Israel interferes in our politics all the time, and it’s never a scandal

I completely believe that Donald Trump was in bed with the Russians before the election and the campaign may well have intrigued with Vladimir Putin with respect to Wikileaks and that helped defeat Hillary Clinton. I believe that because that’s how the world works; because a lot of very smart people in the liberal establishment believe it; and because the New York Times and Washington Post are documenting some of it, with the fervor of Watergate.

Maybe it will bring the liar in chief down some day and end this short national nightmare. I certainly hope so.

But there are two large exceptions to the Russian conspiracy. The first is that it is good policy for the United States to be talking to Russia. If Clinton were president today, there might be dogfights over Damascus. Her gang was all for regime change in Syria, and for confrontation over the Ukraine. That’s bad policy. I’m glad they’re not running the show– though they are certainly running this story. Before you get too upset about Russia winking at the sanctions, the scandal that brought down Michael Flynn, please recall that in 2012, President Obama sent secret signals to Iran to ignore congressional sanctions, we’ll be talking to you once I’m reelected. Obama got reelected; and his deal with Iran is one of the greatest achievements of a very good presidency. Again, this is how the world works.

Which brings up the second exception. Israel tried to interfere in that 2012 election, as Chris Matthews sensibly reminded his audience recently: Benjamin Netanyahu tried to help Mitt Romney beat Obama. Sheldon Adelson held a fundraiser in Jerusalem for Romney.

Netanyahu didn’t stop there. After Romney lost, Netanyahu came to Congress to tell the Congress to reject President Obama’s nuclear deal. That was an unprecedented interference of a foreign leader in our policy-making, enabled by the Israel lobby; but there were never any investigations about that. Subsequently Chuck Schumer said he was torn between a Jewish interest and the American interest, before voting against the president, and he paid no political/reputational price for it; while President Obama said that it would be an “abrogation” of his constitutional duty if he considered Israel’s interest ahead of the U.S.; for which Obama was called an anti-semite.

Throughout those negotiations, Obama could never address the fact that Israel has nukes. This lie is honored by the press, in a way that it would never honor Trump’s lies. And the manner in which Israel got nukes, including thefts from an American company with the complicity of the White House, is only investigated by peripheral figures.

The Israeli interference in our politics is the conspiracy in plain sight that no one in the media talks about because they’re too implicated themselves. The two top executives at the largest media company, Comcast, are pro-Israel; one of them, David Cohen, raised money for the Israeli army. Netanyahu’s speeches to Congress were written by Gary Ginsberg, an executive at another media company, Time Warner, but hey, that’s not an issue. Four New York Times reporters have had children serve in the Israeli army. One of them is columnist David Brooks, who says that he gets gooey-eyed when he visits Israel. He is one of several Zionists with columns at the Times. Tom Friedman justified the Iraq War because suicide bombers were going into Tel Aviv pizza parlors. (Huh?) Yesterday Martin Indyk said on National Public Radio that Jared Kushner’s strong Jewish background was an asset for his being a Middle East mediator, a job that Aaron David Miller, who also has a strong Jewish background, defined as being Israel’s lawyer. Indyk, himself a mediator, started a pro-Israel thinktank with Haim Saban, an Israeli-American who was Clinton’s biggest funder and who lately smeared Keith Ellison at a giant gathering at Brookings, which he also helps fund, as “clearly an anti-semite” and “anti-Israel;” and Jake Tapper of CNN moved on to the next question, presumably because smearing a public official in that manner is not news. Saban is also chummy with Jeffrey Goldberg, one of whose qualifications for being the best journalist in his generation, according to the Atlantic’s publisher, is that he served in the Israeli Defense Forces, because he felt that America was unsafe for Jews. One of Goldberg’s first hires as editor at the Atlantic is Julia Ioffe, who hates Russia, and who told a synagogue audience last year after she was attacked as a Jew by Trump supporters: “Personally I was kind of glad to see the outpouring of antisemitism” because people had forgotten that Jews and Israel are the “underdog.” At another NY synagogue, believing that he was speaking off the record, Dennis Ross, the longtime White House “mediator” of the peace process, said that American Jews must be “advocates” for Israel, not for Palestinians. Again, not a scandal. But when Rashid Khalidi, who wrote a book about the U.S. being imbalanced in the peace process, warned that neoconservatives would “infest” the Trump administration, he was smeared up and down as an anti-semite.

I could go on and on. I can’t because Netanyahu is in the White House today, and I need to get on the news. Netanyahu who President Obama met with countless times, Netanyahu who John Kerry talked to as secretary of state four times as often as he spoke to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Which is hardly surprising, because as Kerry complained to Jeffrey Goldberg, we give Israel more military aid than we give the rest of the world combined, and meantime they ignore our warnings. They can ignore us because of the Israel lobby, including AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which doesn’t have to register as a foreign agent because of sleight-of-hand they pulled back in the 60s, defying Senator Fulbright.  AIPAC never gets called for this because the two countries are viewed to have completely congruent interests– when we don’t. So Phil Gordon leaves the State Department and goes to a conference in Israel just like Super Bowl winners going to Disneyland; all the Israeli ambassadors grew up in the States; and Benjamin Netanyahu came of age here, a subject that is never considered problematic; because we have a political discourse in which a leading liberal journalist, Eric Alterman, brags: “I was raised dually loyal my whole life.”

