Here is a demonstration of the corruption of American policy-making when it comes to Israel. Ten days ago the Republican Jewish Coalition held a meeting in Las Vegas at which more than 10 possible Republican candidates for president auditioned for campaign funding by making craven promises about their support for Israel, and the media completely overlooked the news.
One leading Republican after another vowing to support Israel in ways that have nothing to do with the American people’s interest, including promising to support Netanyahu, and rip up the Iran deal if Biden gets back into it– all to raise money– and there’s not a peep about it in the media.
This was a true threat to democracy. Just listen to the pro-Israel schmaltz:
Senator Ted Cruz: “When I first arrived in the Senate 10 years ago I set it as a goal to be the leading defender of Israel in the United States Senate. That’s a goal I’ve worked very single day to achieve.”
Former VP Mike Pence: “Look, the songs of Israel were the anthems of my youth. And I’m very typical. And the love for Israel echoes out of every little buckboard church beside every cornfield in America, let me tell you from the heartland to the coastland, American stands with Israel. It’s true.”
Governor Ron DeSantis: “We were the first statewide elected official to do public events in Judea and Samaria [biblical names for the West Bank]. Because we understand history, we know those are thousands of years of connection to the Jewish people. I don’t care what the State Department says, they are not occupied territory, it’s disputed territory.”
Donald Trump– slavishly pandering to the donors who “love Israel like nothing else frankly.”
I just want to say It’s an honor to have worked with so many friends who love Israel. They love Israel like nothing else frankly, and Sheldon Adelson was in my office a lot. He loved– with his incredible wife Miriam, they were in the office so much. And what he talked about was Israel. That’s all he wanted to talk about. He loves the United States but he loves Israel and he saw Israel under attack, and I think he probably had a great influence on me from the standpoint of explaining things.
Kevin McCarthy fawning over Sheldon Adelson’s widow Miriam because of what she had done “to enable the Republican Majority” and for her marital fidelity:
There’s not a day that doesn’t goes back to the 22 months ago that we lost Sheldon. What Sheldon has done not just for the party, for the nation, for the world…
I would tell her, There’s no greater love I’ve ever seen between a man and a woman between those two… The examples they showed the rest of the world — never a night apart.
Miriam Adelson is an Israeli citizen. Imagine if Kevin McCarthy were thanking a Russian billionaire for giving the Republicans a majority?
But the Adelsons weren’t even mentioned by the New York Times and PBS NewsHour in their coverage of the meeting. The biggest donors to the Republican Party– who gave over $133 million to get Trump elected in 2016 and who demanded that he move the embassy to Jerusalem and trash the Iran deal, and got both wishes fulfilled — they go unmentioned by our leading mainstream media, even as the Republicans offer up policy promises at an Israel auction for Miriam’s millions.
This was the New York Times tiptoeing around the obvious: “The first auditions for the role of leading Trump alternative consumed the Venetian hotel over the weekend… a group whose leaders include some of the party’s biggest and most dependable contributors.” Israel was mentioned only three times in that article, each time offhand.
The PBS News Hour did a segment on the gathering to show how Republican candidates distanced themselves from Trump. Big news, but no one mentioned Israel or the threat to our democracy. Amy Walter described the group as “voters,” and though Judy Woodruff stepped in to call them “movers and shakers,” no one mentioned Middle East policy.
None of our media dares to tell its audience about how Trump simply sold his Israel policy to the Adelsons, ripping up the Iran deal, moving the embassy. The second transaction was lately confirmed by Maggie Haberman’s book, though not in her own newspaper, the New York Times.
“There’s no such thing as a Palestinian,” Adelson said; and Trump listened– stripping recognition of Palestinians in ways Biden has not dared to reverse. “What he talked about was Israel, that’s all he wanted to talk about,” Trump now tells us. Of course. Adelson said that he would rather serve in the Israeli army than the U.S. army and you’d think that is problematic. Like the RJC board member who wore an Israeli flag on his hat to give out the “Defender of Israel” award. But of course “dual loyalty” is an antisemitic trope, even leftwing Jewish groups say so; and we can’t talk about the country Adelson was supporting with his millions.
Here is some more of the Israel pandering from the Las Vegas meeting the weekend of Nov. 20-21.
Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, trashing BDS and spouting Israeli propaganda about Iran:
Look at how this president has treated Israel. The Jewish state doesn’t even know if we have her back any more. Israel shouldn’t have to wonder whether American stands with her after every election. I was proud to stand up to the bullies and the haters in the U.N. It was the right thing to do. But standing up [for] Israel should never be partisan. And I’m proud to say I was the first governor in America to sign a law banning BDS. We’re up to 35 states and counting. Supporting Israel shouldn’t be hard. Neither is standing up to Iran. But Joe Biden doesn’t get that.
We all know what Iran wants. The regime tells us all the time. Death to America, Death to Israel and it wants nuclear weapons to make good on that promise.
If Biden succeeds in getting back in the Iran Deal, I will make you a promise, I’ve said it before, the next president will shred it on her first day in office.”
Ted Cruz:
For a long time in Washington, all of the Democrats and most of the Republicans believed in strategic ambiguity. Oh I’m a little for the Israelis, I’m a little for the Palestinians. All the enlightened graybeards in foreign policy said, That’s how you keep peace in the Middle East. It’s an absolute disaster…You want to know how you keep peace in the Middle East? You draw a line in the sand and you absolutely and unequivocally say, The United States stands with Israel.
