< When The Lobby Calls: Time To Pressure Obama To Lighten Up

When The Lobby Calls: Time To Pressure Obama To Lighten Up

March 16th, 2010 - by: danny

When The Lobby Calls: Time To Pressure Obama To Lighten Up

“If the olive tree knew the suffering of its owner, its oil would turn into tears” Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish

Israel Lobby On A Defensive Offensive
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The Israel Project is on the line. No they are not pitching me a story this time. Their PR skills are usually formidable. Usually, they will set up interviews, arrange visits to the promised land, get you on conference calls with officials and anything you want if you to become part of their echo chamber. .But this time, on this call, there is no one to talk to. It is a robo call, a pre-recorded message to advise me on how to send a message urgently calling for US support for Israel – as if it is in danger.

In the aftermath of the Biden flap, the Israeli Ambassador to the US was quoted as saying relations are now at a very low point. Hillary Clinton says that Israel’s decision to announce new settlements while the Vice President was there pushing what were called peace talks was an INSULT and has sent a wave of panic sweeps through the Israeli lobby.

Mr. Netanyahu, the right-wing Prime Minister who is not right wing enough for his untra right-wing coalition partners has said he was sorry, that it was all a misunderstanding, and that the timing of the announcement of the new housing was wrong. (He is not against the housing per se, of course.)

While he was on the defensive being diplomatic and trying to patch up this very public flap, the lobby he effectively controls is on the war path with an aggressive campaign of no retreat, no surrender. Is this what they call two-track propaganda?

All hands on deck. Every synagogue and Jewish organization is being mobilized. Every media asset is being orchestrated. The Obama Administration is not quote the enemy but in danger of becoming so. Op-eds are landing in my in-box.

Here’s a robo-letter from someone called DeLowe. Check out how to cites American history and the appropriation of the lands of others as a rationalization of Israeli policy:

THE MESSAGE: TONE IT DOWN. THE THREAT — OR ELSE …

E-mail send to Secretary of State Clinton – Contact Us at the U.S. State Department!

Dear Secretary of State Clinton;

Please tone down the criticism of our ally Israel. Our United States acquired certain lands from Indian, Mexico and other nations through warfare and made them a part of the United States. Israel captured the area surrounding Jerusalem in a war with Jordan in 1967 and immediately made those areas a part of Israel.

If this was illegal, then are we prepared to give back land that we “occupied” and made a part of the U.S.?

For there to be a brouhaha about Israel erecting buildings in Jerusalem is akin to Mexico objecting to building permits being issued in San Antonio.

Israel is our staunchest ally – in an area where even our “friends” have grown and trained suicide bombers to destroy the World Trade Center in New York.

Please support our ally Israel.

THIS ONE GOES AFTER ISRAEL’S CRITICS

Scott Schnieder, who I have quoted in other contexts, has a broadside against critics of Israel as anti-American and probably anti-semitic:

Right now the international Left marches with James Petras and Jonathan Cook in its open hatred for Israel. For them, the Elders of Zion are the root of the world’s evil and therefore command 100% of their animosity. Israel’s very existence as a secure Jewish state is something they would surely do away with. They would uphold it only as a place of Jewish weakness or marginalization.

Such hate is the consequence of anti-Americanism from those ideologues seeking to “get back” at America, who feel impotent to change anything and need to get their rush by attacking the client state – one that has the audacity to be a /Jewish/ client state, that wields Jewish national political power after millennia of Jewish subordination, marginalization and dependency on non-Jews which cost them millions of live…”

This is one of those way the subject is changed in a to drive public opinion away from the question of settlements and Israel’s obstructions of any and all real peace processes. It becomes an attack on enemies in our midst. It is hysterical, but representative of the media discourse on the issue, where critics are targeted as enemies, traitors, self-haters and worse.

Leading the charge is AIPAC, the Israel lobby which will have its conference later this month with Netanyahu in attendance:

Middle East Online: AIPAC raises alarm over US-Israel spat

Netanyahu urges Israeli calm over US tensions, tells ministers not to talk about crisis.

