Have you had an espresso yet today? Have you had a drink? Make that a double! Brace yourself for the news over the weekend from the Democratic Platform Committee. The platform this year will be even worse than previous platforms on Palestine. That’s how things look, despite the insurgent anti-Benjamin-Netanyahu campaign of Bernie Sanders: there is no occupation, and no settlements either. Jerusalem forever, and death to BDS. The party belongs to Hillary Clinton. This is the Jerusalem Post’s report:
The Democratic Party plans to declare in its platform opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement [BDS], a top priority for the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
In a detailed briefing on the platform’s language exclusive to the Post, the Democrats would declare that Palestinians “should be free to govern themselves in their own viable state, in peace and in dignity.”…
Those on the committee appointed by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont have been lobbying for reference to Israel’s “occupation” and its “settlement activity” in the West Bank. Neither term ultimately made it into the language, although future negotiations are possible in Orlando and in Philadelphia, where the convention will be held later in July.
Remember that Hillary Clinton has pledged two or three times now, last year in a letter to Haim Saban, one of her biggest donors, and in a slavish performance channeling Benjamin Netanyahu at the Israel lobby group AIPAC this spring, and at the Saban Forum last December too, to fight BDS tooth and nail. This is evidently essential work to raising money on the Dem side and also recruiting neoconservative establishment support.
Oh and the plank that so divided the convention in 2012 leading to uproar on the floor, and a smashdown from President Obama:
Utilizing similar language from its 2008 and 2012 platforms, the party once again recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and states that, while the city should remain undivided, its final status should be left to direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Common Dreams says the platform as drafted is a broad betrayal of progressives. Though it will be revisited by the committee next month in Orlando and then again at the convention in Philadelphia, it is conservative on climate change, fracking and trade.
During a 9-hour meeting in St. Louis, Missouri on Friday, members of the DNC’s platform drafting committee voted down a number of measures proposed by Bernie Sanders surrogates that would have come out against the contentious Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), fracking, and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. At the same time, proposals to support a carbon tax, Single Payer healthcare, and a $15 minimum wage tied to inflation were also disregarded….
Common Dreams cites the AP report of the meeting, in which the final discussion “centered on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.”
“The committee defeated an amendment by Sanders supporter James Zogby that would have called for providing Palestinians with ‘an end to occupation and illegal settlements’ and urged an international effort to rebuild Gaza,” AP reports, measures which Zogby said Sanders helped craft.
Instead, AP reports, the adopted draft “advocates working toward a ‘two-state solution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict’ that guarantees Israel’s security with recognized borders ‘and provides the Palestinians with independence, sovereignty, and dignity.'”
Citing these “moral failures” of the platform draft, [Sanders surrogate Cornel] West abstained during the final vote to send the document to review by the full Platform Committee next month in Orlando, Florida.
So Bernie Sanders was a flash in the pan. And what will his legions of young supporters, many of whom are very progressive on Palestine, and were actually shocked by the AIPAC speech, by its grim grasping algorithm of policy/donations, have to say about this in Philadelphia? It appears the Clinton knows she can get away with this, and is prepared to live with some muffled stifled drowned cries at the convention as she sails toward the general.
Thanks to Adam Horowitz.
I’m not surprised at all. The us govt is bought and paid for and will forever be the bitch of the zionist enterprise. I believe that Bernie’s true purpose wasn’t to be president, but to be a distraction. He had to have known he wouldn’t win. He went from being the guy who told someone in an audience in his home state to “Shut up!”, to being the love connection for disaffected youth and Jews, young and old, who are sick of the crimes being comitted in their name by the zionist enterprise, and the rich taking all the cream off the top, leaving the 99% with zilch. In the end, they’ve been played on and the Palestinians are getting an all american F&#@- Y*@- from its next president.
The first report I heard stated that the platform would be devoted to Israel’s “security” while acknowledging Palestinian “aspirations.”
Personally I feel like aspiring all over Hillary Clinton right now.
But Sanders is going to vote for her. (Probably)
#BernieColdTurkey (?)
