Rubio calls out Clinton over settlements — and his biggest donor funds one

Here is another sign that we are going to see the issue of Israeli settlements in occupied territories politicized in next year’s election campaign.

In March, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida gave a speech on the Senate floor calling on the U.S. to give unconditional support to Israel, including its settlement project in the West Bank, which he described as “Judea and Samaria” and vital to Israel’s defense.

Rubio called out Hillary Clinton because she “berated” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for 45 minutes in 2010 over the question of settlements in East Jerusalem. “As if Jerusalem was not part of Israel,” Rubio said.

He went on to assail Obama for criticizing settlements at the United Nations and he said that Israel could not “return to its indefensible pre-1967 borders.”

Now it turns out that Rubio’s biggest backer, Norman Braman, the Florida businessman who is expected to spend between $10 and 25 million on Rubio’s presidential campaign, is a friend of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

Eli Clifton reports that Braman has supported the Israeli settlement of Ariel.

Between 2004 and 2008, Braman’s family foundation contributed $311,000 to American Friends of Ariel, an organization that funds the development of Ariel, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank…. Ariel is illegal under international law and in direct contradiction of U.S. policy.

Braman helped promote and raise money for the settlement at a 2007 “Peace with Security Dinner” for American Friends of Ariel, held in Fort Lauderdale. Braman served as honorary chairman of the dinner and the “dinner committee” included Zionist Organization of America president Morton Klein and bingo-magnate Irving Moskowitz, a high profile funder of Israeli settlements.

Last year, Ariel mayor Eliyahu Shaviro made an “inaugural trip to the USA” in which he met with “generous supporters like Norman Braman,” according to a Friends of Ariel press release.

Ariel University in the West Bank, photo by Scott Roth
Ariel University in the West Bank, photo by Scott Roth

Marco Rubio lately told the New York Times that Braman never asked him for anything. But many of Braman’s ideas about Israel as an answer to the Holocaust, about the scourge of delegitimization of Israel, about Obama’s criticism of Israel, and about the negative role of the U.N. were echoed by Rubio in his speech in March. Hardly surprising, given that Braman has been a father figure to Rubio and met him in Israel days after the senator was first elected, in 2010.

Rubio:

“Israel represents everything we want that region of the world to be. Israel is a democracy…. Don’t we wish the entire Middle East looked that way?.. It has a special and unique purpose. It was founded as the homeland for the Jewish people in the aftermath of the second world war and the Holocaust… It’s not just a nation, it’s a nation with a special and unique purpose, unlike any other nation in the world….

“They [Israel] need American support, unconditionally. If there are differences, they need to be dealt with privately, like with other allies.”

And Benjamin Netanyahu is right, Rubio said: “A two state solution is impossible given the current circumstances.”

Eli Clifton says that Rubio has emerged as the neoconservative favorite in the campaign:

Braman and [Paul] Singer seem to like what they’re hearing as Rubio emerges as the GOP presidential candidate most sympathetic to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, although he has heavy competition. Rubio, for his part, appears to be on a well-paid campaign to disrupt diplomacy with Iran as well as any possibility of a two-state solution between Israel and a future Palestinian state.

Paul Singer’s Elliott Management has been Rubio’s second-largest contributor in the years 2009-2014. And Singer has been a major funder of neoconservative shops, The Israel Project and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Paul Singer is also central because he was Jeb Bush’s host last week at New York’s Metropolitan Club when Bush made his famous flip-flop, embracing his brother George as his top Middle East adviser.

It’s no wonder that Jeb Bush is pandering to Singer; he has to take on Rubio on these issues in order to try and get Paul Singer away from Rubio in the coming campaign.

By the way, Chris Matthews said that Bush was speaking to “a Jewish group” when he did that flipflop. But it wasn’t a Jewish group; it was financiers, according to the Washington Post, gathered by “GOP mega-donor Paul Singer and his advisers so their associates could hear from Bush.” Now I think Matthews’s error is understandable. There is only one group in our country calling for war with Iran, and that’s rightwing pro-Israel Jews. They are well-connected in Jewish organizational life, and the established Jewish community has maintained unity around these militant views for a long time– though lately it is at last permitting criticism of these hawks.  The growing Jewish diversity on these questions is what will allow the Democratic nominee for president to run against the settlements, I predict; she will be able to raise big money and criticize the settlement project, somewhat anyway. Though I wonder whether Clinton will adopt Rubio’s view of Jerusalem.

 

20 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

I love the “indefensible pre-1967 borders” meme. They seem to have been defended pretty well over the years.

I don’t understand the optimistic tone in your last paragraph. It’s been standard boilerplate rhetoric and U.S. Policy for decades to make noises opposing the settlements. It’s how most liberal Zionists define themselves as liberal. In most cases this opposition is little more than a fig leaf–it almost never leads the self-proclaimed critic of settlements to advocate any meaningful pressure on Israel to stop them.

What is happening now is that Republicans are abandoning liberalZionism and embracing the rightwing variety outright. Your hope is that maybe this will force Democrats into open opposition. Maybe, but I can see how it will go– the Democrats will stick to the 2ss as the best thing for Israel, will continue to proclaim their love for Israel, but it won’t mean they will advocate pressure on Israel. In short, the Overton window shifts right and you’re hoping this leads to a debate, but it’s not one that will include Palestinians–it will be between two different styles of giving Palestinians the shaft.

Scott Roth’s picture of the guy at Ariel U. was already imprinted on my mind! I think of it every time I read about that illegal University.

It’s one of the many faces of illegal settlements, settlers, and Israeli Occupation.

Don’t you just love the way people can be confused between a group of financiers and a group of large Jewish donors? Guess it’s basically the same guys wearing different hats. (What did the Protocols say? I never read them.)

When I complain about governance bi the BIGs and mention BIG-ZION and BIG-BANKs as different categories I never fail to think of the likelihood of overlaps. Jewish banksters? Who’d a thot? Monsanto run by a Zionist? Could be! and not necessarily Jewish either, for that matter. Big-Health-Insurance run by a friend of Israel? why not? Defense industries? don’t get me started, but they’d have different reasons for wishing to keep the arms race racing in M/E.

This Rubio character is extremely scary. I’d rather not imagine what Israel would get up to with someone like him as POTUS. But would Clinton be any better?

I can only see very dark times ahead.