The United States has famously acted as Israel’s lawyer during the peace process, and here is further evidence. In the Camp David negotiations, the U.S. agreed to run all proposals by Israel before making any offer to Palestinians, lest the Israelis find the proposals “unsatisfactory.” And even as he negotiated with the Syrians, Bill Clinton cautioned Israel against giving up the Golan Heights because the Syrians would want to poison the Sea of Galilee. What a dishonest broker!
Jeff Stein reports in Newsweek on a new book out by an Israeli journalist that is getting attention because the book offers further documentation of Israel’s aggressive surveillance of the U.S.: Israel eavesdropped on President Clinton’s calls to then Syrian president Hafez al-Assad so as to know what the two were saying about Israeli P.M. Ehud Barak’s offer to withdraw from the Golan Heights in 1999.
Cursed Victory: A History of Israel and the Occupied Territories, scheduled for publication in the U.K. next week, also has this gem:
[Author Aharon] Bregman also obtained a copy of a letter from Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, to Barak’s predecessor as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, marked “SECRET,” promising that the U.S. would check with Israel first before offering peace proposals to the Arabs. “Recognizing the desirability of avoiding putting forward proposals that Israel would consider unsatisfactory,” Albright wrote Netanyahu on Nov. 24, 1998, “the U.S. will conduct a thorough consultation process with Israel in advance with respect to any ideas the U.S. may wish to offer to the parties for their consideration. This would be particularly true,” Albright wrote, “with respect to security issues or territorial issues related to security…”
Albright, who was traveling in Brazil this week, declined to comment, according to an aide.
No wonder Netanyahu said that the US is something that can be “easily moved.”
In the end the Golan Heights talks foundered. According to the secret telephone transcripts the Israeli author published, Clinton blames Assad’s foreign minister, and makes excuses for the Israelis not wanting to give up occupied territory. Talk about being Israel’s lawyer and demonizing Arabs:
“[Syrian Foreign minister Farouk al-] Shara has screwed us… “ Clinton told Barak on Dec. 15, 1999, according to a transcript acquired by Bregman. “I think that the most important thing for you is the Sea of Galilee. If I were in your place I would be concerned that someone” — Syria — “could try to poison the water of the Sea of Galilee….”
But Madeleine Albright blamed the Israelis:
Albright lashed out at the prime minister, blaming Israel for the deadlock in the negotiations and for “playing with” Clinton’s credibility. “Very frankly…in all our history we haven’t had so many telephone conversations, the vast majority of which were on your initiative, and in these conversations you said it was very important to advance on the Syrian track…and we took it very seriously,” she told Barak, according to a Jan. 10, 2000 transcript obtained by Bregman. ”But you surprised us… because you have made the decision not to progress fast… Nothing has happened from your side… You have not got a better friend than the U.S. and you have no better friend than Clinton and you have played with his credibility… They [the Syrians] have been flexible… and we are concerned.”
Albright refused to demonize the Syrians, and called the Israelis on racism:
On Sept. 29, 1999, agents listened in as Syrian foreign minister [Farouk] al-Shara called Assad from New York to report on his meeting with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. “She shows a lot of understanding … “ al-Shara said, according to a transcript obtained by Bregman. “[The Americans] are learning … I have explained to her that this [issue of land] is very sensitive … every meter is important [for Syria]… She understood this but said that the other ones” — the Israelis– “insist. She said, `But this is what they want,’ so I told her, ‘convince them [otherwise].’” Shara also reported to Assad that he told Albright he was upset by Israel’s “racist” language in the talks. “[The Israelis] say that they will not allow [the Syrians] to dip their toes in the water [of the Sea of Galilee]. I said that these are racist words … She showed sympathy… She said to me, `You’re right’ … So she understands, Sir.’”
So let’s get this straight: Clinton is telling the Israelis that the Syrians want to poison the Sea of Galilee even as his secretary of state is saying that it’s racist to keep Syrians from bathing in the sea of Galilee. Aren’t the Americans talking out of both sides of their mouths?
RE: “And even as he negotiated with the Syrians, Bill Clinton cautioned Israel against giving up the Golan Heights because the Syrians would want to poison the Sea of Galilee. What a dishonest broker!” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: Oh, Phil! Really now, you should know better. Notwithstanding its being the weekend, you really shouldn’t get me started on Bill Clinton, because you just never really know what that might lead to; especially on evenings like this when I’m in no condition to even know what condition my condition is in [YouTube VIDEO 03:21]
Well anyway, here I go.
THE CLINTON CHRONICLES, Rant No. 18
About ten years or so ago, Warren Buffett began talking about the fact that he paid federal taxes at a lower rate than the rate at which his secretary was taxed by the U.S. This was because his secretary paid taxes on “ordinary income”, whereas he paid taxes mostly on “capital gains”, which were taxed at a lower rate than was ‘ordinary income’.
