Then-Secretary of State Clinton meets Netanyahu at Blair House, DC, March 2012. State Dept photo by Michael Gross
On March 19, Hillary Clinton will be honored in New York by the American Jewish Congress. VIP table goes for $25,000; an individual can get into Cipriani for $1,000.
The Congress used to be a leading Jewish organization, but it folded four years ago and was reconstituted last year, by Jack Rosen. It’s his “show.” Rosen is a real estate guy who gave a lot of money to Bill Clinton’s campaign. And he’s devoted to Israel. The Forward reported that he gave money to the Republican Party and the Democratic Party in years gone by and raised questions about Obama’s support for Israel at a fundraiser for Obama at his house in NY in 2011 at which Obama then bragged on his support for Israel. Josh Nathan-Kazis of the Forward reported:
Rosen’s politics are driven by his support for Israel, according to New York Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “Jack Rosen is doing what’s right for Israel, and that’s his only agenda,” Sheinkopf said.
After Sheinkopf emailed Rosen to congratulate him on the fundraiser, Rosen responded: “It was a good evening for Israel.”
There is speculation that Huma Abedin, a close associate of Clinton and wife of former Congressman Anthony Weiner, was asked by Rosen to make the request of Clinton to speak at the AJCongress event. Weiner and Abedin live in a luxury apartment in a building owned by Rosen.
And you wonder why Anthony Weiner said there is no occupation. And why Obama was livid when the Democratic platform failed to say that Jerusalem was the capital of the Jewish state. And why Hillary Clinton said she was 110 percent behind Israel and she would obliterate Iran if it attacked Israel. If you are in the mainstream media, you could say, These are all random facts. Haim Saban having one agenda, Israel, and Jack Rosen’s agenda, and David Cohen of Comcast being the head of the Jewish Federations in Philly and holding fundraisers for Obama… There is no pattern here. You simply cannot generalize about the importance of conservative Jewish money on the Democratic side because that is an anti-Semitic canard.
PS I have just been reading Double Down, by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. About the last presidential campaign. It mentions Israel about four times, mostly apropos of Sheldon Adelson. Nothing about the Jerusalem floor demonstration at the Democratic convention or Obama’s desperate reversals on Israel post-2009 or Obama’s financial dependence on what he termed a “cabal” of liberal Zionists. I.e., zero pattern recognition, and a shocking abdication of the responsibility to inform. And Halperin’s father is a mainstay at liberal Zionist organizations– Mort Halperin. So he knows and he has political capital but for some reason won’t spend it. Heilemann is smart and liberal, but spineless.
“Nothing about the Jerusalem floor demonstration at the Democratic convention”
That’s because it was a lot smaller than you’d like to believe. It took place in the middle of the day in a half-full auditorium, and even then, it wasn’t clear whether the protest was about that or about the addition of God’s name to the DNC platform, which is just as divisive an issue. When politicians mentioned Israel that night in their speeches, no one was booing.
Balfour
February 20, 2014 10:08 am
Hillary and Bill Clinton are the real life counterparts to Francis and Claire Underwood.
seafoid
February 20, 2014 10:21 am
Why does the US political class always have to go to the bots for money? Is there no other source of cash ?
Krusty
February 20, 2014 10:46 am
A) In context, Obama was clearly joking and being friendly. Playing up the myth/joke with the loaded term.
B) Shocker: potential Presidential candidate going to a fundraiser from a major donor. Those at dinner get access and can potentially influence the candidate’s positions. The US needs campaign finance reform. Film at 11.
C) The majority of the leadership at most pro-LGBT organizations (a civil rights movement that has thankfully been massively successful in recent decades, but sadly still has quite a road to go down) is gay. Donorship is high amongst prominent LGBT community leaders. Is this evidence of a conspiracy?
D) Mr. Weiss, very specifically, I’d like you to answer this: do you find it incongruous that you claim Diaspora Jews are well suited to their current societies (American, Canadian, etc.) but find something unwholesome about successful Diaspora Jews’ civic engagement? This very blog is a form of civic engagement, is it not?
Would you rather American Jewry ignore Israel? Wouldn’t *that* be a stranger thing, especially considering that Zionism and Israel have been a hot button issue for over a century? There is an Israeli state, the Kerry Framework has generated a ton of news, and most Jews have an opinion on this. If anything, the timing is such that you’d expect more civic engagement on the issue of Zionism within the modern US political framework, particularly considering the current European Settlements boycott and the BDS/anti-Zionist movement and the platform its received (i.e. recent NY Times coverage/Sodastream/ASA boycott)
Incidentally, Jack Rosen was born in Germany in a displaced persons’ camp in 1949. Anti-Semitism (per the ADL’s latest survey) remains at 12% nationwide in the US. Obviously, these factors support the Zionist project: that Jews, due to their unique historical persecution, require a sovereign ethnonational state of their own. Wouldn’t someone like Rosen whose life was affected by the Holocaust be expected to understand and support that?
