We recall the raging debate and slugfest during the campaign on patriotism,.. whether or not candidate Obama was sufficiently patriotic to be elected President of the United States.
The Question of the Day: from a commenter posting at The Washington Note:
Is loyalty to Israeli preference a litmus test for a political appointment? Apparently it is…..if you challenge any of it, the possibility of being labeled anti-semite is very strong…
american politicians are really quite pathetic in their unquestioning devotion to Israel… need they to be challenged on this around voting time when Americans have the ‘one’ chance to do anything about it…
You may have missed the smearing and hounding of Amb. Chas Freeman from being appointed to chair the National Intelligence Council. Chalk up another win for AIPAC. They’ve succeeded, again.
AIPAC’s two cheerleaders – Senators Schumer and Lieberman – were among those in the front line that led the charge. Schumer and Lieberman happily joined with the leader in-chief, Steven Rosen, “a former director of AIPAC due to stand trial this April for espionage for Israel,
Take a look at the hypocrisy cited by Max Blumenthal
“Rosen’s tactics follow a familiar pattern he has displayed throughout his career, in which he viciously undermined anyone in the foreign-policy community deemed insufficiently deferential to Israel–even his own boss.”
Go figure.
Well, so much for patriotism or my Country first. Whatever Israel wants, Israel gets in double quantities on a golden platter. In America, no criticism of Israel is allowed. Toe the AIPAC line and STFU.
The Chas Freeman debacle has been covered by TPM, Andrew Sullivan and Steve Clemons.
TPM has Chuck Schumer’s rejoicing on Chas Freeman’s `withdrawal’:
“Charles Freeman was the wrong guy for this position. His statements against Israel were way over the top and severely out of step with the administration. I repeatedly urged the White House to reject him, and I am glad they did the right thing.”
“…severely out of step with the administration,” Have you no shame Senator Schumer?
Does Israel own the Obama administration?
Andrew Sullivan has a subtle message for President Obama:
The Humiliation Of Dennis Blair
The one thing I’ve learned about Obama is that he’s smarter – both intellectually and politically – than most of us. He knows that a central test of his time in office will be managing the Middle East. He knows too that any grand bargain will require some push-back on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. But at every time, the Israel lobby has challenged him directly to reassert that no change will occur in the US-Israel relationship, he has backed the AIPAC line 110 percent.
He did so by firing Robert Malley; he did so by hiring Dennis Ross on the Iran question; by hiring Clinton as secretary-of-state; and by humiliating his own intelligence chief, Dennis Blair, on Freeman.
[.]
Dennis Blair has also been humiliated – publicly, by both the Israel lobby and by the White House. He may react to that humiliation by surrendering independent judgment, or by being even more skeptical of the forces that demanded Freeman’s smearing and removal from government. I suspect the latter. Be careful what you ask for …
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I just got word that Chas Freeman has resigned as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, yielding to the attacks on him. This is unfortunate news as it is going to yield a new, long-running battle over what “patriotism” to US national interests means. Is loyalty to Israeli preferences and interests a litmus test for a political appointment?
This will be a big battle and while Freeman has been the first big victim in this struggle for the soul of American foreign policy, I suspect that there will be a slew of similar battles ahead and any Congressman or Senator who regularly puts Israel’s interests before American interests could be in for some rough times.
Wake Up America. Our enemies are within the gates.
Chas Freeman speaks truth to power.
Laura Rozen has Chas Freeman’s statement upon his exit:
Retired Amb. Chas Freeman, who said today that he no longer accepts an offer to chair the National Intelligence Council, has just sent this message:
You will by now have seen the statement by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair reporting that I have withdrawn my previous acceptance of his invitation to chair the National Intelligence Council.
I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office. The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue. I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country. I agreed to chair the NIC to strengthen it and protect it against politicization, not to introduce it to efforts by a special interest group to assert control over it through a protracted political campaign.
As those who know me are well aware, I have greatly enjoyed life since retiring from government. Nothing was further from my mind than a return to public service. When Admiral Blair asked me to chair the NIC I responded that I understood he was “asking me to give my freedom of speech, my leisure, the greater part of my income, subject myself to the mental colonoscopy of a polygraph, and resume a daily commute to a job with long working hours and a daily ration of political abuse.” I added that I wondered “whether there wasn’t some sort of downside to this offer.” I was mindful that no one is indispensable; I am not an exception. It took weeks of reflection for me to conclude that, given the unprecedentedly challenging circumstances in which our country now finds itself abroad and at home, I had no choice but accept the call to return to public service. I thereupon resigned from all positions that I had held and all activities in which I was engaged. I now look forward to returning to private life, freed of all previous obligations.
[.]
The outrageous agitation that followed the leak of my pending appointment will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues.
I regret that my willingness to serve the new administration has ended by casting doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the interests of the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government.
[.]
