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Bibi throws in with GOP, Democratic base turns critical, and Israel finally becomes partisan wedge issue like abortion — Blumenthal

Max Blumenthal

This is fabulous. And a great improvement on Meet the Press or Face the Nation! Below is a summary of Max Blumenthal’s sharp analysis on Russian television, springing off his piece for Al Akhbar on Bibi Netanyahu ally Sheldon Adelson’s intervention in the Republican campaign (with a big gift to Newt Gingrich).

What would it mean for our sharpest political minds to be engaged on the Israel lobby issue? Well here is your answer, thanks to Russian TV. Walt and Mearsheimer had to go to London, Blumenthal to Russia. But as he indicates, the firewalls are breaking down. Next stop, Hardball! Summary:

This is the first time an Israeli prime minister has thrown himself into an American presidential race on the side of one party, the Republicans. Using his “cutouts,” the neoconservative allies in Washington.

The one they’re going after now is Ron Paul. But this faction will turn on Obama once the Republican nomination is resolved, and it will turn on the issue of Iran.

Follow the money? “The media… refuse to say the Israel word” when talking about Sheldon Adelson.  Though the puzzle remains, Adelson and Netanyahu will be just as happy with a Mitt Romney presidency as a Newt Gingrich presidency, why the support for Gingrich?

Why is it that the media is not talking about Israel?

Well Adelson’s a funder of the Israel lobby in the U.S. So is Mel Sembler, a kingpin among Romney’s backers… And the media in the United States “is terrified of the Israel lobby and the power it has to suppress discussion.”

“We’ll never talk about this in a frank way–” TV producers have said to Blumenthal. Thus Rachel Maddow’s description of the Adelson money simply as “dark money.”

Blumenthal does not think that Netanyahu and the combined power of the Israel lobby can determine an election, but they can “color the political landscape.”

The good news:

Israel has become “a wedge issue” in the campaign, there is no longer bipartisan support for it. “The Democratic base is likely to turn increasingly more critical of Israel. Even if Democratic politicians vote with the lobby. This is of great concern to the Jewish establishment. That Israel can become a wedge issue like gay marriage and the abortion issue.”

Prediction: Very rancorous second term for Obama with a Netanyahu.

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Our media is far and away the most important member of the Israel Lobby. No amount of money can match their free contribution.

There is an enormous flaw in Blumenthal’s and your analysis of the Adelson donation.

That is that it likely is NOT fixated on Israel, as you and Blumenthal are.

He probably just supports Gingrich, all of him, Israel-attitudes, other foreign policy concerns, economic philosophy. Simple, comprehensive, NOT presuming that Adelson or really any of the prominent neo-conservatives are fixated on Israel, but definitely include their impressions of implications for Israel in their math.

As I include implications for Israel, and for Palestinians, in my math, to usually 130 degree different conclusions from most of the neo-conservatives that I’ve read and met.

It is a BAD way to dissent, as it puts all of eggs of opposition to republican approaches in the “Israel” basket. If you are wrong about your guesses about their politics, then you throw out the whole argument against a Gingrich, or Romney campaign.

Stop the one-issuing is the point. The world is MUCH bigger than that jaundice.

There definitely isn’t bi-partison support for Netanyahu. I agree with that point of Blumenthal’s, that Netanyahu has interfered in American electoral process. And, that the concensus of bi-partisan support for Israel’s defense is thrown into unnecessary skepticism by that stupid “diplomacy”.

This post is ON TOPIC. Please do not censor it for the letter of the law.

The Republicans compared to the company that Bibi keeps, the Republicans come across as moderate and reasonable. I have just finished reading Robert Fisk’s latest article in which he mentions how much reverence Bibi has for rabbi Lubovich. Fisk writes (my emphasis):

“The Lubavitcher Rebbe [sic] was famous for his vehement opposition to even the tiniest withdrawal from any territory ever held by the Israel Defence Forces, even in the framework of full peace,” Rachlevsky wrote. “The most prominent emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe – the great rabbi, as Netanyahu termed him at the United Nations – included Baruch Goldstein, perpetrator of the 1994 Hebron massacre, and Yitzhak Ginsburg, the rabbi of Yitzhar, he of the radical book Baruch the Man (which celebrates the massacre).” The rabbi, Rachlevsky continued, believed that in the land of the messiah, there is no room for Arabs. Newt was right on track, it seems. “Thus racism entered Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations – not ‘merely’ against Islam, but also against Arabs.”

Any chance this is a bit of wishful thnking? I mean, Max Blumenthal and Russian TV are hardly primary formulators of American public opinion, and in order for their report to be true you’d sort of expect some evidence to be forthcoming from the mainstream, since it’s the mainstream they are reporting about. Pinpricks of dissatisfaction with Israel have been around since the State Department did its best to convince Truman not to recognize Israel in May 1948, but a sea-change – which is what you’re looking forward to – needs to be seen clearly from every beach, so to speak.

Where is a pro-Palestine PAC so I can give money to Obama AND EXTRACT A PROMISE (as BIG-BANKs and BIG-ZION do)?

My $25 will only squeek, not yell commandingly, but mayhaps there are many of me.