I have the impression today that there is now widespread knowledge of and discomfort with the special relationship inside the U.S. but an inability to express these views. Some evidence: The Palm Beach Post reports on a Democratic Party official in Florida who doesn’t like the occupation but sure learned to keep her mouth shut about it. Note that a Jewish party chair interpreted these criticisms as anti-Semitic, and the offending official then accepted that charge.
Ask yourself what would have happened to her if emails came out in which she had criticized the American presence in Afghanistan– would she have lost her post?
Evelyn Garcia, a member of the Democratic National Committee from Palm Beach County, resigned the post Monday after emails surfaced in which she sharply criticized Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
Garcia, a candidate for the State House of Representatives from District 88, which includes parts of West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach, said she would continue to campaign for that seat. She apologized for her remarks and called them “ugly” and “hurtful.”
… Some of the [emails] appear to have been written to a South Florida Congressional aide.
“The continued Israeli occupation of Palestine is ugly on moral, ethical, religious and legal grounds,” Garcia said in an email dated July 26, 2011. “Palestinians had nothing to do with the holocaust and it is time that this guilt trip was taken off their backs…. And I deeply resent U.S. taxpayer funds being used to continue Israeli aggression.”
In that same email, Garcia accused Israel of confiscating land and building illegal settlements in occupied territories, as well as “incursions that kill people, destroy civilian homes and infrastructure all over; mass concentration prison camps, etc.”
…County Democratic Party Chairman Mark Alan Siegel accepted Garcia’s resignation Monday afternoon. He called the emails “grossly inappropriate.”…
In a separate statement emailed later Friday to The Palm Beach Post, Garcia said: “My comments were not only inappropriate and hurtful, they are exactly the kind of ugly rhetoric that is not conducive to the overall atmosphere needed to create a prosperous peace and security for both parties. I apologize to anyone I offended and to my friends in the Democratic Party, in particular, members of the Jewish faith whom I have worked with for years.”
June27 2011 1
It’s very sad to see proud representatives of the people reduced to snivelling wretches by the power of the lobby. I do hope there that one day there isn’t a fearful backlash against it.
Hasabra will switch to full gear to defend the indefensible culture in political landscape.Their argument is predictable and will run as follows-” Mc Chrystal had to resign after he did not like Obama’s approach to war” and the voters will move forward. The difference between generating a debate and practice of policies will be forgotten.
She should’ve stood her ground. But Palm Beach is filled with geezer Jews with lots of dough, so south Florida politics hovers around them, at least on the South East Coast.
So what choice did she have? Still, it’s hard to see if she has any political future now in that area of the nation. She might as well go independent or whatnot.
Finklestein’s forced departure from De paul, removal of Obama’s muslim supporter from visibility,refusal to allow Desmond Tutu to speak in the college of Minnesota,and at the American Psychiatric conference of 2011,stopping the publication of book critical of Israel in France and attempt to do so in USA ( the book by University of Michigan faculty and the book by Mersheimer and Walt),removal of Sanchez from CNN and hounding out of Sylvia Nasr from CNN, use of vertically integrated McArthismesque tactics to get Helen Thomas combined with similar transatlantic success in England (against a number of MPs and party officers ) and in Germany ( against Gunter ) show that the poisoned ,effective successful influences over media,academy,educational events,politics,and governments ( ? anything left) of the lobby has driven a knife in the very essence of western society and in the ideas of human choices based on information.
This has become possible for the discussion and decision over Isarel-Arab were always kept out of the view of the public and forced inaction from the citizen.
This is why in today’s NYTimes Tom Friedman writes that Jewish were always focused on vertical rather than transverse participation in any society,always suspicious of common people . Interestingly same reason was offered and supported by the late father of PM Nethanyhoo in the book “Inquisition” .
i hope she raises a bunch of funds from people around the country as a result of these revelations going public. it is a shame she kowtowed and resigned her DNC position but none the less she’s still running.
it’s grotesque that the democratic party supports the occupation. it’s supposed to represent the democrats, not israelis or zionists.