(my emphasis)
Good on Chas Freeman. Kudos.
Imo, having loaded up his wagon from the AIPAC crowd, President Obama is hog tied. He will be told where to go and when to return.
More the pity. There was such promise for change.
As the well connected Steve Clemons observes:
This is unfortunate news as it is going to yield a new, long-running battle over what “patriotism” to US national interests means. Is loyalty to Israeli preferences and interests a litmus test for a political appointment?
It’s about time we find the answer
Someone really needs to remind Obama that he wasn’t elected to kiss Israel’s ass. That’s not why people voted for him. We voted for change in this county-and sadly we are not going to get it. “The Audacity Of Hope” my ass! Bitter disappointment.
Not one politician has successfully withstood the Zionist’s attack dogs.
Why is this so grievous?
this appointment was discretionary and does not require ‘the advise and consent’ of the Senate.
the failure of President Obama to stand by his discretionary pick — — sends a disturbing signal. (Obama likes to remind that he listens to all viewpoints)
James Fallows, The Atlantic
Yes sir, vetted and vetoed by AIPAC and their beneficiaries.
in much the same vein, from richard silverstein at the guardian, uk:
The Israel lobby’s Lexington and Concord
this was a huge mistake, and the list of transitional casualties just keeps getting longer.
Really amazing the power they have. If Obama does not stand up to them, we are forget doomed.
What’s really infuriating about it is that it’s virtually impossible to do anything as an individual to act against Israel. They don’t produce much in the way of consumer goods, so they’re difficult to boycott. Most of the organizations that put up any real resistance to Israel are terrorist groups, so I’d find it unpalatable to send donations to them even if it were legal.
The first person who figures out how to stage a legal, effective, non-violent act of resistance to Israel in America will, I suspect, find himself or herself surfing on a tsunami of popular rage.
Exactly what they are afraid of. SO MANY HIDDEN …..skeletons. Assassinations, blackmails, payoffs, war profiteering, war crimes, etc.
The overwhelming majority of resistance against Israel is and has always been non-terrorist and non-violent. The First Intifada was overwhelmingly non-violent, and violence in the Second Intifada was limited to rioting and rock throwing despite the fact that Israel was freely killing unarmed Palestinians, including Palestinian children. The fact that you, as are most Americans, are unaware of this is not surprising.
3. I and many other people have staged legal, non-violent acts of resistance to Israel. What would you suggest we do in order to make our efforts effective?
International Solidarity Movement founder Huwaida Arraf challenging Israeli Occupation Forces.
Huwaida is a Palestinian-American and is married to Adam Shapiro. They are co-founders of the International Solidarity Movement. Adam and his family have been harrassed and subjected to death threats in the United States as a result of Adam’s activities against the occupation. Huwaida and her family, including Adam, have been honoured and praised by Palestinians and other Arabs. So, who, again, are the terrorists?
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands (Geuzen Resistance Foundation) – The Geuzen Medal 2009 is awarded to Al-Haq, the Palestinian Human Rights Organization Al-Haq, and B’Tselem, the Israëli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. The Geuzen Medal will be presented on Friday 13 March in the City of Vlaardingen in the Netherlands.
Mr. Jozias van Aartsen will award the Geuzen Medals 2009. The Mayor of the City of The Hague is chairman of the International City of Peace and Justice and of the City-Diplomacy-committee of United Cities and Local Governments. He is also former Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Director Jessica Montell will receive the Geuzen Medal on behalf of B’Tselem. Spokesman Wesam Achmad will receive the Geuzen Medal on behalf of Al-Haq.
Al-Haq and B’Tselem are independent and are critically monitoring the activities of the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. Al-Haq’s and B’Tselem’s activities focus on reporting violations of Palestinian human rights in the Occupied Territories.
The right and human dignity
The name Al-Haq means `the right’ in Arabic. The organisation was founded in 1979 by a group of Palestinian lawyers. Al-Haq’s offices are in Ramallah. The name B’Tselem is taken from the biblical creation story, and connotes ‘human dignity’ in modern Hebrew. The organisation was founded in 1989 by academics, lawyers, journalists and members of the Israeli parliament. B’Tselem’s offices are in Jerusalem.
Shawan Jabarin, executive director al-Haq, is banned from leaving the West Bank
● IDF chief heads to Washington to stress Iran dangers to U.S.
● Israel’s arms dealer promotional film dubbed ‘most atrocious of all time’
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Israel has barred the representative of Al Haq from leaving the Occupied Territories in order to receive the award.
Correction:
I just noticed that I made an incomplete, and therefore false statement:
“violence in the Second Intifada was limited to rioting and rock throwing despite the fact that Israel was freely killing unarmed Palestinians, including Palestinian children” should be preceded by “during the first weeks”. In fact, the Second Intifada ultimately did include considerable violence including suicide bombings. However, the Palestinians did not resort to armed violence until after Israel had killed hundreds of unarmed Palestinians, including a high percentage of children.