Upon checking, I was surprised to discover that, as of that time, ‘capital gains’ were apparently taxed by the federal government at a mere 15%. I was thinking about how much lower this rate was than I had expected, when suddenly I had a flashback to the 1980s, and President Reagan was on TV defending his proposal to lower the top tax rate for individuals from 50% to 28% by reminding everyone it was just one part of his “tax-simplification” proposal (which was eventually enacted as the Tax Reform Act of 1986) that was designed to be tax-revenue neutral; and since the proposal would do away with the different tax rates for ‘ordinary income’ and for ‘capital gains’, the higher tax rate for capital gains would help make up for the lower top tax rate for individuals. Furthermore, thanks to the tax-simplification resulting from the elimination of a lower tax rate for ‘capital gains’, there would be no need for the hoards of accountants and tax attorneys who in the past did nothing but try to turn ‘ordinary income’ to ‘capital gains’ so it would be taxed at the lower rate.
As my flashback ended, I instantly became even more furious than Mike Malloy seems to get during his most intense rants about Dick Cheney; because it was obvious to me that “those sorry GOP bastards” used all that hooey about “tax-simplification” and the higher tax on ‘capital gains’ to justify a whopping reduction (50% to 28%) in the tax on ‘ordinary income’ (for the most part only benefiting the very wealthy), and then when enough time had passed so that it would have been virtually impossible to undo the massive tax cut for ‘ordinary income’ (largely benefiting the wealthy), those sorry GOP bastards brought back (‘tax simplification’ be damned) the lower tax rate for ‘capital gains’.
I was really fuming at this point, and I was determined to find out how those sorry GOP bastards managed to resurrect the lower tax rate for ‘capital gains’ (and the concomitant hoards of accountants and tax attorneys).
It took a while but I finally found it; but surprise, surprise, it wasn’t just “those sorry GOP bastards” who were involved. In fact, it was the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 that, subject to certain phase-in rules, reduced the top marginal long term capital gains rate from 28% (i.e. the same as the tax rate for ordinary income) to 20%, and it was signed into law by none other than William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton himself (with, I assume, the enthusiastic support of Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers)! So much for President Reagan’s “tax-simplification”. Viva la accountants and tax attorneys!
And, although I am certainly no more of an economist than I am a tax attorney, I’m willing to assume that this reduction in the tax rate for capital gains was pretty effective at ginning up the economy during much of Clinton’s second term. Not only that, but I think it’s fair to assume that it played a significant role in the creation of the “dot-com bubble”, that then made possible the “dot-com crash”. The crash and accompanying recession did not do much to help Al Gore’s campaign for the presidency, but it did provide George W. Bush with an excuse to send send out checks for a few hundred dollars each to most people, while he and Cheney treated their wealthy friends/supporters/donors to far more generous tax cuts, including yet another reduction in the top marginal long term capital gains rate, this time from 20% to 15%.
Shmuel- Replying has been closed on the Brussels thread, so I resume it here.
You are still maintaining that this was a professional spy hit on the Israelis, with the suspect carrying his Kalashnikov with him on the bus? You’ve had too many beers and are talking out of your a**. How much you wanna bet that this guy had nothing to do with spies and was only there murdering, because he wanted to get vengeance against Zionism? How many beers?
American should not allow Clinton ( Woman version) to win the primary.
From the dept of the surreal:
“There is no one who should be more concerned with the air force’s readiness than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the development and planning of a military option against Iran was at the top of his agenda for the last five years.
And what was Netanyahu up to as the air force was informing its pilots that training was canceled? Thanks to political affairs reporters, we now know that Netanyahu was mainly preoccupied with a last-minute effort to promote the candidacy of an 85-year-old Jew, who is not even an Israeli citizen, as the country’s next president. ”
(and)
“Ya’alon’s campaign to receive an immediate budget boost began in a threat-filled appearance before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. For over three weeks, Netanyahu did not convene even a single meeting of the cabinet – the body that is supposed to discuss the issue. This crisis is also a result of a leadership vacuum, in which the prime minister is both absent and present in the process of decision making, allowing cabinet ministers to attack each other.
Someone who cannot display such equanimity is the chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz. Months away from the end of his term, he appears concerned that all his work is going down the drain. Credit for the quiet enjoyed by Israel’s citizens, despite the turmoil in the Arab world, is due to Gantz as much as it is to Netanyahu. The IDF consistently operates far beyond our borders, without committing errors that could lead to escalation. ”
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.596426
” The IDF consistently operates far beyond our borders, without committing errors that could lead to escalation. ”
What “borders”? But the admission of the author is otherwise quite stunningly honest, eh?
we reported khalidi mentioning on chris hayes:
https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2013/03/gandhis-diplomats-erakat.html