A story in the New York Times about Hillary Clinton’s appearance Thursday at the Clinton Foundation’s “convention” in Chicago reminds me of the absurdity of talking about Clinton’s political ambitions– or Barack Obama’s, or any other national Democrat’s– without talking about their supporters who also support Israel.
The ballroom was packed with hundreds of admirers, and the guest list included some big names in finance, politics, government and entertainment: Jacob J. Lew, the Treasury secretary; Gary Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs; Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers; Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey; and Eva Longoria, the actress and political activist.
Consider the first three. Jacob Lew was hired as White House chief of staff 3 years ago so as to rebuild bridges between Obama and Netanyahu. Haaretz:
Lew, whose son studied in a yeshiva in Israel, has developed a close working relationship with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, and has met several times with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz.
Gary Cohn, number two at Goldman, flew out from New York to Chicago for Hillary’s speech. From the Times in 2010:
[Cohn’s wife Lisa Pevaroff-Cohn] and Gary have enriched the lives of many in the Jewish community with their unwavering commitment to social and humanitarian causes in New York, in Israel, and around the world.
I’m sure Randi Weingarten is a big liberal. She is deeply involved in the liberal Jewish community. She almost moved to Israel and played a key role in the undermining of Debbie Almontaser, the wonderful educator whose Arabic-language academy was destroyed by the Israel lobby in New York using the fact that students at the school had t-shirts with the word “intifada” on them.
“As someone who traveled to Israel within the year, I know intifada means more than simply ‘shaking off oppression,’ as Almontaser claims,” Weingarten wrote. “[B]oth parents and teachers have every right to be concerned about children attending a school run by someone who doesn’t instinctively denounce campaigns or ideas tied to violence.”
…Though “you always look at things through the lens of who you are,” she said, “none of this had anything to do with my Jewish heritage — other than my knowing what the word ‘intifada’ meant.”
In googling Gary Cohn and Hillary Clinton, I learned they were together at this other liberal Establishment event in New York in April, at Lincoln Center, honoring Barbra Streisand.
Bill and Hillary Clinton dined with industrialist Len Blavatnik and hedge-fund manager Richard Perry. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President Gary Cohn left his seat with Anchorage Capital Group LLC’s Kevin Ulrich to visit at their table.
Leonard Blavatnik gives a lot of money to Israel, sits on the board of Tel Aviv University.
Richard Perry and his wife are big Hillary supporters. Perry sits on the board of the rightwing Israel Project and has hosted reporters to hear from a Mossad official at his office in New York.
Barbra Streisand is surely a big liberal. She hosts fundraisers for the Friends of the Israeli army, an occupying force that killed nearly 400 Palestinian children in Gaza 4 years ago.
So again, it is impossible to speak seriously about a Democratic politician’s policy ambitions without talking about the importance of Israel to fundraisers.
Tomorrow Bill Clinton will speak in Israel and get $500,000 for his foundation.
Does that matter to Perry and Cohn and Weingarten? I think so.
Am I saying that all these potential backers are also Zionists who back Israel right or wrong? I don’t know for sure. Randi Weingarten, for instance, may be listening to our side. She is a member of the downtown synagogue CBST, which hosted an important conversation about the failures of Israeli democracy.
But I don’t know. What I do know is that the Jewish establishment is critical to any Democratic politician’s ambitions, and that the Jewish establishment is marbled with Israel support. And until our media begin discussing the centrality of the ideology of Zionism inside the Jewish community, well– rightwingers like Richard Perry will blend in with liberal Zionists, and policy will remain fixed in support of the occupation.
And true diversity, which includes anti-Zionists with a lot to say inside Jewish life, will only flower at the margins.
Any doubt now that Hillary Clinton intends to run for President?
She is by far, by miles, the likeliest next President, I (from my limited-vision British vantage point) would say. And we know, O mi god we know, where she stands on the ME at least to every appearance. Mind you, if I were an Israeli, I wouldn’t trust her further than I could throw a grand piano.
Bravo. Big money and power, behind Hillary Clinton, intends to make sure she does little to stop the growth of illegal Jewish colonies in the West Bank, should she get into the White House. Fair statement?
“The democrats under Obama are working side by side with alqaida in Syria and other hot-spots in the mideast and regular Joe and Jane have been reading about it all on the net”
Oh horseshit. “Regular Joe and Jane” are not informed, nor are they informing themselves. Most of us here, and on sites such as this, are anomalies. “Regular Joe and Jane”s are getting their world view from the mainstream media.
You talk to your neighborhood “Regular Joe and Jane”s at any length? If you do, I doubt you would offer such a naive rant as you do in your comment. One of the most honest foreign policy sites I read is Moonofalabama. You think that site is widely recognized by your “Regular Joe and Jane”s???? Ask someone who Sybil Edmonds is. Are they going to say “Oh yeah, she has that “Boiling Frogs” website”??? Of course not.
We are years away from the kind of social enlightenment you so optimistically apply to this coming election cycle. Nothing is going to change as long as a very few informed members of our society unrealistically assume the general public shares their desire to find the truth. Such unfounded optimism inspires complacency in those of us, the informed, that should be screaming from the rooftops. Sites such as these merely provide the fodder that we must bring to the dinner table, the gym, the boardroom, the pews, and the office. We have a long way to go, and we aren’t even close to getting there.
Democrats…Republicans…Democrats…Republicans….blahblahblah…..
Gads, after seeing what happened to Ron Paul, and before him, Dennis Kucinich, and before him, Conyers……
How the heck can such optimism survive? It blows my mind. Do you really think, after these last three election cycles, that the results are not planned, pre-ordained, manipulated, and choreographed? Are you all really unable to recognize the charade that is being played out by this so called “partisan divide” that our politicians have so slickly created to keep us bickering amongst ourselves while they pursue global power and obscene wealth? Egads, if Obama’s duplicity and insincere posturing hasn’t opened your eyes, what will?