Category Archives: AIPAC

AIPAC, Benyamin Netanyahu, Democratic Party, Ilhan Omar, Israel, Racism, Uncategorized, US Congress

Ilhan Omar vs AIPAC: a Democratic Glass Curtain becomes an Iron Curtain…..

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Sometime in early 2015, right after Obama’s State of the Union Address, the Republican leadership of the US Congress and Senate acted to publicly and loudly oppose the foreign policy of a sitting American president. And to openly disrespect him, which is their right. They decided to escalate by using the leader of a foreign country, or maybe the foreign leader decided to defy Obama by using the US Congress. Right-winger Benyamin Netanyahu has had some experience in disrespecting Barack Obama, no doubt at least partly because he is a black man and he knew he could get away with it in a divided Washington dominated by Southern rightists and by his unofficial lobby, AIPAC.

So, they invited the Israeli prime minister to address a joint session of the US Congress, no doubt with the agreement of some Democrats. This foreign leader, the Israeli leader was invited to rebut the Obama foreign policy, with the focus on the pending Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA). Many Democrats also showed up, including the current Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer. Defying their own president to appease a foreign leader, something I know they would not do for Bush or Clinton or any white president. American media of all stripes went along, broadcasting live this racist defiance by a foreign leader of a sitting US president in cooperation with Congress. To their credit 8 senators and 50 Representatives (of all faiths) refused to attend.

It was largely the power of AIPAC that drew so many Democrats to that travesty and abuse of a Joint Session of Congress, although a few probably had real Middle East policy concerns that could have been addressed in a different fashion. AIPAC, the increasingly Likud-ized American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, has managed to hold festival-style, CPAC-style annual conferences while avoiding real public scrutiny. Until now, although many American commentators like Thomas Friedman and Peter Beinart, among others, did occasionally criticize its activities and its political hold. Clearly AIPAC represents an extreme position on the Israeli-Palestinian issue that is not supported by many moderate and liberal Jewish Americans who support Israel and the idea of a Jewish Homeland. These are also the people who know the Diaspora well, and have a traumatic collective memory, centuries old, of what can happen in a society when the freedom of expression is stifled.

There has always been a glass curtain in Washington blocking any open public criticism of Israeli governments. And of AIPAC. Even though the current Israeli PM felt free to speak directly to Americans from the chamber of their elected representatives. Now with this new batch of Democratic lawmakers, the taboo on criticism of Israeli government and of AIPAC is breaking down. The powers that be in the Democratic Party have been called upon, probably warned, to stem this new trend rocking the boat, challenging the groupthink.

The Republicans started the attack on the new batch of Democrat women: Republicans like to demonize women who are threatening, from Hillary Clinton to Michelle Obama and her daughters to Elizabeth Warren to Ilhan Omar and AOC and Rashida Tlaib. It must be a remnant of the old Witch Hunt and witch burning eras of Old Europe. But the Democrats quickly joined the selective attack, focusing now on the two Muslim women of color. AIPAC has a long reach into American politics, that is a fact: you can see it by looking at the attendees of its public events.

Now the glass curtain of taboo has come out into the open. The Democrats in Congress have now been cowed, apparently, into a resolution condemning these two women, particularly one of them, either directly or indirectly. The glass curtain did not do its job, so now it is being replaced. An Iron Curtain is now descending across the Democratic congressional delegation, openly shutting off any open debate of Israel and its influence in America.
The First Amendment is in danger of being watered down not only by the modern Republicans and Donald Trump. Democrats are also doing their best/worst to weaken the First Amendment which has always defined America.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

AIPAC, Iran, nuclear Iran, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Politics

An Iranian View of an Unsavory Las Vegas Tycoon………

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“Nearly one-third of anti-Iran pressure group United Against Nuclear Iran’s 2013 budget came from the country’s foremost Republican megadonor, a man who invested a reported $98 million to defeat Barack Obama in the 2012 election, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. Adelson routed his $500,000 donation to UANI through his family foundation, according to tax documents. Over the past six months, a number of unanswered questions have swirled around UANI. The Justice Department continues to shield information about the group’s internal workings from coming to light; the group hasn’t accounted for a mysterious funder who stands to profit from a confrontation with Iran…………”

Apparently the Iranians also believe that Sheldon Adelson is at it again: that he is funding a mysterious new anti-Iranian group. A major Iranian news site writes about the American right-wing moneybag Sheldon Adelson.

