Media Analysis

Once again, Israel’s influence outpaces Russia’s

Trump’s fiasco in Helsinki has provided fresh impetus for the story of Russian influence over the White House. Yet again few are commenting on an obvious big winner of the presidential meeting, Israel. Trump repeatedly praised Israel at the press conference, Vladimir Putin vowed to work with Israel in Syria, and Netanyahu pronounced the presidential meeting a great gain for Israel.

CNN is alone in reporting that Israel’s interests were more important to Trump than US interests:

It wasn’t the security of American citizens, however, but rather those of Israel that the US President appeared to have on his mind.

Trump’s praise for Israel was fulsome and unprompted, far more lavish than his praise of Putin. No country has ever been closer than Israel to the US.

We’ve worked with Israel long and hard for many years, many decades.  I think we’ve never — never has anyone, any country been closer than we are.  President Putin also is helping Israel.  And we both spoke with Bibi Netanyahu, and they would like to do certain things with respect to Syria having to do with the safety of Israel.  So in that respect, we absolutely would like to work in order to help Israel, and Israel will be working with us.  So both countries would work jointly.

…I think that working with Israel is a great thing, and creating safety for Israel is something that both President Putin and I would like to see very much.

And here’s Netanyahu’s video statement praising the Helsinki confab. The US Israel relationship has never been stronger.

I praise the things I heard in the press conference with President Trump and President Putin… I greatly appreciate the deep commitment to the security of Israel that Trump expressed at the press conference, and I can say that the friendship between Israel and the US has never been stronger.

So the Trump Putin meeting goes into the same account as Trump breaking the Iran Deal, the signature foreign policy achievement of his predecessor– which Russia had worked hard to achieve and that Israel had done everything to nullify. It goes into the same account as moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move that Russia has sharply criticized for destroying any peace process (and that has generated rage across Palestine).

And it goes into the same account as the first proven act of Russian-Trump collusion: when Trump transition aide Mike Flynn went to the Russians behind Obama’s back in December 2016 to try to get them to veto the resolution against Israeli settlements in the Security Council, which Obama was about to abstain on. Russia didn’t play ball.

Our transactional president has often acted in Israel’s interests and done so, patently, because one of his largest donors, Sheldon Adelson at $35 million, wants him to toe the Israeli line. Adelson has “gotten much of what he wanted” by backing Trump, Eli Clifton writes. And most of Adelson’s asks on U.S. policy “mirror the wish list” of Netanyahu. (Though he wants a Korea deal so he can open a casino there.)

Netanyahu tried to exercise such influence over President Obama, of course, and succeeded in getting Obama to back away on settlements for eight years by using the levers of the Israel lobby. But he failed to stop the Iran deal, even as he had Democrats Schumer, Cardin and Menendez on his side against their president– all three of whom have been predictably righteous about Russian influence.

Netanyahu lately boasted to members of his rightwing political party that he had convinced Trump to exit the deal.

“We convinced the US president [to exit the deal] and I had to stand up against the whole world and come out against this agreement… And we didn’t give up.”

The same video includes annihilationist fantasies about Iran from Netanyahu and a colleague.

The prime minister then begins to speak about the Iranian regime… before he is interrupted by an unidentified person off-screen who says, “It will disappear with the help of God.”

“You said it. From your mouth to God,” Netanyahu says in response as the clip ends.

Of course, the wonder of Netanyahu’s influence is that it goes largely undiscussed in the mainstream media. It is always the Koch brothers and dark money and the Russians who are pulling the strings. Though CNN made a breakthrough in Ian Lee’s report on Israel’s interests:

Let’s compare that commitment to Israel’s national interest with Trump’s failure to address US interests on Monday…
Netanyahu has extensively lobbied both Russian and US governments.
And last night on Fox, Tucker Carlson said that the “neocon” foreign policy establishment that gave us the Iraq war should have been tarred and feathered and run out of Washington on a rail years ago but they’ve held place for 25 years, and now they’re angry at Trump for disrupting things. Carlson didn’t say a word about Israel, though. Because Trump the great disrupter has only increased Israel’s influence.
It’s no surprise that Putin was so considerate of Israel’s interests in that press conference. He knows that the road to Washington runs through Jerusalem.
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re Israel > Russia