They are taking things to the next level on all fronts, no longer mention the words occupations and settlements means that’s it on to full legitimization. I’m wondering why the following is not worthy of attention on Mondoweiss?
There you have it, clear as day.
“In her presentation, Goldstein acknowledged that efforts to promote Israel as a democracy with “great beaches” had failed to stem the support for Palestinian rights, so “we have to focus on the offense, on Islamists and how they violate the basic civil rights that liberals hold very, very dear.”
Efforts to exploit and promote Islamophobiaas a way to build support for Israel are not new, but the New York meeting heralded a renewed push in that direction.
Following the advice of pro-Israel pollster Frank Luntz to appropriate leftist and human rights language, Goldstein said the anti-Muslim message would appeal to the sensibilities of liberal and progressive college students.
She argued that pro-Israel advocates had to speak about the BDS movement “in the terminology that Millennials will understand, which is the civil rights terminology.”
“[Students] want to be against apartheid? Let’s give them what to be against,” she said, “Let’s give them [sic] to be against Islamist gender, race and religious apartheid that is occurring in every single Muslim-majority country on the planet.”
As its contribution, Goldstein explained that her organization would be launching what she called “Islamist Apartheid Week” on campuses across the US, an apparent effort to counter Israeli Apartheid Week.
And while Goldstein markets herself as a “human rights attorney,” she proudly touts her friendship with Geert Wilders, the anti-Muslim Dutch politician who has been fundedby a key player in the US Islamophobia industry.
Wilders’ anti-Muslim agenda is so extreme it has even been condemned by the Anti-Defamation League, a major pro-Israel group.”
“We need to raise the stakes for those who engage in this sort of behavior, let them know their nose is going to bleed,” Abrams said in reference to fellow students who had advocated for a boycott of Israeli institutions complicit in military occupation and violations of Palestinian rights.
While speakers asserted several times that advocates should share positive messages about Israel and Zionism, Goldstein was frank that only repression of protest and BDS would shore up Israel’s eroding base of support.
“The goal is to make the enemy pay,” Goldstein said, “and to send a message, a deterrent message, that similar actions such as those that they engage in will result in massive punishments.”
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-lawfare-group-plans-massive-punishments-activists
Efforts to exploit and promote Islamophobiaas a way to build support for Israel are not new, but the New York meeting heralded a renewed push in that direction.
Following the advice of pro-Israel pollster Frank Luntz to appropriate leftist and human rights language, Goldstein said the anti-Muslim message would appeal to the sensibilities of liberal and progressive college students.
She argued that pro-Israel advocates had to speak about the BDS movement “in the terminology that Millennials will understand, which is the civil rights terminology.”
“[Students] want to be against apartheid? Let’s give them what to be against,” she said, “Let’s give them [sic] to be against Islamist gender, race and religious apartheid that is occurring in every single Muslim-majority country on the planet.”
As its contribution, Goldstein explained that her organization would be launching what she called “Islamist Apartheid Week” on campuses across the US, an apparent effort to counter Israeli Apartheid Week.
And while Goldstein markets herself as a “human rights attorney,” she proudly touts her friendship with Geert Wilders, the anti-Muslim Dutch politician who has been fundedby a key player in the US Islamophobia industry.
Wilders’ anti-Muslim agenda is so extreme it has even been condemned by the Anti-Defamation League, a major pro-Israel group.”
“We need to raise the stakes for those who engage in this sort of behavior, let them know their nose is going to bleed,” Abrams said in reference to fellow students who had advocated for a boycott of Israeli institutions complicit in military occupation and violations of Palestinian rights.
While speakers asserted several times that advocates should share positive messages about Israel and Zionism, Goldstein was frank that only repression of protest and BDS would shore up Israel’s eroding base of support.
“The goal is to make the enemy pay,” Goldstein said, “and to send a message, a deterrent message, that similar actions such as those that they engage in will result in massive punishments.”
How do we get removing the anti-BDS measure a floor vote? We need to break the Democratic party over this.