerance to the very people who inspire the disgust in the first place. Worse still, our tormentors have no reciprocal obligation for civility. The deck of cards in this dispute is stacked. Saying the wrong word, uttering an incorrect phrase, and one can be tarred as a disreputable 'Anti-Semite', which has become the scarlet letter of our time.

Have Jews been mistreated, shunned, defamed and killed? Certainly. Have Jews done the same? Most definitely. And to make matters worse, they're still at it.

Unfortunately, 'post-Holocaust' rules of discourse now dictate extreme rhetorical deference on this subject. This favors the opposition. There are linguistic land-mines everywhere. And they're been laid out almost exclusively by the other team. Fortunately, one Jewish blogger has recently provided the non-Jewish world with a 19-point guide on what NOT say about Jews and Israel if you wish to avoid the stigma of 'anti-Semitism'.

But as Gaza burns and Israeli criminality goes unpunished, the time has come to turn the tables on the world's most privileged victims. What, for instance, would happen if Jews were reduced to being treated and viewed just like normal, average, everyday human beings? Think of it. The repercussions would be colossal. All special political and cultural considerations that presently confer privilege on Israel and its minions would be ended. US sovereignty could be restored. Perhaps even justice and the rule of law could guide our nation's policies in the Middle East. Might censorious speech codes even be repealed? It's possible.

I concede that this is a radical proposal. There would surely be 'outrage' from the usual suspects. But the present levels of privilege, benefits and deference now accorded global Jewry are wreaking havoc on humanity. And in no small way, I blame entrenched 'anti-Semitic theory' for this, since it is an ideology that denies the yin and yang (or the sharing of any blame) within the historic narrative that purports to fully explain the enduring tensions between gentiles and Jews. Entrenched anti-Semitic theory also confers perennial 'victim status' on Jews. They're all 'survivors'. Is this conclusion really justified? In any event, the political payoff is enormous and across-the-board. 

Anti-Semitic theory therefore is Zionist trope. Even the term 'anti-Semitism' is a ruse. After all, the intermittent animus directed towards Jews has little to do with their Semitic origins or even 'Semitism' itself--whatever that may be. 

Arabs, of course, are a Semitic people; yet Americans are continuously steered towards mistrusting or despising them.

Another fallacy that's baked into anti-Semitic theory is the contention that irrational gentile 'prejudice' and the unflattering characterization of Jews in the New Testament are the primary sources of modern 'anti-Semitism'. Those explanations are pure kosher boloney.

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Britain’s Israel Lobby, The Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) Pressures HM’s Goverment: Is David Cameron Complicit in War Crimes?

Anthony Bellchambers
Global Research

Is David Cameron’s refusal to condemn what is apparently a prima facie war crime by the IDF, in Gaza, worrying evidence that the CFI, Conservative Friends of Israel, (AKA the British branch of the Israel lobby) has infiltrated government to the extent that it now influences UK foreign policy in the same way that AIPAC in America determines the US foreign policy agenda?

Yesterday’s resignation of a former Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party, the talented, ex Minister of State at the Foreign Office, Baroness Warsi, would seem to indicate that such a situation does indeed pertain within the Cameron government to the obvious detriment of democracy; the adherence to international law and the Geneva Conventions and the sanctity of human life – in particular, that of the child.

 

It would appear that David Cameron has made a huge error in allowing an international lobby to cloud his judgement and compromise British values to the extent that not only is he is content to permit the indiscriminate killing of women, children and non-combatants, in times of war, but that he is willing to licence the export of (British) arms knowingly for that very purpose.

 

The British electorate will not to renew his mandate when it has now become clear that he is prepared to accede to demands from a lobby acting for a foreign state rather than to ensure compliance with international human rights.

 

On Zionism in France and its Opposing Forces

Strategic Culture Foundation
Olga CHETVERIKOVA

Municipal elections took place in France at the end of March and ended with the defeat of the Socialists and the victory of the centre right. The elections’ frontrunner was the Union for a Popular Movement party (UMP), which received 49 percent of the people’s votes, while François Hollande’s Socialist Party took just 42 percent of the votes. Marine Le Pen’s National Front achieved its best result ever, winning more than a thousand local council seats. 

The elections took place against the backdrop of a fall in François Hollande’s rating. Many journalists believed that the elections would be followed by the resignations of the most unpopular cabinet ministers – Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius, and Minister of the Interior Manuel Valls. Their expectations did not prove true, however. Laurent Fabius remained in his post, while the odious Manuel Valls became Prime Minister. As Marine Le Pen put it, Ayrault «played the role of the vicarious sacrifice»: the people have changed, but not the politics.

The head of government was replaced on 31 March as the World Jewish Congress (WJC), which calls itself the «diplomatic arm of the Jewish people», began in Paris. It is interesting that the mainstream media in France did not cover the Congress meeting. The Congress’ leadership, which includes the Frenchmen David René de Rothschild and Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF). President Roger Cukierman, announced in its press release that it welcomes new Prime Minister Valls’ fight against anti-Semitism, and considers legitimate the measures they have adopted to restrict freedom of speech. François Hollande also drew high praise from the WJC, which the well-known mondialist Jacques Attali, who attended the Congress and is believed to be Holland’s advisor, found more than satisfying. 

Such unanimity once again confirms the closeness of the French president and France’s new prime minister to the international Zionist lobby. Manuel Valls is playing a particularly important role here. He has wide connections with organisations including not just the CRIF, the main lobbying structure of French Jewry, but also the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Zionist organisation European Leadership Network (ELNET), which was established in 2007 and lobbies for the interests of Israeli business circles in Europe.