WASHINGTON – A major pro-Israel US lobby group warned Sunday that recent US administration remarks about bilateral ties with Israel were “of serious concern,” and urged the White House to ease tensions. Remarks by President Barack Obama’s administration “regarding the US relationship with Israel are a matter of serious concern,” said the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in a statement issued Sunday.

“AIPAC calls on the administration to take immediate steps to defuse the tension with the Jewish State,” it added. [More here →]

Missing in all of this is any understanding of politics in Israel and the role played by the extreme right there, which has, believe it or not, been compared to the Taliban.

AIPAC Lashes Out At Obama Administration Over Israel Statements

Hardline Netanyahu vows more illegal settlements

Israel insists on building new settlements in Palestinian East Jerusalem despite crisis with US. [More here →]

A BRITISH VIEW

The crisis of Israel-US relations and beyond by Julian Kossoff – The Telegraph UK

Israel’s dumb and dumber government has managed to clodhop its way into a major political crisis with President Obama’s administration.

Israel’s ambassador to the US has said that relations between the two countries face their worst crisis for 35 years, Israeli media have reported.

Last week, US Vice-President Joe Biden was visiting Israel as a preamble to launching the “proximity talks” – talks about talks that may lead to peace talks. Everything was going dandy when, with malice aforethought, the Housing Ministry controlled by the Shas party (which is as corrupt as it is religious) decided to fire a well-aimed political “qassam” at the Biden visit, by suddenly announcing the building of 1,600 new homes in occupied East Jerusalem. [More here →]

What is actually going on: Here are three stories, two by Israelis

Uri Avnery: A Matter of Timing:Wiping the Spit Off His Face

The Government of Israel has insulted the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, one of the greatest “friends” of Israel (meaning: somebody totally subservient to AIPAC) and spat in the face of President Barack Obama. So what? It’s all a matter of timing.

Scott Horton: “This is Starting to Get Dangerous”

According to a report in Yedioth Ahronoth, Biden responded: “This is starting to get dangerous for us. What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.”

Perry: The Petraeus Briefing: Biden’s Embarrassment Is Not The Whole Story

The Mullen briefing and Petraeus’s request hit the White House like a bombshell.

On Jan. 16, two days after a killer earthquake hit Haiti, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue. The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM’s mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) “too old, too slow … and too late.”

The January Mullen briefing was unprecedented. [More here →]

Gareth Porter: Policy Debate over Afghanistan

WASHINGTON, Mar 15, 2010 (IPS) – The struggle within the Barack Obama administration over Afghanistan policy entered a new phase when the president suggested at a meeting of his “war cabinet” Friday that it might be time to start negotiations with the Taliban, according to a report in the New York Times Saturday.

Obama said that the success of the recent operation to take control of the “insurgent stronghold” of Marja, combined with the killing of insurgent leaders in Pakistan by drone attacks, might be sufficient to “justify an effort to begin talks with the Taliban”, two participants in the meeting told the Times.

That proposal puts Obama directly at odds with key members of his national security team, especially Secretary of Defence Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Both Gates and Clinton have argued in recent months that attempting to negotiate with Taliban leaders would be fruitless unless and until they have been convinced by U.S. military operations that they are losing.

Democrats Say Health Care Reform will Pass

Democratic leaders scrambled Sunday to pull together enough support in the House for a make-or-break decision on health-care reform later this week, expressing optimism that a package will soon be signed into law by President Obama despite a lack of firm votes for passage.

Meanwhile:

Kucinich in Obama’s crosshairs

“What was said at 35,000 feet is anyone’s guess, and Kucinich is — for once — not talking. The president talked one on one with Kucinich aboard Air Force One on the flight, a White House spokesman said. But Obama’s onetime presidential rival just smiled as he walked across the tarmac upon arrival in his home state.” [More here →]

Mark Crispin Miller: President Obama, MoveOn.org and others are attacking Dennis Kucinich because he opposes any bill without a public option

Rep. Dennis Kucinich is one of those members who took the pledge to back Public Option, and intends to honor it. And now MoveOn is demonstrating against him because of it. He’s being threatened with primary challenges, and President Obama is going to his district today to campaign for the health care bill. [More here →]

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