Well said. There have been a few comments, but not, as you say, in the MSM. For example:

https://www.juancole.com/2018/07/shocked-bromance-netanyahu.html

Regarding the neocons who should be in disgrace (if not in prison) but are still brazen and influential, there is this important book. It isn’t just history — it remains relevant to today:

https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/MR-Book-Reviews/march-2018/Book-Review-015/ The reviewer, being in the military, doesn’t make explicit the role Israel played, according to Vogler.

One of the ways in which the US privileges Israel is that Israel is allowed to maintain close relations with Russia without ever being criticized for doing so, as any other US ally that tries to do the same is criticized. At the time of the war between Russia and Georgia in 2008 Israel remained silent on the issue and took no part in the West’s propaganda campaign against Russia. Now Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are promoting a grand deal by which the West would again give Russia a free hand in Ukraine and perhaps throughout the former Soviet Union (except for the Baltic states) in exchange for Russia withdrawing from its engagement in Syria and not intervening when the US attacks Iran. This reduces the danger of escalation to nuclear war in both regions but also means that there is no longer any external force deterring the US from aggression in Syria and Iran — unless China steps forward to take Russia’s place. That would be a bold step on China’s part but it is not outside the realm of possibility.

PHIL- “Trump’s fiasco in Helsinki….”

I would be most interested in how you came to the conclusion that it was a fiasco. Also, something that may interest fellow commenters is the fact that during the 2012 Presidential election campaign, Obama and the rest of the Democratic elite pilloried Mitt Romney for demonizing Russia as our enemy. They described Romney as stuck in an out of date cold war mentality. Some turnabout! I link to a Chomsky interview where clips of some of these comments are shown. Most interesting. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49873.htm

“Of course, the wonder of Netanyahu’s influence is that it goes largely undiscussed in the mainstream media.”

That tells us something about the relationship between Netanyahu’s influence and the mainstream media.

A couple of classic articles on this topic –

“Let’s talk about Russian influence”
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/08/about-russian-influence

“Why Not a Probe of ‘Israel-gate’?”
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/20/why-not-a-probe-of-israel-gate

and highly related –

“The Gaping Holes of Russia-gate”
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/05/20/the-gaping-holes-of-russia-gate

In what appears to be a great timing, the police (some say anti-terrorist police) in UK have announced that they progressed with their investigation of Skripal poisoning and they have several Russian suspects ei. people who they think are involved.

Amusingly, the novichok transmogrified from gel to spray, the supposedly professional hit ended with novichok being (presumably) dumped in the bushes for a tramp lady (Dawn Sturgess) to find, and police (but not Metropolitan Police which would not comment – so we have no clue what “police”) are saying they identified suspects, and they are Russian.

The nerve gas 8 times stronger than sarin takes 9 days to kill tramp lady that, so they say, mistook it for perfume, and applied it directly to her skin damaging, they say, her face and hands, because everyone knows you spray perfume on your face and hands.

All this before autopsy is performed (it will be done from today) which is meant to establish the cause of death.

All the while, Porton Down, UK government chemical weapons facility nearby, has not even been able to establish the source of the novichok. (they have stock of their own, by the way), not that you can see it from the news.

Oh, and Skripal and Skripal’s daughter still have not contacted his ailing mother, while being kept, “for their own good” in safe house by some vaguely identified security agency.

There is another coincidence that is worth noting: in the hospital where Skripal and his daughter were admitted, there were doctors who freshly completed training in Porton Down and this allowed them to have presence of mind to apply anti-nerve agent treatment.

Will be educational to know if Dawn Sturgess will get a proper inquest. Right now it has been adjourned to January 2019.

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