Sheldon Adelson, who pressed the White House to nuke Iran, now seems to have threatened Jeb Bush over the fact that a foreign policy adviser, James Baker, addressed a liberal Zionist group last month.
At issue was Baker’s speech to J Street, which has opposed the settlement project in the West Bank. National Review reports
Adelson sent word to Bush’s camp in Miami: Bush, he said, should tell Baker to cancel the speech. When Bush refused, a source describes Adelson as “rips***”; another says Adelson sent word that the move cost the Florida governor “a lot of money.”
The tension between Bush and Adelson doesn’t mean the candidate won’t have a chance to raise money from the rest of the pro-Israel crowd.Bush did not attend this year’s RJC leadership meeting, last weekend in Las Vegas, but several of his allies, including Mel Sembler, a top Florida bundler, and Fred Zeidman, a Houston-based fundraiser, were there. His son Jeb Bush Jr. was also in attendance, and his brother George W. Bush delivered the keynote address. Aides to the former Florida governor handed out buttons with “Jeb” emblazoned in Hebrew.
And maybe the need for Adelson’s money is what got George W. Bush to come out of his shell, and attend that RJC event in Vegas and attack Obama’s Iran deal? (“Warmonger critical of diplomacy that averts war”– J Street’s Dylan Williams)
The truckling goes on. Jeb Bush went to the Ramaz School in New York to say the Iran deal is “naive”, while Rand Paul met Jewish day school leaders in Brooklyn. MSNBC
Paul said of his stance toward Israel. “All I can do is keep saying what I believe in,” he added, calling Israel one of America’s “best allies and best friends around the world.”
Paul’s stop in Brooklyn comes just days after his potential GOP rival, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, visited The Ramaz School, an orthodox Jewish day school, to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day. Bush has come under fire by some for not immediately coming out against his foreign policy adviser James A. Baker, who was critical of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
All this pandering does raise the possibility that the Israel lobby is going to be an issue in the 2016 campaign, with Democrats including Hillary Clinton taking the J Street line, and a few of them actually talking about the end of the two state solution.
Wonder how the other oligarchs (big-banks, big-ag, big-defense, oil, coal, etc ad naus) will feel about the openness of this display of buying political favors. And how will voters feel if they learn (but will they learn? who will dare to tell them? Is Colbert still there?) about this buying-up of the Republican candidates in advance.
There’s a civics lesson in there somewhere. Do they still teach “civics” in high school?
I can see that the super-Pro-Israeli groups may want to fund Jeb Bush less for Baker talking to a liberal, “pro-peace, pro-Israeli” group.
To give an example, facebook is certainly an influential company nowadays.
http://communitarian.ru/upload/medialibrary/848/848cf8f1911ac0a17c96579626bf6cde.jpg
The meme of “standing with Israel” sounds much more conservative and uncompromising.
More self-hating, anti-Semitic misreporting from Weiss. What Adelson really said was that Baker had cost Jeb his vote. This is all about jockeying for the crucial Jewish vote. Nothing to do with money.
Be still my heart!
I can only hope that this emboldens the Dems to finally do something right wrt Israel. There will be dancing in the street and lines at the polls.
Beinart’s column today was:
“For the American right, Israel embodies the values that Obama’s U.S. no longer does”
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.654191?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it
James Baker pushed back somewhat on Israel’s land theft (aka “settlements”) when he was Secretary of State. It was a temporary breath of fresh sanity. So to zionists, his mind is obviously “infected” with the anti-Semitism disease (perhaps a genetic condition and hence incurable). Therefore he cannot be allowed anywhere near the zionist party’s presidential candidate.