The conservative Las Vegas gambling tycoon and part-owner of many Republican Party politicians once fully owned Newt Gingrich during his hopeless attempt to start running for the party nomination in 2012. The site reports that Adelson is the largest contributor to the GOP and spent 98 million of his own money to defeat Barack Obama in 2012 (it was probably pure politics, not related to race).
Mr. Adelson, who reportedly has very close connections to the Israeli right-wing parties had publicly proposed once in 2013 that Mr. Obama should launch a nuclear attack on Iran. The Iranians remember that he was kind enough to specify a nuclear attack on “sparsely populated” areas of Iran.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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AIPAC, Iran, Israel, US Congress

How Far Will AIPAC Want the U.S. to Go on Iran?………

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“The powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC is urging a dramatic escalation in sanctions on Iran in response to a recent seven-month extension of nuclear talks. It also seeks a US ban on Iranian oil exports worldwide and more Iranian industries blacklisted…………”

No doubt a majority in the Knesset Congress and Senate will immediately bow and push for this. They have been at it on a bipartisan basis since at least early 2009. Some of them have been at it even before AIPAC went public with its demands, pushing poison pill clauses in some congressional resolutions and measures, with the aim of dragging the USA into yet another regional war.
Tightening a unilateral blockade that other countries are forced to observe, courtesy of AIPAC.

I am beginning to suspect that if AIPAC (the right-wing Israeli lobby) some day demands that Iran be hit with nuclear weapons, a shocking number of legislators in Washington may start talking seriously about it. I am almost not being facetious here.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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AIPAC, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, U.S. Congress, U.S. Foreign Policy

Left-ish in Congress, Rightist in Gaza: Torn Between AIPAC and Principles ………

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“Much of the American left is critical of Israel, particularly since its incursion into Gaza. But in the halls of Congress, even progressive Democrats beloved by grassroots activists are loath to criticize the Jewish State’s ongoing military offensive. A Pew Research Center poll released Monday showed that a plurality of Democrats across the country, 35 percent, and liberals, 44 percent, said that Israel had “gone too far” in its response to its conflict with Hamas. Meanwhile 47 percent of Democrats told Gallup that Israel’s actions during the current conflict were “unjustified,” compared to just 31 percent who thought the opposite. But these opinions are nearly impossible to find in Congress. Democrats, when asked a question about Israeli operations in Gaza, had two standard responses: irritation, or else a statement of their broad support of Israel………….”

The article asks: why can’t Congress (meaning its relatively left-ish members) criticize Israel?

Silly question: criticizing Israel publicly in Washington is taboo. It is, well, like throwing the apple pie that your mom baked right into her face then adding insult to injury by burning old glory at the table.

The answer to that question is mainly spelled A-I-P-A-C (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee). Mainly, because Hamas, like many other Islamic fundamentalist groups, is not known for great public relations, not the positive kind of PR. Any criticism in the West of the Israeli conduct of this onslaught on Gaza has nothing to do with any case that Hamas makes. The criticism, mostly in AIPAC-less Europe, is mainly related to the mass killings of civilian people in Gaza by Israeli forces.

This is the Congress that gave Netanyahu many more standing ovations than it would give a U.S. president. On both sides of the aisle, as they like to say. As for the Right-ish (scratch that, make it extreme rightist) majority of the Red Congress, this blind pro-Israeli (right or wrong) stance might be just another political IOU. They are eagerly awaiting the time when all Jewish people convert to the true faith that persecuted them for two thousand years. That would be when the Rapture comes. At that time, the Red politicians anticipate a restoration of universal virginity rather than universal health care, end of Planned Parenthood and Welfare for the tykes, and the final eradication of HIV and other forms of STD.

Some of the more pious among them may still get to keep their place in those little black books (Psssst: they are safer than a digitized database, the Feds can’t get into any little black book unless they are also clients).

