MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘AIPAC’

Israel Lobby Rebuts Omar’s Claims About Its Immense Influence By Exerting Its Immense Influence – Caitlin Johnstone

Posted by M. C. on March 6, 2019

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/03/05/israel-lobby-refutes-omars-claims-about-its-immense-influence-by-exerting-its-immense-influence/

In response to criticisms made by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar that US political leaders have too much allegiance to Israel and its lobbying groups, House Democrats have put forward an entire House resolution in accordance with demands made by AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League.

“The backlash [over Omar’s comments] continued on Monday, as the Anti-Defamation League wrote a letter to Pelosi calling for a House resolution to specifically reject what the organization calls Omar’s ‘latest slur,’” Politico reports. “‘We urge you and your colleagues to send the unambiguous message that the United States Congress is no place for hate,’ the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, wrote in a letter.”

“The charge of dual loyalty not only raises the ominous specter of classic anti-Semitism, but it is also deeply insulting to the millions upon millions of patriotic Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish, who stand by our democratic ally, Israel,” tweeted the Israel lobbying group AIPAC on Friday in response to Omar’s comments.

“I hope @AIPAC isn’t too angry that it took Democratic House leaders almost 48 whole hours to do what they’re told to condemn their own member and will instead be understanding that it was a weekend and that’s what caused the delay,” snarked journalist Glenn Greenwald in response to the news of the House resolution.

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The Growing Anti-Semitism Scam, by Philip Giraldi – The Unz Review

Posted by M. C. on March 2, 2019

Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept responded to the news of the McCarthy threat with a tweet “It’s stunning how much time US political leaders spend defending a foreign nation even if it means attacking free speech rights of Americans.” 

Just recall what the Israeli minister admitted, “It’s a trick, we always use it.”

http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/the-growing-anti-semitism-scam/

 

In his novel 1984 George Orwell invented the expression “newspeak” to describe the ambiguous or deliberately misleading use of language to make political propaganda and narrow the “thought options” of those who are on the receiving end. In the context of today’s political discourse, or what passes for the same, it would be interesting to know what George would think of the saturation use of “anti-Semitism” as something like a tactical discussion stopper, employed to end all dispute while also condemning those accused of the crime as somehow outside the pale, monsters who are consigned forever to derision and obscurity.

The Israelis and, to be sure, many diaspora Jews know exactly how the expression has been weaponized. Former Israeli Minister Shulamit Aloni explained how it is done“Anti-Semitic”…”its a trick, we always use it.”

If one were to read the U.S. mainstream media, reflective as it nearly always is of a certain institutional Jewish viewpoint, one would think that there has been a dramatic increase in anti-Semitism worldwide, but that claim is incorrect. What has been taking place is not hatred of Jews but rather a confluence of two factors. First is the undeniable fact that Israel has been behaving particularly badly, even by its admittedly low standards. Its slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza has been unusually observable in spite of media attempts to avoid mentioning it, plus its support of terrorists in Syria and attacks on that country have also raised questions about the intentions of the kleptocratic regime in Tel Aviv, which is currently pushing for an attack on Iran. That all means that the perception of Israel, which boasts that it is the exclusively Jewish state, inevitably raises questions about the international Jewish community that provides much of its support. But the shift in perception is driven by Israeli behavior, not by Jews as an ethnicity or a religion. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Israel lobby is built on the biggest guilt trip in the world – Mondoweiss

Posted by M. C. on February 21, 2019

https://mondoweiss.net/2019/02/israel-lobby-biggest/

I’ve been reading Amos Oz’s books since his death, and one of the feelings he leaves me with is: Self-contempt. Many of Oz’s characters look on American Jews with disdain. “To be without power is, in my eyes, both a sin and a catastrophe. It’s the sin of exile, and Diaspora,” says one. Another says that Diaspora Jews “shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of… life.”

