Israeli consulate's man Dennis Ross (center, in red tie) in the Oval Sept 2011 (White House photo by Pete Souza)
Dennis Ross worked for Obama for several years on Middle East peace. And before that he worked for Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush too. But he was always accused of bias toward Israel. Aaron David Miller called him Israel's lawyer. Abe Foxman celebrated him as Israel's advocate.
But Obama's spox Jay Carney said Ross was a fair dealer when he left a year back:
Dennis has been a remarkable contributor to this administration. He is -- going back to the questions we were discussing just now with Jill about Iran -- very much a part and an architect of the sanctions regime and the effort to pressure and isolate Iran, and has been at the forefront of our deliberations about handling the Arab Spring, the remarkable events we’ve seen in the Middle East and North Africa this year.
So I believe there might have been a statement that’s been put out already on this, but he’s certainly served his country and this administration and this President very well.
Joe Biden said he was a good man too! This is when they were setting out on the difficult path of making peace:
I understand why both sides are skeptical. I’ve been doing this for a long time, not as long as my friend, Dennis Ross who is with me -- Ross, who is with me -- Ross who is with me. He is with me. (Laughter and applause.) He has even more experience in the nitty-gritty of this than I do. We understand why both sides are skeptical. We’ve been down this road before and so have you, which every time makes it a little harder to go down the road again.
Well, I guess the egg's on the Obama administration's face. Ross is speaking tonight at Stanford. And guess who's sponsoring him? Boldface mine!
Sponsored by: Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiations (SCICN), International Law Society, Taube Center for Jewish Studies, Consulate General of Israel, Pacific Northwest Region, SF World Zionist Organization, J Street, Stand with Us, Jewish Community Relations Council, The David Project, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.
"Chief Middle East Advisor to Three Presidents Reflects on Strategies to Peace"
Oh and notice J Street standing with the David Project and Stand With Us. J Street fights its own delegitimization!
In the upcoming presidential elections of 2012, Netanyahu is sure to win both the electoral college and the popular vote.
Seriously, why pretend as though the United States of America is an independent nation?
Talk about masses yearning to be free.
a biden classic, the more ross is with him the harder it gets.
RE: “Honest broker? Israeli consulate sponsors Obama’s former Middle East peace adviser at Stanford talk!” ~ Weiss
FROM Robert Naiman, Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy, 11/23/12:
“Would It Make a Difference to Progressives if Norman Solomon Goes to Congress?”
SOURCE – link to commondreams.org
* I made a modest contribution via ActBlue and Paypal. – link to secure.actblue.com
Greenwald has picked three good candidates, Solomon and also one runing in my state, although not in my district I am going to call some friends in Asheville and Henderson to see if I can get them to support him.
Cecil Bothwell
Bothwell’s western North Carolina political career is nothing short of amazing. An avowed atheist (he actually prefers the term non-theist), he was told he had no chance to win a seat on the Asheville City Council. When he won, coming in first place in the at-large race, religious activists tried to bar him from taking office based on the (obviously unconstitutional) North Carolina law disqualifying anyone from holding elected office who “shall deny the being of Almighty God.” When he announced his candidacy for Congress, he originally decided he would run as an Independent, and expected that he would be challenging the right-wing, Blue-Dog Democratic incumbent Rep. Heath Shuler, but when a poll showed Bothwell within striking distance if he ran in the Democratic primary, Shuler suddenly announced his retirement (to take a job as a lobbyistof course). That leaves Bothwell, now running as a Democrat, with a real chance to win.
His views on Israel are as brave and commendable as any Congressional candidate in a long time who has a real chance of winning. Again, right on his own website, he vows that he “will not accept donations from AIPAC or any other organization lobbying for any other nation’s interest.” Then again, it’s highly unlikely he would receive any such donations, given his stated position on U.S. policy toward Israel:
‘We need to make our aid to Israel contingent on ending expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied territory, recognition of Palestine as a nation, and provision of adequate water to the Palestinian state. (The Six-Day War was principally a water grab.) We must sharply curb our military support for Israel as well. As I mentioned in an answer above, “the peace process” is a meaningless euphemism. As long as Israel is heavily dependent on U.S. aid, we have the leverage and the right to demand a swift resolution of Israeli/Palestinian issues. Obviously, we have not done so to date, or this question would be irrelevant.”
Here’s Glen’s full article on the three…..I hope this is a trend and we are finally getting some fed up step up candidates for a fed up public to vote for.
The Bothwell campaign is over as he lost in the primary.
Damn…that’s bad news.
RE: “Greenwald has picked three good candidates, Solomon and also one runing in my state ~ American
SEE: Three congressional challengers very worth supporting, by Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com, 3/29/12
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to salon.com
Phil wrote: “Oh and notice J Street standing with the David Project and Stand With Us. J Street fights its own delegitimization!”
From a BDS debate on May 11, 2010:
Rebecca Vilkomerson: “J Street took a position against that divestment resolution at Berkeley along with a long list of other organizations, including the David Project and the Anti-Defamation League and Stand With Us, which have been quite extreme in their tactics and rhetoric.”
Jeremy Ben-Ami: “For the record, J Street will not be signing on to letters with organizations like that in group settings again. I won’t comment on going backward, but I will just say going forward you won’t find us signing on to letters like that.”
That seems to mean J-Street wants to have its proverbial cake and eat it too. To represent itself to be a nominal outsider without taking an actual “outsider” position, publicly.
What cowardice. And I used to donate to help support an “option” to the status-quo.
There was a video a year or so ago that had the J-Street “policy” director “debating” (actually deferring in the extreme) to Dersh that showed this cowardice. What a waste of hope/money (on my part) and opportunity (on their part). I can’t find it now.
great catch, thanks Phan
>”Aaron David Miller called him Israel’s lawyer.”
Actually, Miller didn’t single out Ross specifically for that title – he gave it to the U.S. peace processors generally, including himself. In 2005 he wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled “Israel’s Lawyer.” It began “For far too long, many American officials involved in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, myself included, have acted as Israel’s attorney, catering and coordinating with the Israelis at the expense of successful peace negotiations.”
Great post! Imagine if it was a Palestinian lobbyist who was negotiating on behalf of the US in mid-east issues, oh how the other side would howl.
Obviously Dennis Ross has strong influential Zionist connections to be playing Israel’s lawyer for so long in the upper reaches of the USA’s government–he’s like an Israeli zombie that can’t be killed, no matter how much of America’s treasure and blood he devours: link to mondoweiss.net
“Ross’s bad habit is preconsultation with the Israelis.” Ross earned $421,775 from speeches last year, of which more than half came from Israeli and Jewish groups, according to a financial-disclosure statement. (July 2009): link to nytimes.com