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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AIPAC, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, U.S. Foreign Policy

Israeli Lobby in the Washington Knesset Works to Derail Nuclear Talks……

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“In a letter obtained by Foreign Policy, Senators Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, demand that any deal allow international inspectors to probe Iranian facilities for “at least 20 years.” It also says the inspections “must be intrusive,” with the International Atomic Energy Agency gaining “access to any and all facilities, persons or documentation” necessary to determine Iran’s compliance with the deal……… The letter, which is addressed to the president, went out to members of the Senate Banking Committee, Foreign Relations Committee, and Armed Services Committee on Friday, July 11. It has the support of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, an AIPAC official confirmed……………”

Nothing new here, just something worth revisiting briefly. We all know that an unregistered all powerful omnipotent lobby for a foreign government now shapes Obama Administration and U.S. Congressional foreign policy about anything that has to do with Iran, Lebanon, and Palestinian-Israeli issues. AIPAC has a virtual veto over U.S. policy on these issues: its tools are truly bi-partisan.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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AIPAC, U.S. Politics

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Famous Self-Hating Anti-Semite?……….

      

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“A recent letter attacking Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is causing an internal brouhaha at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, The Cable has learned. The powerful lobbying outfit, known for its disciplined non-partisan advocacy for Israel, recently issued an action alert about the Florida congresswoman’s waffling on Iran sanctions legislation. The letter urged members to contact Wasserman Schultz and cited a disparaging article about her in a conservative website founded by a prominent Republican political operative. That AIPAC was driving hard for new Iran sanctions legislation surprised no one. But its use of a right-wing blog to target a well-connected Jewish Democrat with a long history of support for Israel raised eyebrows among some current and former AIPAC officials………….”

Cheers
mhg

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AIPAC, Iran, Israel, MENA, US Congress, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

U.S. Senate Goes Knesset, Declares Netanyahu ‘War President’ of America……

      

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“Today the Senate is about to vote Israel a virtual blank check – for war on Iran. Reads Senate bill S.1881: If Israel is “compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” the United States “should stand with Israel and provide … diplomatic, military and economic support to the Government of Israel in the defense of its territory, people and existence.” Inserted in that call for U.S. military action to support an Israeli strike on Iran, S.1881 says that, in doing so, we should follow our laws and constitutional procedures. Nevertheless, this bill virtually hands over the decision on war to Bibi Netanyahu who is on record saying: “This is 1938. Iran is Germany.”……….” Is this the man we want deciding whether America fights her fifth war in a generation in the Mideast? Do we really want to outsource the decision on war in the Persian Gulf, the gas station of the world, to a Likud regime whose leaders routinely compare Iran to Nazi Germany?……………”


Also sprach Pat Buchanan, one of the few independent voices in U.S. media and politics that does not kneel to AIPAC and to what he has called the “Israeli amen corner”. At issue is independence: the U.S. Congress (both houses) is doing the bidding of the Israeli right-wing prime minister, and acts against the long-term interests of the United States. This bill (S. 1881) would effectively make the Israeli politician the “decider” of war and peace for America.

Cheers
mhg

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AIPAC, Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, United Nations International Organizations, US Foreign Policy

International Tantrums: From UN to UNESCO, When Governments Don’t Get Their Way……..

          

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“UNESCO has suspended the voting rights of the United States and Israel, two years after both countries stopped paying dues to the U.N.’s cultural arm in protest over its granting full membership to the Palestinians. The U.S. decision to cancel its funding in October 2011 was blamed on U.S. laws that prohibit funding to any U.N. agency that implies recognition of the Palestinians’ demands for their own state. Israel also pulled its funding, objecting to what it called unilateral attempts by the Palestinians to gain recognition of statehood…………….”

Ref. my Saturday posting on Saudi Arabia.
I pointed to my Saudi source that her government is not unique in that respect, in getting upset and walking out screaming when it doesn’t get its way. I suggested the Al Saud may have learned this from Western governments in recent years. I reminded her of past threats to stop funding the UN and the decision to stop funding UNESCO if it upsets Israel and hence AIPAC, which it apparently did when it granted the Palestinians member status. I especially reminded her of the UNESCO episode and how the Obama administration now regrets losing its vote and influence in that organization after withdrawing funding (which they now realize means Israel losing its influence as Susan Rice hinted).

