Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg said there will be an “immediate crisis” in Democratic Party support for Israel if the country annexes the Jordan Valley, as its leaders have vowed to do beginning in July.
Asked where US-Israel relations are headed in an American Jewish Committee discussion last Friday, Goldberg said:
We’re looking at the Israeli government possibly annexing land in the Jordan Valley. That is going to cause a crisis. That specifically is going to cause, in the political context, a crisis with the Democratic Party.
It seems as if the Trump administration– Mike Pompeo, Jared Kushner and so on– are behind that. That’s going to cause an immediate crisis.
The longer term trends don’t seem that helpful to me but I want to acknowledge that I don’t know where it’s headed. I think two things can be true. The relationship between the U.S. and Israel has been remarkably stable for generations. The majority of Americans still have a positive feeling for Israel. But in the younger generation especially, especially on the leftwardside of the ledger, and there are many more young people on that side than on the right side, especially now, I think that’s changing….
The secret of Israel’s political success in America is that it has Democratic friends and Republican friends. It is not a partisan cause or has not been a partisan cause. If it becomes a partisan cause, then all bets are off.
Israel is making plans to annex far more than the Jordan Valley, but also many settlement blocs in the West Bank, about 30 percent of the territory in all.
Former Senator Joe Lieberman made a similar comment about Israel becoming politicized yesterday:
Israel “will be an issue” in the presidential campaign this year “because there is, on the left of the Democratic Party, a group that is not as reflexively pro-Israel as the Democratic Party has been through most of my life.”
The American Jewish Committee is itself indicating that it will do nothing to criticize Israeli annexation. Its director, David Harris, won’t even call it annexation, but “extension of Israeli sovereign law.”
“You don’t have to agree with every Israeli government decision, you don’t have to like every Israeli leader, you can dispute this or that Israeli decision, whether on settlements, or what might or might not be done on the extension of Israeli sovereign law. Those are all legitimate questions of debate and negotiation.”
P.S. Jeffrey Goldberg has moved on from his old role as the voice of the Jewish community. On the AJC call, he was asked what he thought was the best way to rebuild the black-Jewish relationship after many ruptures, and refused to answer.
“That’s not my job. I’m not commenting. I’m a journalist. I just analyze problems. I’m not here to provide solutions. That’s why you have an American Jewish Committee. I appreciate the question, but I can’t go down that road.”
Related:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/with-bad-poll-numbers-trump-is-thinking-of-replacing-kushner
“’HE’S GOING TO BROOM KUSHNER AND PARSCALE”
“MALIGNANTLY CRAZY” ABOUT BAD POLL NUMBERS, TRUMP IS THINKING OF REPLACING HIS SON-IN-LAW” by GABRIEL SHERMAN, Vanity Fair, June 8/20
“After a botched response to two national crises, Trump’s polls are cratering, and ‘no one is telling him what he wants to hear,’ says a source, igniting a new round of grumbling about Kushner.
“In Donald Trump’s West Wing, being a member of the Trump family has historically been the ultimate job security. But that truism is being stress-tested after a run of polls consistently show Trump losing to Joe Biden at this stage of the race—a CNN poll this morning has him down 14 points. According to a source close to the White House, Trump has mulled taking oversight of the campaign away from his son-in-law Jared Kushner. ‘Trump is malignantly crazy about the bad poll numbers,’ a former West Wing official said. ‘He’s going to broom Kushner and [Brad] Parscale—the numbers are not getting better,’ a Republican close to the campaign said.”
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/uk-public-figures-call-israel-sanctions
“UK public figures call for Israel sanctions” Electronic Intifada, June 10/20, Asa Winstanley
EXCERPT:
“More than 100 lawmakers, artists, trade unionists & activists in the UK on Monday issued a call for sanctions on Israel over its latest plan to annex Palestinian lands.
“It is the latest win for the boycott, divestment & sanctions (BDS) movement.
“The public statement calls for sanctions, including a ban on sales of settlement goods & an end to the arms trade with Israel.
“Among the signatories to the call are: former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn; actor Maxine Peake; musician Brian Eno; lawmakers Ian Lavery, Caroline Lucas, John McDonnell, Bell Ribeiro-Addy & Zarah Sultana; trade union leader Len McCluskey; historian William Dalrymple & filmmakers Mike Leigh and Ken Loach.
“The statement was organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in response to a call last month by Palestinian civil society – as coordinated by the BDS National Committee – for ‘effective measures’ against the annexation plan.
“’Israel’s new right-wing government is once more set to formally annex large swathes’ of the West Bank, the BDS National Committee stated last month. ‘This de jure annexation would culminate years of gradual de facto annexation through the appropriation of land, forcible displacement of Palestinian population & the transfer of Israeli settler population’ into the West Bank.
“The BDS committee called for all states to adopt ‘effective countermeasures, including sanctions, to end Israel’s unlawful acquisition of Palestinian territory through use of force, its regime of apartheid, & its denial of our inalienable right to self-determination.’
“These measures should include an arms embargo, an end to free-trade agreements, prohibition of all trade with Israeli settlements & accountability for Israeli war criminals, the BDS committee said.”
Joe Lieberman (former DINO, Tel Aviv) has got a nerve.
He actually showed up at the White House a few months ago to support Trump and Kushner’s “Deal of the Century.”