E) Isn’t it weird to contemplate who Abedin and Weiner’s landlord is (was? I thought they’d split?) If you live in a luxury building in Manhattan, there aren’t all that many potential landlords.
F) If Israel were as unpopular an issue as you seem inclined to think (Israel’s general approval rating in the US remains around 70%, by far the highest in the region), then politicians would respond to that and wouldn’t seek out donors with strong connections to Zionism. This means the issue isn’t “conservative”, but rather “centrist” and “bi-partisan.”
TL;DR: Doesn’t Occam’s razor explain this without a need for a conspiracy? Zionism is a popular cause generally , a key issue for an affluent demographic, and a win-win for those involved.
piotr
February 20, 2014 11:27 am
Heilemann is a nice guy, and smart and liberal, but spineless.
“But”? Liberals’ greatest fear is to be tagged “radical” and “out of mainstream”. That imposes a number of taboos, places where they cannot trod and words that they cannot utter. To paraphrase the running joke of Stephen Colbert: Israel — a great ally or the greatest?
Lately, among liberals Israel seems to be downgraded to “great”, although it is still safe to say “greatest”. More precisely, the spectrum runs from “greatest” to “great but not smart” (bravo, Tom Friedman, to be on the liberal cutting edge).
“Nothing about the Jerusalem floor demonstration at the Democratic convention”
That’s because it was a lot smaller than you’d like to believe. It took place in the middle of the day in a half-full auditorium, and even then, it wasn’t clear whether the protest was about that or about the addition of God’s name to the DNC platform, which is just as divisive an issue. When politicians mentioned Israel that night in their speeches, no one was booing.
Hillary and Bill Clinton are the real life counterparts to Francis and Claire Underwood.
Why does the US political class always have to go to the bots for money? Is there no other source of cash ?
A) In context, Obama was clearly joking and being friendly. Playing up the myth/joke with the loaded term.
B) Shocker: potential Presidential candidate going to a fundraiser from a major donor. Those at dinner get access and can potentially influence the candidate’s positions. The US needs campaign finance reform. Film at 11.
C) The majority of the leadership at most pro-LGBT organizations (a civil rights movement that has thankfully been massively successful in recent decades, but sadly still has quite a road to go down) is gay. Donorship is high amongst prominent LGBT community leaders. Is this evidence of a conspiracy?
D) Mr. Weiss, very specifically, I’d like you to answer this: do you find it incongruous that you claim Diaspora Jews are well suited to their current societies (American, Canadian, etc.) but find something unwholesome about successful Diaspora Jews’ civic engagement? This very blog is a form of civic engagement, is it not?
Would you rather American Jewry ignore Israel? Wouldn’t *that* be a stranger thing, especially considering that Zionism and Israel have been a hot button issue for over a century? There is an Israeli state, the Kerry Framework has generated a ton of news, and most Jews have an opinion on this. If anything, the timing is such that you’d expect more civic engagement on the issue of Zionism within the modern US political framework, particularly considering the current European Settlements boycott and the BDS/anti-Zionist movement and the platform its received (i.e. recent NY Times coverage/Sodastream/ASA boycott)
Incidentally, Jack Rosen was born in Germany in a displaced persons’ camp in 1949. Anti-Semitism (per the ADL’s latest survey) remains at 12% nationwide in the US. Obviously, these factors support the Zionist project: that Jews, due to their unique historical persecution, require a sovereign ethnonational state of their own. Wouldn’t someone like Rosen whose life was affected by the Holocaust be expected to understand and support that?
E) Isn’t it weird to contemplate who Abedin and Weiner’s landlord is (was? I thought they’d split?) If you live in a luxury building in Manhattan, there aren’t all that many potential landlords.
F) If Israel were as unpopular an issue as you seem inclined to think (Israel’s general approval rating in the US remains around 70%, by far the highest in the region), then politicians would respond to that and wouldn’t seek out donors with strong connections to Zionism. This means the issue isn’t “conservative”, but rather “centrist” and “bi-partisan.”
TL;DR: Doesn’t Occam’s razor explain this without a need for a conspiracy? Zionism is a popular cause generally , a key issue for an affluent demographic, and a win-win for those involved.
Heilemann is a nice guy, and smart and liberal, but spineless.
“But”? Liberals’ greatest fear is to be tagged “radical” and “out of mainstream”. That imposes a number of taboos, places where they cannot trod and words that they cannot utter. To paraphrase the running joke of Stephen Colbert: Israel — a great ally or the greatest?
Lately, among liberals Israel seems to be downgraded to “great”, although it is still safe to say “greatest”. More precisely, the spectrum runs from “greatest” to “great but not smart” (bravo, Tom Friedman, to be on the liberal cutting edge).