I also reminded her of Western media and thinkers and pundits complaining that sometime the international organizations seem to take into account the rest of the world, all 5-6 billion of it, more than the Western governments that represent about 600 million. I reminded her of the famous French pop-philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy who said earlier this year that a “bunch of gangsters control the UN Security Council”, that was when China and Russia and others refused to vote for military action in Syria. She agreed with me that it is likely the princes have learned a lesson from that on how to have an international tantrum when they don’t get their way.

I forgot to tell her that the Obama administration withdrew its funding of UNESCO in 2011, only about one year before the 2012 general elections (elections in the USA not in Israel). At that time, it seemed like a good idea, electorally if not from a principled point of view.

Cheers
mhg

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AIPAC, Middle East, Think Tanks, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Wars R Us: Another Warmonger Joins AEI, Lieberman Decides against WINEP…………

         

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“In a bid to lend a patina of “bipartisanship” to its ideas, the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has made former Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) the co-chair of its newest foreign policy initiative. The move has been met with raised eyebrows, as progressives have not considered Joe Lieberman an authentic representative of their foreign policy positions for quite some time, if they ever did in the first place. Lieberman will co-chair the new “American Internationalism Project” with former Senator John Kyl (R-AZ). As the project is intended to “rebuild and reshape a bipartisan consensus around American global leadership and engagement,” Lieberman’s participation is aimed at blunting the perception that anything coming out of AEI is a dogmatically Republican plan. AEI generally hews to a hardline neoconservative standard on foreign policy; its staff in the area includes former Bush Administration officials John Bolton, Richard Perle, and Marc Thiessen………………..”

Joe Lieberman is a one-issue guy as far as foreign policy is concerned. His focus is on that one issue and other peripheral issues that touch on it. Yet he has picked to join a different special interest institute than the house that AIPAC built (Washington Institute for Near East Policy). But he fits in right with that other one-issue guy, John Bolton. Mr. Bolton is so extreme that even a Republican U.S. Senate refused to confirm him as Bush’s ambassador to the UN. He had to be appointed for only one year during a recess. Bolton has one other issue, besides cultivating his mustache: pushing for a new war of choice in the Middle East, a war that even Bush-Cheney were not stupid enough to start. In this issue, Lieberman and Bolton are in complete agreement.
Lieberman spent the past few years in the US Senate trying to subvert its resolutions toward another war in our region. Until his very last month. Not that he needed much hard work to do it.
With Jon Kyl as part of the team, we might as well call it :Wars R Us.
Cheers
mhg

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AIPAC, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, NATO, War on Iran

An Iranian Nuclear Message to the Wrong Ears……………..

    

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“Work hard in your mind       
So you can come alive

You beter prove to the man      
You’re as strong as him

Cause in the eyes of god        
You’re both children to him

Da da doo doo                  
Everybody come alive

Everybody live alive           
Everybody love alive

Everybody hear my message………………” Jimi Hendrix

“Forty-five years ago, the United States sold my country a research reactor as well as weapons-grade uranium as its fuel. Not long afterward, America agreed to help Iran set up the full nuclear fuel cycle along with atomic power plants. The U.S. argument was that nuclear power would provide for the growing needs of our economy and free our remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals. That rationale has not changed. Still, after the Islamic Revolution in our country in 1979, all understandings with the United States in the nuclear field unraveled. Washington even cut off fuel deliveries to the very facility it supplied. To secure fuel from other sources, Iran was forced to modify the reactor to run on uranium enriched to around 20 percent. The Tehran Research Reactor still operates, supplying isotopes used in the medical treatment of 800,000 of my fellow Iranians every year. But getting to this point was not easy……….We have never failed when faced with no option but to provide for our own needs. All relationships — whether between parents and children, spouses or even nation-states — are based on trust. The example of the Tehran Research Reactor vividly illustrates the key issue between Iran and the United States: lack of trust………..”

Dr. Salehi is probably addressing the American people and not the government. Otherwise he would be better off addressing the government of Israel which is holding the peace of the Middle East hostage over the alleged Iranian nuclear bomb. The Israelis get a lot of help in that from the Saudi princes. Salehi should forward a copy of his editorial to the AIPAC.
Cheers
mhg


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