The message is clear. Jews in the west are half-made because they never had to fight. They haven’t served in the Israeli army, at the front line of reborn Jewish sovereignty. But those exiled Jews derive pride and strength from the armed Jewish nation; Israel has given them international prestige. Because once Jews went like sheep to slaughter, we formed lines to get on the cattle cars. Now we are a proud nation.

But those exiled Jews have no skin in the game. They are living comfortable idle existences. Getting up like me this morning and going to my desk.

This is the core truth of the Israel lobby. The American Jews feel guilty that they are not on the front lines. They are lesser; the Hebrew language even describes Jews who leave Israel as such: yordim, lower. So they must do everything they can for the higher, fighting Jews of Israel. Raise money for Israel, buy off politicians, make sure that the U.S. government sticks by Israel through thick and thin and every massacre too. Read the rest of this entry »

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This Is How AIPAC Really Works | The Nation

Posted by M. C. on February 19, 2019

https://www.thenation.com/article/aipac-omar-israel-congress-anti-semitism/

By M.J. Rosenberg

One thing that should be said about Representative Ilhan Omar’s tweet about the power of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (more commonly known as AIPAC, or the “Israel lobby”) is that the hysterical reaction to it proved her main point: The power of AIPAC over members of Congress is literally awesome, although not in a good way. Has anyone ever seen so many members of Congress, of both parties, running to the microphones and sending out press releases to denounce one first-termer for criticizing the power of… a lobby?

Somehow, I don’t think the reaction would have been the same if she had tweeted that Congress still supports the ethanol subsidy because the American Farm Bureau and other components of the corn/ethanol lobby spend millions to keep this agribusiness bonanza going (which they do). Or that if she had opposed the ethanol subsidy, she would have been accused of hating farmers. Read the rest of this entry »

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How U.S. politicians use charges of anti-Semitism as a political weapon

Posted by M. C. on February 16, 2019

https://outline.com/KLmAdB

Less than 24 hours after Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) sent out tweets implying that AIPAC pays off American politicians to defend Israel, she had already apologized, in response to a swift rebuke from House Democratic leaders. Just like that.

Her initial remark that Republican attacks on her for criticizing Israel were “all about the Benjamins baby” did not strike me as anti-Semitic (unlike her 2012 tweet on how Israel “hypnotized” the world, which did). It read that way to others, though, which Omar stressed on Monday wasn’t her intention; she thanked “Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes,” such as the notion of powerful Jews using money to get their way that some people thought her tweet played on. Omar did not actually call out Jews, only AIPAC — which does not define itself as a Jewish lobby — but her critics immediately translated it into “Jewish money.” AIPAC even went so far as to send an email Tuesday using Omar to raise money: The message said Omar suggested that the “U.S. government supports Israel only because of Jewish money,” and then proceeded to ask for money.

But the wider frenzy betrayed the cynical ways that charges of anti-Semitism and claims to be standing up for Israel are so often wielded by U.S. politicians — especially, but not exclusively, by Republicans. Israel, and by extension Israelis and American Jews, gets used as a wedge by pretty much anyone who chooses to pick up the cause in service of their own political agendas. The ironic result, for a fight about anti-Semitism, is that Jews are treated simply as a monolithic object, as a group that’s somehow different from other American ethnic or religious minorities.

Some of the loudest voices condemning Omar on Monday have espoused anti-Semitic imagery and stereotypes in the past themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ilhan Omar under attack for telling truth about Israel lobby | The Electronic Intifada

Posted by M. C. on February 13, 2019

Omar was talking about the Israeli government, not Jews.

Like her or not, in this case she is correct.

There is a saying in Washington-If you want to lose your job fast, criticize the Israeli government.

Remember the Liberty!

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/ilhan-omar-under-attack-telling-truth-about-israel-lobby

Ali Abunimah

Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is under fierce attack from Chelsea Clinton and other Republican and Democratic establishment figures for voicing a fundamental truth: much of Congress is muzzled when it comes to Israel by the powerful lobby group AIPAC.

On Sunday, journalist Glenn Greenwald highlighted a news story about how Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy wants to punish Omar, and fellow Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, for their criticisms of Israel.

