Another landmark in the censorship of Palestinians from the official discourse: This John Podesta email at Wikileaks is getting a workout on twitter today. The Clinton campaign chairman urged speechwriters to take out a cue to “how Israel is treating the Palastinians” from a speech Hillary Clinton was giving to the Saban Forum in Washington the next day, December 6, 2015.
On page 16, in the graph beginning Many Americans feel a deep emotional connection…the paragraph is about Israel, but evokes how people feel about how Israel is treating the Palastinians. I think I’d cut or rework.
Clinton gave the speech that Sunday to the pro-Israel shop at Brookings, with Haim Saban on stage. There was only one reference in her speech to Palestinian suffering, and no indication of who causes it: “Israeli children have been killed as have Palestinian children.”
Clinton also said Palestinian leaders were inciting violence, and Israelis lived in the shadow of “terror.” The speech made one indirect reference to Israeli settlements, and promised just what Democrats have been promising lately— no unilateral action against Israel at the U.N.
Everyone has to do their part to create the conditions for progress by taking positive actions that can rebuild trust andby avoiding damaging actions including with respect to settlements and at the same time we should oppose any unilateral action at the United Nations.
As for the paragraph Podesta tagged, it was almost the end of Clinton’s speech. As she delivered it, the ending was a hymn to the miracle of Israel.
Many Americans feel a deep emotional connection with Israel. In its story we see some of our own and we see the story of all people who struggle for freedom and self-determination. We see a homeland for people long oppressed and a thriving economy that is a model for how innovation, entrepreneurship and freedom can delivery prosperity even in unforgiving circumstances. So we are two nations woven together. Lands built by immigrants and exiles seeking to live and worship in freedom, given life by democratic principles and sustained by the service and sacrifice of generations of patriots. Yet even with all this history, with all our common interests and shared values none of us can or should take our relationship for granted.
With every passing year we must tie the bonds tighter, reach out to the next generation to bring them with us and do the hard necessary work of friendship because there is a new generation in both countries today that does not remember that shared past. Young Americans who didn’t see Israel in a fight for survival again and again, young Israeli’s who didn’t see the United States broker peace at Camp David or kindle hope at Oslo or stand behind Israel when it was attacked, they are growing up in a different world and the future of our relationship depends on building new ties for a new time. Ben Gurion once said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.”….
Former Obama national security adviser Tom Donilon also weighed in on the speech that Saturday, Dec. 5, saying that the pro-Israel talk had to be stronger:
At page 4–not sure that “take to the next level” is strong enough. Maybe something like Take our already strong relationship and continue to deepen and perfect it. The US and Israel must always do the work necessary to ensure that we are the strongest of allies.”
The Clinton team did not incorporate his suggestions.
Podesta’s stance is consistent with the Clinton team’s all-hands-on-deck effort on the Democratic Party platform last summer, to make sure that it didn’t refer to “occupation” or “settlements.”
Oh, and this email came out last week: back in June 2015, ardent Israel supporter Haim Saban offered political counsel to the campaign braintrust.
She needs to differentiate herself from Obama on Israel .It can easily be done w/o criticizing the President,and this so that she can recapture the 11% [of the Jewish vote] lost between 2012 and 1992. We addressed this in our meeting yesterday: +speak strongly against anti-Semitism, and boycott. +reaffirm the US commitment to Israel’s security…
This is NOT a NY or California issue,,,,it is a Florida one.
Saban referred to Bill Clinton getting 80 percent of the Jewish vote in 1992, and Barack Obama getting 69 percent in 2012. But Obama had polled at 78 percent in 2008. It’s not a NY or California issue, because only in Florida are Jewish voters a swing vote.
Two weeks later Clinton released her letter to Saban attacking the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and promising to work with Republicans to defeat BDS.
Thanks to Adam Horowitz, and Eli Clifton on twitter: “Podesta knows audience for HRC’s speech @ Saban Forum.”
Clinton probably makes the same pillow-talk to Koch and the BIG-OILers. Where’s her adamant declaration of the danger to the world (and to the USA) about global warming climate change (GWCC)? I know it’s boring to talk about GWCC on this I/P site, but if we want a future for ANY part of the human race, we need that future to be on earth. (You know, the earth love it or leave it.) That includes I/P.
(I do wish the holocaust remembrancers (may I so refer to them?) would start talking about GWCC which would kill all the Jews who survived holocaust unscathed (or scathed for that matter).
She most certainly does not put America first…..she is paid to put Israeli interests first and on that basis should not be allowed to fill the Presidential position. She betrays America and drags its Status further down by supporting Israel’s detestable actions and promising to ensure their impunity…absolutely disgusting.
“Clinton also said Palestinian leaders were inciting violence, and Israelis lived in the shadow of “terror.””
Sounds like the Palestinians have been occupying Israelis for nearly half century.
“Ally” my a*se (Oxford English orthography)! If all the USA’s “allies” treated it with the contempt, perfidy and worse that Israel does, neither the State Department nor the Democratic Party would need to invent “new” enemies such as Russia. It frustrates me beyond words that NO-ONE in MSM has the cojones so spell out to the American public the simple truth about this “special relationship”, the damage it does to their country’s image and credibility on the world stage, the facts about some of Israel’s acts of “friendship” towards America over the decades; and the motivation behind such acts.