Israel lobbyists are calling the 54 brave congresspeople who signed the letter to Obama against the Gaza blockade "the gang of 54," and trying to light a fire under em. One of them has cold feet. From Arutz Sheva wire:
At least one of the signatories to the letter, U.S. Representative Yvette Clarke (D-NY), has apparently withdrawn her signature, change her political attitude when the issue hit a little closer to home. A long-standing representative of the Brooklyn community of Crown Heights, Clarke recently joined a photo-op snapped with Brooklyn Jewish community leaders who had gathered donations for the earthquake-stricken people of Haiti.
“We all see the swift and expert work of Israeli doctors and rescue teams on the ground almost immediately following the 7.0 earthquake,” she told reporters covering the event at the time. “The Jewish response to the pain of others is legendary — and today’s gathering is a continuation of the special heart the Jewish community always shows in times of crisis.”
Is this a story in the US? No one seems to be covering this climbdown, if that’s what it is. And here in the New Jersey Jewish News, pressure on three congresspeople from Jersey who took a stand.
The Israelis helped out for two weeks. Who’s still there besides the USA?
Well, progress comes slowly; 53 now, was only 3 in the early 1970′s. Hopefully a few
Palestinians will still be alive when a majority of the US congress wake up or simply stand on principle and refuse to be a whore for AIPAC:
link to wallwritings.wordpress.com
Looks like it will soon be 52:
link to israelmatzav.blogspot.com
BTW, I think Clarke has also backed off her support of the Goldstone Report. A group of honcho Jews convinced her she was not presenting a balanced view of the situation. Heh.
Pandering hack.
That comment can be read for good or bad.
Paul Findley was a classic case of the destruction of a career by AIPAC.
link to acjna.org
But Clarke still has her signature on the letter, which is out in the open. She can’t withdraw that.
link to pulsemedia.org
So this news has not made it into the US MSM. Well, read some other sources -although they also may ignore petty US congresswomen’s turnabouts – that’s hardly a publishable fact to the rest of the world, who know that Congress is wholly owned by AIPAC
How did Findley get the boot, instantly? Who didn’t vote for him?
In these situations it may not necessarily be a local Zionist constituency that gives the politician the boot. The district might be Cornfield, Midwest, and the people scarcely aware of where Israel is. When the politician fails to toe the line, the AIPAC apparatus sends money to the opponent. By and large the candidate who raises the most money wins. The candidate who disobeys Israel would then be defeated for issues that on the surface have nothing to do with the Middle East. The sharmoot who promises to obey the Lobby gets the campaign financing and wins.
homingpigeon You are quite right. It is the Israeli money going to the opponent that counts. The one who doesn’t get that help, for advertising costs, etc, loses.
By the way, the word is spelled ‘sharmuta’ which means ‘whore’ in Arabic.
The report from Arutz Sheva, cited by Philip, is a nonsense:
If I was to write a cartoon series depicting Israeli influence on US politicians, then I would name the main protagonist ‘Harvey Schwartz’. I’m working on it.
Which was no more than the genuine truth.
“Israel bashing”
The same old bullshit. Zionists always try to emotionally blackmail people.
The Emotional Violence of Jewish Advocacy
link to karinfriedemann.blogspot.com
If a quarter-million Americans living in Israel, that shitty, piddling little Levantine country want to get out of it at some time, who is going to rescue them?
Cynthia McKinney is another example that no resident of the White House could speak the truth. Chaim Weisman was very honest when he said: “Let the British or anyone talk about Zionism and they can use our terminolgy, but we know what the meaning of it is. It has one meaning to us, one meaning to Gentiles”.
How the West got fooled
link to rehmat1.wordpress.com
Too late for AIPAC to try to put the genie back in the bottle. A weakened Obama is going through backchannels to respond to the Gaza letter, and though Ethan Bronner will never report on it in the Times, here’s Haaretz:
link to haaretz.com
Reading between the lines: Israel expects the US to veto any further action on the Goldstone Report at the UN. The rest of the world will respond angrily, noting that the US is once again a Pavlovian stooge protecting Israel’s transgressions, but this time, the Ugly Americans are covering up war crimes. The US, to avoid a complete meltdown in its role as an “honest broker” in the M/E, has to demonstrate that Israel is cognizant of the human suffering after Operation Cast Lead, and has to couple the veto with an easing of the blockade. Or at least the illusion of it.
The noose is tightening. You wouldn’t know it from reading the NYT and Ethan Bronner, but there’s a tectonic shift happening in the rest of the non-USA world.
Pingback: Yvette Clarke’s retraction
Even more seriously, the AIPACniks are targeting Ellison.
This is where the torpor of the Congressional Black Caucus becomes more dangerous. They won’t stand up for their own, and they’ll go down, one by one.