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[Update] Audio Tape – De Blasio In AIPAC Speech – added below the fold

Secrecy of de Blasio’s AIPAC conclave fuels anti-Semitic tropes — Sullivan

(Mondoweiss) – Andrew Sullivan has a wonderful post up on Bill de Blasio’s shocking and private speech to AIPAC two nights ago, titled, “The Selective Secrecy of Bill de Blasio.” Two excerpts, first on the secrecy of AIPAC, and the degree to which traditional anti-Semitic tropes are fulfilled by the group’s professions and actions.

If you were to describe the Israel lobby as a secretive group that enforces the policies of the Israeli government on American politicians in private gatherings, you would be called an anti-Semite. The idea that the Israel lobby is secretive and underhanded plays into ancient anti-Semitic tropes. If you were to say about AIPAC that “a lobby is a night flower, it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun,” you would be regarded as an anti-Semite for the same reasons. If you were to note that an AIPAC official once responded to the idea that the lobby had been weakened by pushing a napkin across a table and said “You see this napkin? In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin,” you would be called an anti-Semite. If you were to claim that AIPAC was “the most effective general interest group … across the entire planet,” you would be suspected of anti-Semitic tendencies. (The source for these varied quotes is here.)

And if you were to say that AIPAC was so powerful it could get a left-liberal mayor of New York to give a speech so fulsome in its cravenness and excess it adds whole universes of meaning to the word “pander” and also insist that it be kept secret, even to the extent of hauling a reporter out of the hall, then all bets would be off.

The de Blasio speech- along with Peter Beinart’s statement that “The new Iran sanctions effort, claims a well-placed congressional aide, is ‘totally and completely Jewish-community run’-” confirms everything that Walt and Mearsheimer said about the Israel lobby, including that it fostered the Iraq war.

Obama ‘outraged’ by Schumer, Gillibrand, & Booker’s deference to Netanyahu

Continued below the fold …

NY Mayor Blasio tells AIPAC: ‘Part of my job description is to be a defender of Israel’

(Mondoweiss) – My goodness. Here’s a tape of NY Mayor Bill de Blasio praising Israel at a closed-door function for the Israel lobby group AIPAC in Manhattan last night, reported by Sally Goldenberg of Capital NY.

He described deep connections between Israel and New York: The city has no greater alliance across borders than with Israel, Israel and NY share philosophical and democratic values, Israel has inspired NY being on the frontlines of terrorism, and Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer should move to NY after he’s done his job.

And that de Blasio’s “mission” and “job description” is to fight for Israel:

    “Part of my job description is to be a defender of Israel…City Hall will always be open to AIPAC. When you need me to stand by you in Washington or anywhere, I will answer the call and I will answer it happily, because that’s my job.”

Who knew? The Times is calling it a “private” speech. “The speech [at the Hilton in Manhattan] was not included on de Blasio’s public schedule, and a Capital reporter who attempted to report on the event was escorted by event security from the third floor to the lobby,” Goldenberg reports.

[Update] De Blasio at AIPAC, 1/23/2014 (via @CapitalNewYork)

Bibi, Israel Lobby Give Obama Congressional Ally Semi-Public Flogging for Opposing Iran Sanctions Bill

(Tikun Olam) – While it’s still too early to tell, the prospects in Congress for a new set of draconian anti-Iran sanctions seem to be flagging.  The legislation has gone from a virtual sure thing to a question mark ,with former allies like Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin withdrawing their support.  But what’s interesting is that it has established yet another arena for Bibi Netanyahu to attempt to sabotage the foreign policy of the Obama administration.  Of course, this is happening in the Kerry talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, which hit some major roadblocks as the U.S. exerts pressure on Israel to give up territorial claims to the Jordan Valley.

Just yesterday, Bibi told the schussing leaders caucusing in the wintry Swiss Alps town of Davos that Israel couldn’t possibly give up this land because it was prime winter skiing-er, actually because it was integral to some sort of odd conception of Israeli strategic defense (though virtually a who’s who of Israeli security and intelligence chiefs have sniggered at the credibility of this claim).  The actual money quote was: “I will not uproot a single Israeli” from the Jordan Valley.

Israel has dug its heels in on this issue just as it did years ago about the settlement freeze proposal.  It knows if it can frustrate U.S. resolve on one seemingly peripheral issue, it can destroy the entire agenda for the peace talks.

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The lobby has gone into overdrive to summon its legislative allies in Congress.  It has found obedience among likely parties like Chuck Schumer and Bob Menendez (not to mention a newly elected water-carrier, Corey Booker).  But some unlikely individuals are proving a harder sell.  The Lobby is having a tough time with Rep. Deborah Wassserman-Schultz.  She is the current chair of the Democratic National Committee and a devout supporter of the president.  Foreign Policy notes that Aipac has taken the highly unusual step not of taking Wasserman-Schultz to the woodshed, but of a semi-public flogging.