Ten days ago Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders yelled at constituents to “shut up” and threatened to call the police (below) when they got angry at him over his stance in support of Israeli massacres. Well, at least Sanders abstained on the vote to give Israel another $225 million during the Gaza onslaught.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren supported that funding, and she also got it from constituents last week. And she mouthed Israel’s talking points in responding. Her answers are so scripted I believe she has ambition for higher office and knows that opposing Israel would be disqualifying.
From the Cape Cod Times’s Ryan Barber, a week ago:
“We are disagreeing with Israel using their guns against innocents. It’s true in Ferguson, Missouri, and it’s true in Israel,” said Harwich resident John Bangert, who identified himself as a Warren supporter but said the $225 million could have been spent on infrastructure or helping immigrants fleeing Central America.
“The vote was wrong, I believe,” he added, drawing applause from several in the crowd.
Warren told Bangert she appreciated his comments, but “we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one.”
“I think the vote was right, and I’ll tell you why I think the vote was right,” she said. “America has a very special relationship with Israel. Israel lives in a very dangerous part of the world, and a part of the world where there aren’t many liberal democracies and democracies that are controlled by the rule of law. And we very much need an ally in that part of the world.”
Warren said Hamas has attacked Israel “indiscriminately,” but with the Iron Dome defense system, the missiles have “not had the terrorist effect Hamas hoped for.” When pressed by another member of the crowd about civilian casualties from Israel’s attacks, Warren said she believes those casualties are the “last thing Israel wants.”
“But when Hamas puts its rocket launchers next to hospitals, next to schools, they’re using their civilian population to protect their military assets. And I believe Israel has a right, at that point, to defend itself,” Warren said, drawing applause.
Noreen Thompsen, of Eastham, proposed that Israel should be prevented from building any more settlements as a condition of future U.S. funding, but Warren said, “I think there’s a question of whether we should go that far.”
Incredible. She can’t even punish Israel for the illegal colonization that destroyed any hope of a partition plan. As Robert Naiman says, she’s a two-state faker. Also, note that even American military officers are saying that Israel’s destruction of Shuja’iyeh, killing scores of civilians, was “indiscriminate” and “disproportionate,” as Mark Perry reports in Al Jazeera. War crimes.
Thanks to Adam Horowitz.
Aha! I see that you were already on top of this Philip! Terrific.
(Did not mean to preempt anything)
Another one bites the dust.
I have to thank MJR for this insight
MJ (Mike) Rosenberg @MJayRosenberg
“Netanyahu is a fucking barbarian and so is everyone in his government”.
so is Warren.
Israel kills civilians “pour encourager les autres”. And it doesn’t work.
Thanks Phil. Glenn Greenwald has posted on this at the
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/28/elizabeth-warren-speaks-israelgaza-sounds-like-netanyahu/ “> Intercept.
*Shocked* – Ha.
Too bad the guy in the crowd didn’t have any comebacks ready. For instance: “liberal democracies” have things called constitutions – Israel has no constitution. Not to mention fixed borders. Israel also has no “right to self defense” as if Gaza were a foreign entity; as the occupying power, Israel has an obligation to protect Gazan civilians like it would civilians in Israel. The other thing he might have said is: Go fuck yourself.
Israel lives in a very dangerous part of the world, and a part of the world – ” Warren
It,s like a child molester claiming Prison is a very dangerous place to be.