Sorry for not catching this mistake in the beginning.
More on Palestinian non-violent resistance:
PCHR, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights is yet another Palestinian resistance group committed to non-violence.
Ta’ayush, Arabic for “coexistence” is a group of mainly Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel that was started by a Palestinian for the purpose of working against the occupation and against state discrimination by Israel against Palestinian citizens.
Palestinians, Jewish Israelis, and international groups together hold weekly demonstrations in the West Bank village of Nihlin against the occupation and the apartheid wall Israel is building. Yesterday in Nihlin Tristan Anderson, 37, of Oakland, California was critically wounded in the head by a tear gas canister shot by an Israeli soldier during a demonstration. His wound is life-threatening. He was not taking part in the demonstration or standing anywhere near any demonstrators. Tear gas is never supposed to be shot at a person, and certainly not in a manner that it will hit someone in the head. It appears also that the soldiers were shooting at closer range than is safe.
Nihlin is by far not the only site of regular non-violent actions by Palestinians. There are regular peaceful protests against the apartheid wall in Jayyous, Budrus, Bil’in, and Umm Salamonah, among other places.
Palestinians have been engaging in non-violent resistance since before the period of the British Mandate until the present day. For example:
So, Corvus, there are plenty of non-terrorist groups and efforts you could contribute to either financially or by giving time, or by actually going there and actively participating.
Dada,
Thanks for that link.
keep fingers crossed that Blair stays on after being so humiliated.
Off to a very bad start.
Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman must be chuckling.
The real debacle is now that AIPAC knows they have Obama cold, the next shoe has dropped less than 12 hours later. The Washington Post is now immediately calling for AG Eric Holder to drop the espionage case against former AIPAC members Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman.
Rosen of course led the fight against Chas Freeman. This call will grow much louder, very, very quickly, as will the pressure on Holder and Obama to sweep this under the rug. If Holder dismisses the case, you have your answer.
MJ Rosenberg posting at Israel Policy Forum – The Mideast Peace Pulse – shares this piece “They shot their wad on Freeman:”
Did they?
I won’t hold my breath that Obama will be more determined than ever to stand strong. During the campaign, Obama gave his allegiance to AIPAC with the added confirmation being he hired on Dennis Ross, AIPAC’s co-founder. What a tangled web?
Dear Mr. President,
It’s not enough to be pissed off. And No, it was not Freeman’s opponents who shot their wad. It was you — you who promised change; not just to Americans but also to the rest of the world — you shot your wad. No longer can you be seen resuming the role of an honest broker.
Oh and a reminder, you still need the Chinese, the Saudis and other Gulf States to buy some of the mountain pile of USTreasuries this year and next.
Btw, why do you keep sending money to Israel. Cancel the wire transfer and pare the deficit.
One can agree that the presidential campaign didn’t leave Obama looking as if he would be anything more than another AIPAC lackey. But then, the first thing he did was to send Mitchell to the Middle East hawking the two state solution. Clinton then repeated the US goal to achieve two states, which twice got in the news.
So there is some tension here, and it looks as if, given AIPAC’s right wing Likud no-state position, it a confrontation that will come sooner than we believed. Since Mitchell had proposed that solution in a report back in 2001, which was made the basis of the Road Map, Obama had to know what he was buying into.
And while Peace Now is reporting a recent government approval of over 70,000 new Israeli only homes to be built in the Palestinian territories, Clinton is in front of the cameras stating that house demolitions in East Jerusalem are “not helpful.” The positions have been taken, and it is not likely to be business as usual for the US in the Middle East.
Shergald, Condi Rice used the term “not helpful” any number of times about Israel’s actions. So what? It’s just as meaningless coming out of Hillary’s mouth as it was coming out of Condi’s.
And now the $900 million dollar “donation for the rebuilding of Gaza”, none of which is actually for rebuilding Gaza (2/3 to go to Fatah, 1/3 for “urgent humanitarian relief for Gaza”, 0 for rebuilding), is conditional on that stupid demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel’s “right to exist”.
We will be lucky if Obama rises to the level of Bill Clinton revisited.
What would they lose by recognizing Israel’s right to exist?
Well, let’s start by asking why they should be required to recognize Israel’s “right to exist” when Israel clearly does not recognize their right to exist.
Then, let’s think about the way Israel constantly moves the goal post, and how unlikely it is that recognizing Israel’s “right to exist” will make any difference at all in Israel’s long-term goals or short-term conduct.
And finally, let’s think about what recognizing Israel’s “right to exist” really means to the people on whose continuing dispossession Israel’s existence depends. In fact, it takes a hell of a nerve to demand that a people whom you have dispossessed of their land and whom you subject to ongoing ethnic cleansing recognize your right to do so.
