As he becomes a leading contender in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination, Pete Buttigieg has shifted toward the center on Medicare for all. Some on the left have ascribed the shift to campaign donations.
Buttigieg has also shifted on Israel Palestine. After saying directly that he would seek to condition aid to Israel if the country moves toward annexing the West Bank, the South Bend Mayor dodged this question entirely at the last debate, offering platitudes about the need for U.S. “leadership” in the world.
We covered that debate on December 20 and didn’t point out Buttigieg’s shift. But others have noticed so it bears emphasis. Here’s the record.
Last June and October Buttigieg said he would condition aid to Israel. His most explicit answer came at the University of Chicago in October when a member of the young Jewish group IfNotNow urged him to pledge to condition out $3.8 billion yearly aid to Israel because we bear “complicity” in its “despicable” treatment of Palestinians under occupation. Buttigieg responded:
I think that the aid is leverage to guide Israel in the right direction. If, for example, there is follow through on these threats of annexation, I’m committed to insuring that the US is not footing the bill for that. It is in the American interest, as well as the Palestinian and ultimately Israeli Jewish interest, that Israel not reach the point where there will have to be a choice between either being a Jewish state or being a democracy and there is a trajectory toward that going on right now. So I’m not going to commit now to all of the ways that that leverage can and should be used. But I will say that our policy goal will be to do what you do when a friend is moving in a way that you’re worried about, which is to put your arm around them and guide them somewhere better.
Pressed on conditioning aid completely, Buttigieg said, “I’m not going to put that string on aid today.”
On December 19, Buttigieg was asked the conditioning aid question at the Democratic debate in Los Angeles. The question was first posed to Bernie Sanders, who responded by speaking of Palestinian human rights. Then moderator Yamiche Alcindor referred the question to Buttigieg. The original question:
“Senator Sanders, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently declared that the United States believes Israeli settlements in the West Bank do not violate international law. That broke decades-long U.S. precedent. How would you respond to Israeli expansion of settlements? Would you link that to foreign aid to Israel?”
What we are seeing in the Middle East and around the world are the consequences of this president’s failure, this president’s refusal to lead. It’s particularly disturbing in the case of Israel because he has infused domestic politics, making U.S. foreign policy choices in order to effectively interfere in Israeli domestic politics, acting as though that somehow makes him pro-Israel and pro-Jewish, while welcoming white nationalists into the White House.
But it’s not only in the Middle East that we see the consequences of the disappearance of U.S. leadership. We see among our allies and among our adversaries case after case where the world is making plans on what to do, ignoring the United States, because we’re no longer considered reliable.
It’s not just the mockery at a cocktail party on the sidelines of a conference. It’s the looks on the faces of the leaders at the U.N. as they looked at the United States president with a mixture of contempt and pity.
As an American, I never again want to see the American president looked at that way by the leaders of the world. The world needs America right now. But it can’t be just any America. It has to be one that is actually living up to the values that make us who we are: supporting peace, supporting democracy, supporting human rights, and supporting stability around the world.
So after a suggestion that he doesn’t like Netanyahu, Buttigieg moved on to what a friend calls, “a generalized, vapid, politically empty reply. A more purely gutless response would be impossible to imagine.”
Donors are surely an issue. During presidential primary season four years ago, Hillary Clinton made it a point to publicly oppose the BDS campaign (boycott, divestment and sanctions targeting Israel) so as to pander to donors.
Thanks to Adam Horowitz.
Attention: Pete Buttigieg
From my Canadian friend for your edification:
https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/national-perspectives/jim-vibert-international-lethargy-permits-occupation-of-gaza-west-bank-391354/
“International lethargy permits occupation of Gaza, West Bank”
By Jim Vibert, The Chronicle Herald, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Dec. 23/19
“At this time of year, the thoughts of many Christians turn to biblical tales of shepherds and wise men drawn to a humble little town where the gospels of Luke and Matthew place Mary, Joseph and their new-born baby.
“Bethlehem is in the grip of an occupying power today, just as it was in the time of Jesus. As a West Bank town, Bethlehem is Palestinian territory and occupied, for more than 52 years now, by Israel – ‘the longest belligerent occupation in the modern world,’ Michael Lynk reminds us.
“Halifax-born and raised, Lynk is a law professor at the University of Western Ontario and, more to the point, he’s the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories. His fearless chronicles of Israeli abuses against the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank and Gaza have drawn the ire of official Israel and its international defenders.