In a perverse move, McCarthy tried to equate the two women’s support for Palestinian rights with notorious Republican Congressman Steve King’s white supremacism.

“It’s stunning how much time US political leaders spend defending a foreign nation even if it means attacking free speech rights of Americans,” Greenwald tweeted.

Omar then retweeted Greenwald, adding the comment, “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” the title of a rap song by Puff Daddy.

“Benjamins” is a slang term for $100 bills, a reference to the portrait of Benjamin Franklin that is on the banknotes.

Then, Batya Ungar-Sargon, the opinion editor of the The Forwardchimed in, challenging Omar to explain who she “thinks is paying American politicians to be pro-Israel.”

Ungar-Sargon also accused Omar of tweeting an “anti-Semitic trope.”

Omar’s answer to Ungar-Sargon’s question was succinct: “AIPAC!”

That’s when the floodgates opened….

Be seeing you

USS Liberty

 

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Possible Congressional move on Israel Anti-Boycott Act alarms activists – Mondoweiss

Posted by M. C. on December 12, 2018

Because we know who really runs the show.

https://mondoweiss.net/2018/12/possible-congressional-activists/

Pro-Palestine and free speech activists who have been mobilizing against the Israel Anti-Boycott Act are sounding an alarm about rumors of a secret attempt this week to slip the legislation, which the ACLU has declared unconstitutional even in its revised form, into the must-pass House spending bill.

Despite having 292 House cosponsors and 58 in the Senate, Congressional leaders have not brought the IABA to a vote during the 115th Congress. Now, with just days before Democrats take control of the House, and with numerous cosponsors leaving office due to retirements and midterm losses, time could be running out.

The declining chances for the passage next year of the IABA, a longtime AIPAC priority, may account for machinations like the rumored attempt to slip it into the appropriations bill. A newsletter from Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East (UUJME) warns:

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Shhhhhhh! – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on July 29, 2018

If the Russians are that scary and powerful, either we’re doomed or maybe the DNC should hire them for the next election.

Shhhhhhh!

By

Even if you’re not a Trump fan, there are some things you just shouldn’t bring up in public and/or polite company. It isn’t necessarily that they’re impolite, it’s just that you’ll call unwanted and embarrassing attention to things best left hidden under the carpet.

Start with those 12 Russian “ham sandwichs” Mr. Mueller — with a lot of help — managed to conjure up and then indict for “meddling” in the 2016 U.S. election.

It’s not that, as the justice system aphorism goes, a D.A. can get his Grand Jury to indict even a ham sandwich, it’s that it took Mr. Mueller and Company over a year and a lot of taxpayer money to do it.

And it’s not so much that he then blocked a defense motion for a quick trial. It’s not even that, as the indictment admits, there was no collusion and no effect on the election.

No, what’s embarrassing is the overwhelming U.S. media/pundit consensus that 12 Russian ham sandwiches somehow “threatened our democracy.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Scarier than John Bolton?, by Philip Giraldi – The Unz Review

Posted by M. C. on April 25, 2018

Worse than John Bolton? Absolutely.

Nikki Haley

http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/scarier-than-john-bolton/

In the Trumpean world of all-the-time-stupid, there is, however, one individual who stands out for her complete inability to perceive anything beyond threats of unrelenting violence combined with adherence to policies that have already proven to be catastrophic. That person is our own Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who surfaced in the news lately after she unilaterally and evidently prematurely announced sanctions on Russia. Read the rest of this entry »

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U.S. Officials Demand Al Jazeera Register as Propaganda ‘Agent’ | The American Conservative

Posted by M. C. on March 27, 2018

Just so we are clear on who runs the show.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/is-al-jazeera-really-a-foreign-agent-fara-rt-sputnik/

By Peter Van Buren
…Ironically, the bipartisan request to force Al Jazeera to register comes amid a controversy over the network’s filming of a documentary critical of pro-Israel lobbying in the United States. For that exposé, the network used an undercover operative to secure footage revealing possibly illegal interactions between advocacy groups and lawmakers…

Be seeing you

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