Since the ’80’s the Palestinians have formally accepted Israel’s existence within the pre-1967 borders. All they want in return is to be left alone to create their own state on the 22% of their ancestral homeland that comprises the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. That should be more than enough.
PS The real question is what will they gain by recognizing Israel’s “right to exist”. The answer is nothing at all. And at the same time they will have made a clear statement that Israel had and has a right to ethnically cleanse them from land their families have inhabited for generations in the interest of what Israelis delicately called “demographic balance”, or “the Jewish character of the states”, more accurately called ethnic purity.
why the pre-condition, given Israel’s concrete, visible lack of good intent — it’s continuing annexation of Palestinian lands?
Exactly.
And we all know from decades of experience, do we not, that if the Palestinians were to meet this pre-condition the Israelis would immediately dream up another one.
Hillary just announced all Gaza aid tied to Israel’s preconditions.
Aid FOR Israel….given freely and gleefully.
What we need is a website dedicated to keeping an eye on the politicians who have their lips firmly pressed to Israel’s rump. AIPAC triumphs through acts of legislation.
This is where to beat them. The Kyl amendment went down in flames, and we can claim other victories-as well-if we keep an eye on the legislation these politicians are sponsoring.
We already know they have betrayed their country to a foreign power. We already know Israel’s blatant “insecurity” has caused our own county to be less safe-and these politicians do not care that the legislation they vote for endangers the US and supports a foreign country over and above US interests.
We already know these politicians have put Israel’s needs above the needs of their own country time and again.
Politically-they would not be that hard to defeat. Time and again they have voted in the best interests of a foreign power. Lousy-on their parts. It needs to cost them their careers. We already know these politicians have taken money from AIPAC. We need to be very vocal about all of this.
None of this even touches on the horrors their legislation has caused. Their votes have made the United States absolutely complicit in acts of brutality and genocide so severe that the world community is standing up in complete oposition to both the United and Israel-regarding foreign policy.
As an American taxpayer, I refuse to be complicit in the butchering, the outright slaughter of innocent people. We need to call these politicians out! We need to target them!
We need to keep an eye on the legislation they pass. We need a website dedicated to just that! I’m not that compute savy-or I would do it myself. Someone needs to do this. We need this website.
There are ways to defat AIPAC. We proved that with the defeat of the KYl Amendment. If we did it once-we can do it again!
Instead of complaining about AIPAC on messageboards, we need to fight them on their own turf-by keeping an eye on the legislators they own. By keeping an eye on-and defeating-legislation they attempt to pass.
AIPAC can be beaten-we just need to do it!
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Three months before the US invasion, the well-informed Washington journalist Robert Novak reported that Israeli prime minister Sharon was telling American political leaders that “the greatest US assistance to Israel would be to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime.” Moreover, added Novak, “that view is widely shared inside the Bush administration, and is a major reason why US forces today are assembling for war.” [13]
Israel’s spy agencies were a “full partner” with the US and Britain in producing greatly exaggerated prewar assessments of Iraq’s ability to wage war, a former senior Israeli military intelligence official has acknowledged. Shlomo Bron, a brigadier general in the Israel army reserves, and a senior researcher at a major Israeli think tank, said that intelligence provided by Israel played a significant role in supporting the US and British case for making war. Israeli intelligence agencies, he said, “badly overestimated the Iraqi threat to Israel and reinforced the American and British belief that the weapons [of mass destruction] existed.” [14]
George W. Bush begore AIPAC in 2004:
“By defending the freedom and prosperity and security of Israel, you’re also serving the cause of America.”
My earlier comment: Manhunts: Task Force 121
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."While the particulars listed are factual, I simply do not buy the fact that Israel was a motivator at all, let alone the primary motivator in the invasion of Iraq. Any perceived benefit to Israel was at best a side benefit. The fact that Israel supported the attack and provided assistance says something about Israel, and nothing at all about what motivated the U.S. to attack Iraq.
Bush and his regime and its hangers-on had plenty of reasons of their own to invade Iraq. They did not need Israel as a motivator.
Has this been codified in any signed treaty? If it has, then why would the US and Israel ask for what they’re asking for?
A treaty? States sign treaties. The Palestinians have been denied a state.
Let’s try this another way.
On what evidence do you base this statement?
Let’s start with this, from the New York Times, Dec. 8, 1988 (emphasis mine):
Fabulous. Thank you. Guess that puts my process to an end.
You are welcome. Sorry if I seemed a bit obtuse at first. Now maybe you have a hint why your first question was not so easy to answer. :o}
The decision to recognize Israel actually came for the PLO in their meeting in 1985. It was not unanimous, but it was basically a done deal by then. As hinted in the first paragraph above, the primary impediments did not come from within the PLO, or among the Palestinians, but from the other side. That has not changed. It kind of calls into questions a lot of common assumptions, I think.