“Those critics claim his reports ‘legitimize anti-Semites,’ an accusation Lynk says is not much different from being labelled an anti-Semite himself. But the learned law professor’s censure of illegitimate Israeli action – and of the international community that allows it to persist – is, without exception, weighted by scrupulous application of international law.
“While might made right two millennia ago when Rome occupied what we now call the Holy Land, it’s not supposed to be so today. But, Lynk dares to ask: ‘are we simply to accept that, with this occupation, international law is closer to power than it is to justice?’
“In his most recent report to the United Nations, Lynk identifies the two defining characteristics of the occupation.
“The first is its conduct, ‘marked by numerous, intentional and serious violations of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law.’ The second is the unwillingness of the international community to meet its obligations to hold Israel accountable for those violations.
“Lynk is unflinching in reporting those violations. Israel’s land, sea and air blockade of Gaza, now in its 12th year, severely limits the movement of people in and out of the strip. Palestinians in Gaza suffer inadequate access to water, power, education and health care. Their economy is in ruins.
“’The Gaza blockade is a denial of basic human rights and amounts to collective punishment.’ Hundreds of Palestinian have been killed and tens of thousands injured in recent years by Israel’s brutal enforcement of a ‘buffer zone’ inside the security barrier – the heavily guarded parameter of Gaza.
“Calls for annexation of the occupied West Bank, including from the Israeli government, have increased violence against the Palestinians there. Many have been forced to leave their homes while Israeli settlements continue to expand.
“And, Israel has extended civil authority over occupied East Jerusalem in a continuing effort to ensure that its annexation is irreversible.
“For the record, collective punishment, settlement of occupied territory, or as Lynk calls it, the ‘occu-annexation’ of the West Bank and East Jerusalem are all breaches of international law.
“Children are too often the victims. The 1.3 million Palestinian children who live in the West Bank and a million more in Gaza suffer physically and psychologically from constant exposure to violence. The UN verified 59 Palestinian children killed and 2,756 injured in Gaza in 2018 alone.
“Lynk says the international community has the power and ability to ensure a positive, durable and just solution to the occupation.
“Israelis of conscience, he says – and there are a great many – will tell you that only international pressure will force Israel to comply with international law.
“'(This) occupation will not end without the international community acting decisively in support of international law and its common values to compel Israel to fulfil its obligations.’
“But, Israel has rightly assessed that the international community – particularly Western industrial nations – lacks the political will to compel an end to Israel’s impunity.
“As a consequence, Lynk assesses the immediate future as dire for the Palestinians, and not much better for Israel. Because a nation that holds five million people with no civil or human rights and no future – as Israel holds the Palestinians – is self-corrupting.
“Of the several possible outcomes, the long-sought two-state solution is a fading dream. A single, democratic state where full civil and human rights are extended to the Palestinians is possible, but not without the international pressure that’s currently absent.
“A single ‘illiberal state’ of Israel, exhibiting all the characteristics of apartheid, with Palestinians denied their rights, could well emerge from a continuation of the current conditions, said Lynk.
“Until and unless the international community shakes off its ‘extraordinary lethargy’ and enforces international law and binding humanitarian obligations on Israel, there is little hope for the Palestinians or the Israelis.
“In the little town of Bethlehem, and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories, hopes are dashed, and fears are met.”
I remember that part of the debate, and thinking Buttigieg’s answer was an insultingly transparent dodge.
Here’s a good article on the evasiveness of both Buttigieg and Biden.
“Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg Are Not to Be Trusted “
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/joe-biden-and-pete-buttigieg-are-not-to-be-trusted/
Here’s an article on the Deep State origins of Sneaky Pete, which he somehow never mentions in his credentials.
“The Insider: National Security Mandarins Groomed Pete Buttigieg & Managed His Future”
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/19/the-insider-national-security-mandarins-groomed-pete-buttigieg-managed-his-future/
Donors, shmonors. These people are all guard dogs for the owners of the country and their very justification for existing is that they obey to their owners, duh.
Must say this is the most ingenious excuse for the Clinton Harpy ever: that donors made her oppose BDS, poor lamb! Without the pesky donors she would of course side with the people against Zionism and war, wouldn’t she?
Pete Buttigieg is a leading contender….. What does that tell you about the Democratic Party? and the country?
Can one contend seriously for the presidential nomination in the US, and not pander to rich donors within the Israel lobby? I very much doubt it.