Alterman told a Jewish audience in New York he was alright with that because the U.S. can take a hit but Israel can’t. He then conceded that “bin Laden and 9/11 were to some degree inspired by U.S. support of Israel,” and so are the “pool of potential terrorists who want to attack the United States.” Though: “Dammit, if that’s the price we have to pay, then I’m willing to pay it.”

Other Americans may make a different calculation of U.S. interests. But let’s talk about Russia.

Thanks to Annie Robbins for guidance on this story, particularly the 2012 Iran/Obama detail.

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Many thanks for this wonderfully successful piece, Annie and Phil!

It can and should and will be passed along to the wilfully ignorant and/or incurious folks that unfortunately surround all of us.

Bravo!

PHIL- “Maybe it will bring the liar in chief down some day and end this short national nightmare. I certainly hope so.”

Are you that out of touch with reality? The neocon led Deep State has orchestrated a silent coup to overturn the election and return to anti-Russian hostilities, along with a pivot to Asia, and you are pleased? The only positive thing about the Trump administration was it’s stated intent to demilitarize US foreign policy and get control of the intelligence services. Whether he was sincere or could have made a difference we will never know. Effectively, US foreign policy is back with the CIA led Deep State. The silver lining may be that Trump’s ineptitude may hinder the process. It is also possible (likely?) that he will be impeached for all of the wrong reasons. An additional silver lining may be that this demonstrates the relative weakness of the Presidency versus the Deep State. All of this ridiculous talk of Trump’s fascism and the danger of a dictator in regards to the weakest administration I can remember. Hopefully, this Deep State power struggle will interfere with the imperial agenda at least somewhat. And for you to get caught up in this bogus narrative is, I suppose, to be expected.

I have got a couple of quotes and links to put this in perspective for those who care.

“Trump’s National Security Advisor Flynn resigned after only three weeks in office. While I am certainly no fan of Flynn or of Trump I find this defenestration a dangerous event. It will hamper any big change in U.S. foreign policy that Trump may envision.

The resignation followed a highly orchestrated campaign against Flynn by intelligence officials, the media and some people within the White House.” (Moon of Alabama) http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-flynn-defenestration-by-us-intelligence-will-hamper-trumps-foreign-policy-us-russia-relations-on-hold/5575055

“It took the Neocons and the US deep state less than a month to overturn the results of the Presidential election.

Trump now declares that he “expects Russia to return Crimea“.

It’s over folks – welcome (back) to the war between Russia and the Empire.” (The Saker) http://thesaker.is/the-anti-flynn-deep-state-coup-spelling-it-out-in-the-clearest-way-possible/

Link to Dennis Kucinich interview discussing Flynn and the intel services:
http://thesaker.is/kucinich-pins-flynn-leak-on-intel-community-warns-of-another-cold-war/

“The Israeli interference in our politics is the conspiracy in plain sight that no one in the media talks about because they’re too implicated themselves.”

Extremely true, and extremely central. Another Pulitzer Prize worthy article from Mondoweiss on this key problem for America.

Correcting this will require MSM editors and reporters with courage. A lot of face-saving will be attempted, but the courage to admit a mistake would be best for the country.

Perhaps Trump will have the effect of moving the discussion in a more open and complete direction, e.g. “Jewish groups battle over Trump’s choice for Israel ambassador”
http://mondoweiss.net/2017/02/jewish-groups-ambassador/comment-page-1/

PW believes the conspiracy because ‘ a lot of smart liberals say so’ *Smart liberals? Like the smart liberals who detested the so-called deal with Iranian tyrant mullahs and IRG? Like the smart liberals who turned off their brains to Stalins evil post ww2?

As for Kerry talking about how much aid Israel gets from the US check out the begin-sadat center(BESA) for research on which countries Actually, not just in technical loan guarantees but the actual cost dollars to the US and citizens in dollars and cents. Certainly a different b4 perspective on ‘aid’ and US blood.

* Reminds me of what a rabbi told me in my youth to no real avail. In answer to questions about why the specific laws of Judaism must be followed rigorously he said, “all you have to do is recognize that just one person you consider smarter then yourself believes in the torah and Talmud and you can then more easily accept it as an necessary practice that you yourself have not learned the full knowledge of yet” pw listens to smart liberals but probably only the one he already preappoves of in the first place. What an open minded editor.

What evidence do you have that Russia interfered with our election? This claim is without any support. I don’t trust the pro Zionist anti Russian media. Why do you Phil?