Five months back we saw New York Times reporter Ronen Bergman at a closed-to-the-media AIPAC event in Westchester County praising the Israel lobby organization.
“You know, I’ve been all over the U.S. with AIPAC and it’s always a great pleasure, as an Israeli. I always tell AIPAC, you do so much in the U.S., and… I know that you’ve got our backs. It’s such a great feeling.”
Well, Bergman is going to have that great feeling again real soon. He will be speaking at AIPAC this coming Sunday at a session on the threat Iran poses to Israel. The panel at the policy conference in Washington sounds like a typically-slanted presentation by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee:
…the Islamic Republic is continuing its aggressive behavior across the region. Iran is building its intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, supporting the Assad regime in Syria, shipping missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and attempting to establish the Revolutionary Guard in the Syrian Golan Heights, next to Israel. …And what can be done to counter Iran’s negative influence in the Middle East?
AIPAC lists Bergman as “Investigative Journalist and Author, Yedioth Ahronoth.” How curious that AIPAC left the Times out. The Times is very clear itself: Bergman is a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine. On twitter, Bergman states that he works for the New York Times as well as Yedioth.
I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. AIPAC exists to assure American support for Israeli colonization and massacres; the New York Times does a poor job covering AIPAC’s influence; most of the Democratic presidential field is skipping AIPAC because it’s rolling out a red carpet to the prime minister even after he attacks Palestinians as non-citizens; and AIPAC doesn’t let independent media cover its conference. But Israeli reporter Bergman loves the organization, and he’ll be there.
“…the Islamic Republic is continuing its aggressive behavior across the region. Iran is building its intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, supporting the Assad regime in Syria, shipping missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and attempting to establish the Revolutionary Guard in the Syrian Golan Heights, next to Israel. …And what can be done to counter Iran’s negative influence in the Middle East?”
other then the comment about “negative influence” which is theoretically , opinion, name one thing in the statement above that isn’t true.
what about the other regional power? the one with nukes that invades neighbors? Does such slanted discourse serve my country?
Here’s a voice (Michael Doran) that views Iran as the primary competitor (if you don’t like the term enemy) of the US in the region. https://jmp.princeton.edu/events/does-america-have-middle-east-strategy?fbclid=IwAR3bPz2mGeoJqOl8ENnhGClYnK58vmt_jLgcByEAUkLzSHUCP8ew-fzPk9c
According to Doran these are the major players (potential allies or enemies) in the Middle East: Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Quite obviously at this point: Iran and Russia have teamed up.
Obama was attempting to shift US policy towards Iran. This infuriated KSA and Turkey to pick the other non Israel players listed above.
Doran cited Jordan as vulnerable to Iranian pressure. (As the country that needs the US more than ever.)
Obviously the US voting population is not interested in fighting wars in the Middle East and thus the isolationism of Obama and Trump reflects this reaction to the Bush wars.
I think those who think the US can shift towards support for Iran, when in fact the US is aligned with the other three players mentioned above, are reflecting a desire for the US to stop playing a role in the world, rather than specifying a new direction for the US in the world. In terms of the world politics dynamic, the sides have been chosen: Turkey, KSA and Israel versus Iran. Russia is with iran and the US is with the other 3.
A withdrawal of the US from the world is taking place under Trump and was taking place under Obama and I understand this general change in posture. Just one should be clear: that this realignment is a withdrawal rather than really a realignment. Iran is not a natural ally given the last 65 years and to present this change of attitude as something other than withdrawal is dishonest.
@pw
you mean whataboutism? or Pakistan?
has Israel ever threatened to invade and take land from an actual nation that wasn’t openly , politically and militarily hostile to it? threatening to ‘destroy’ or ‘level’ a nation that attacks it first is not an example of an expansionist nation. a paranoid possibly and extremely defensive nation..ok.
and while normal , non zionist hating people can easily see from a simple geographic map that calling Israel an “expansionist colonialist regime’ is absurd when compared to the land mass that arab/muslim nations control in the region. and I noticed that some of the folks on here simply refuse to acknowledge that Iranian involvement and military expansion in the governments and militaries of: Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Gaza is anything close to expansionist. like the meaning of ‘the’ can be parsed as well to great political effect.