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AIPAC’s Lost Invincibility

Consortium News
Trita Parsi

Neocons have remained a powerful force inside Official Washington despite their prominent role in the disastrous Iraq War. But the invincibility that they and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee once held has been shattered by recent defeats, says Trita Parsi.

The defeat of AIPAC’s ill-advised push for new sanctions on Iran in the midst of successful negotiations is nothing short of historic. The powerful and hawkish pro-Israeli lobby’s defeats are rare and seldom public. But in the last year, it has suffered three major public setbacks, of which the sanctions defeat is the most important one.

AIPAC’s first defeat was over the nomination of Senator Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. In spite of a major campaign defaming Hagel, even accusing him of anti-Semitism, his nomination won approval in the Senate.

 

  President Barack Obama talks with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran during a phone call in the Oval Office, Sept. 27, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The second was over President Barack Obama’s push for military action against Syria. AIPAC announced that it would send hundreds of citizen lobbyists to the Hill to help secure approval for authorization of the use of force. But AIPAC and Obama were met with stiff resistance. The American people quickly mobilized and ferociously opposed the idea of yet another war in the Middle East. By some accounts, AIPAC failed to secure the support of a single member of Congress.

The third defeat was over new Iran sanctions. Now, AIPAC and the President were on opposite sides. The interim nuclear agreements from last November, explicitly stated that no new sanctions could be imposed. Yet, backed by Senators Mark Kirk, R-Illinois, and Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey, AIPAC pushed for new sanctions, arguing that it would enhance America’s negotiating position.

The White House strongly disagreed, fearing that new sanctions would cause the collapse of diplomacy and make America look like the intransigent party. The international coalition the President had carefully put together against Iran would fall apart, and the U.S. and Iran would once again find themselves on a path towards military confrontation.

But AIPAC insisted. Its immense lobbying activities secured 59 cosponsors for the bill, including 16 Democrats. Its aim was first to reach over 60 cosponsors to force the bill to the floor, and then more than 67 cosponsors to make it veto proof.

But 59 cosponsors turned it to be a magical ceiling AIPAC could not break through. Supporters of diplomacy put up an impressive defense of the negotiations policy, building both off of years of careful development of a pro-diplomacy constituency and coalition machinery as well as the grassroots muscle of more recent additions to the pro-diplomacy camp.

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Washington Destabilizes Ukraine

Paul Craig Roberts

Only Washington Knows Best

The control freaks in Washington think that only the decisions that Washington makes and imposes on other sovereign countries are democratic. No other country on earth is capable of making a democratic decision.

The world has witnessed this American self- righteousness for eons as Washington overthrows one democratic government after the other and imposes its puppet, as Washington did in Iran in 1953 when the CIA, as it now admits, and as Ervand Abrahamian proves in his book The Coup (The New Press, 2013), overthrew the elected government of Mossadeq, and more recently the elected government of Honduras and many governments in between. 

Currently Washington is working overtime to overthrow the governments of Syria, Iran again, and Ukraine. Washington has also targeted Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Brazil, and in its wildest dreams the governments of Russia and China.

On January 26 Syrian government advisor Bouthaina Shaaban asked Wolf Blitzer, a propagandist for Washington and the Israel Lobby, on US TV why the US government, speaking through Secretary of Stare John Kerry, has the right to decide who is to be the government of Syria instead of the Syrian people. [Polls show that Syrian president Assad’s approval ratings exceed those of every Western leader.] Even the slimy Blitzer wasn’t slimy enough to answer, “because we are the exceptional, indispensable people.” But that’s what Washington thinks.

Washington will soon be back at work on destabilizing the government of Iran again, a habit I suppose, but for the moment Washington is focused on destabilizing Ukraine.

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Potent Pro-Israel Group Finds Its Momentum Blunted

Comment: Conflict between Angl0-American Establishment, Conservatism and Zionism continues...So many wanting a piece of the pie...I doubt that AIPAC is going to be too severely blunted anytime soon. 

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New York Times

WASHINGTON — The last time the nation’s most potent pro-Israel lobbying group lost a major showdown with the White House was when President Ronald Reagan agreed to sell Awacs surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia over the group’s bitter objections.

Since then, the group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has run up an impressive record of legislative victories in its quest to rally American support for Israel, using a robust network of grass-roots supporters and a rich donor base to push a raft of bills through Congress. Typically, they pass by unanimous votes.

But now Aipac, as the group is known, once again finds itself in a very public standoff with the White House. Its top priority, a Senate bill to impose new sanctions on Iran, has stalled after stiff resistance from President Obama, and in what amounts to a tacit retreat, Aipac has stopped pressuring Senate Democrats to vote for the bill.

Officials at the group insist it never called for an immediate vote and say the legislation may yet pass if Mr. Obama’s effort to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran fails or if Iran reneges on its interim deal with the West. But for the moment, Mr. Obama has successfully made the case that passing new sanctions against Tehran now could scuttle the nuclear talks and put America on the road to another war.

In doing so, the president has raised questions about the effectiveness of Aipac’s tactics and even its role as the unchallenged voice of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. Jewish leaders say that pro-Israel groups disagreed on how aggressively to push the legislation, even if all the groups favor additional sanctions.

“Some of us see the object as being to target Iran,” said Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “We’re not out there to target the president; we’re out there to target Iran.”

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