Trump spouting Israeli propaganda about Iran:
What [Biden is] doing with Iran, that will may be be the end of Israel… That particular part of the world is very fragile. We can’t let that deal happen. That deal is to destroy Israel, kill Israel, end Israel. We can’t let it happen… The future is maybe going back to the past… It’s an honor to have done far more for Israel than any other president.
Trump echoing the dual loyalty idea:
Some people in the United States,Jewish people, don’t appreciate Israel the way they should… the evangelical Christians really are on your side.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu:
On the policy side, look are we going to support Israel, absolutely… We need to support Israel because they are our friends, they are part of the United States family, it’s the right thing to do… We need to push back on BDS.
Florida Senator Chris Scott:
I want to start by congratulating Prime Minister Elect Benjamin Netanyahu. I had the opportunity to work with him when I was governor. I think he will be great for Israel. The one thing about him is that he is going to fight. And I think all of us appreciate someone who’s going to fight for what they believe in.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie:
I’ll tell you what I want to fight for… Every day we need to stand with the only democracy in the Middle East with Israel and stand against terrorism of Iran all across the world.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo:
We had to make the argument around the world when the President made the remarkable decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem, the rightful homeland of the Israeli people, we knew that this was important because it was real, it was right, it was decent. We also knew it was good for the United States…
“Negotiating with the terrorists was a fool’s errand…It is unambiguously good domestically for the American people that the Abraham Accords continue to thrive and build.”
Mike Pence:
As someone who has long championed the country I have always called our most cherished ally, let me say what an extraordinary privilege it was to be vice president in the most pro Israel administration in American history. .. I was elected to Congress in the year 2000… I also brought with me a deep and abiding love for the Jewish state of Israel… Every time the U.S. Israel relationship was being debated on the House floor, I would sprint literally toward the House of Representatives and take part in the debate… On more than one occasion some prominent Jewish Democrat members of Congress would come up to me and the conversation would always be the same…. Oh Congressmen Pence that was a pretty good speech on Israel.”
DeSantis spoke of his success in winning Jewish votes– “the highest share of the Jewish vote for any Republican candidate in Florida history” — and said this was because of his record on Israel, which is second to none.
“First thing we did, fight back against Airbnb discriminating against Israeli Jews [banning rentals in illegal settlements], and we won that fight….
We’re not going to allow the universities in Florida to become hotbeds of anti Jewish sentiment like they have all across this country. And we signed that bill [which bars sharp criticisms of Israel] on a trade mission to Israel at the American embassy in Jerusalem.
DeSantis said he had pushed the recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory and “opposed vociferously the Obama Khameini nuclear deal, as we will oppose the Biden effort to renew the deal.”
DeSantis also told of many visits to Israel, including one on which he collected water from the Sea of Galilee so as to baptize his children.
Kevin McCarthy bragged that he takes all newly-elected Republican Congresspeople and their spouses to Israel. “When they’re running, I tell them, there’s going to be an invitation. It’s going to come…. It will change your life.. The last night [in Israel] there’s not a dry eye in there.. there’s not a stronger bond that’s created.”
McCarthy declared that Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar “will no longer be on Foreign Affairs [Committee]. I’m keeping that promise.”
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan boasted of “prohibiting our state government from entering into any contract with any business unless that business certifies that they will not engage in a boycott against Israel.”
South Carolina Senator Tim Scott quoted the gospel to explain his love for Israel.
I believe American prosperity is woven together by the foundation that we are a strong ally of Israel. I was thinking about why I am so passionate about Israel and the Jewish people… It started when I was just a little pup. I was in high school.
Scott also said that when he saw the “cancer spreading on college campuses in the form of antisemitism,” he sponsored the “Antisemitism Awareness Act.” That bill equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
And Scott said he has sponsored legislation called the Solidify Iranian Sanctions act, to make sure that Iran has “sanctions forever, that we never ever allow the Iranian sanctions to expire.” (Is there any U.S. interest in taking sides in a regional power struggle? No)
Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee praising the Adelsons:
Sheldon was perhaps the greatest philanthropist of the past century. He was a lion of the Jewish community, a lion for the Republican Party he’s been a lion for the United States of Ameira and the alliance with Israel… The work Sheldon and Miriam have done will live on and on and on…
Hagerty bids for the Jewish vote: “The true political home for the American Jewish community that cares about the Israel relationship is right here with the Republican Party.”
And Hagerty brags of sponsoring legislation to prevent the Biden administration from “dividing the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel” by restoring the Jerusalem consulate for the Palestinians. “We owe that to the Jewish state and we have delivered.” Of course Biden promised to reopen the consulate but has not dared to do so, surely because he worries about pro-Israel donors jumping to the Republican side.
Hagerty wants a battle between Democrats and Republicans over support for Netanyahu.
The Tennessee senator condemned the Biden Justice Department for opening an investigation into Israel’s killing on May 11 of American citizen Shireen Abu Akleh, a journalist for Al Jazeera. Hagerty justified that killing: “A stray bullet, a tragic accident, in a war zone. Yet to score political points with far left the Biden administration is demanding that Israel change its rules of engagement with terrorists….I feel certain that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not acquiesce in this.”
And he said he would oppose the brainwashing to college students with the Palestinian narrative:
“We’ve got to stop the Boycott, Divestment Sanctions movement in its tracks… We must immediately stop our children from being brainwashed with antisemitism on college campuses… If our kids are led to believe noxious and untrue narratives about Israel it could extraordinarily damage the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
Absolutely, 100 percent guaranteed: Mike Pompeo to Miriam Adelson:
Give me that moolah and within six months I’ll attack Iran, and a President Pompeo has no problem w the state of Israel annexing all Palestinian land.
Donald Trump sold his Middle East policy to Sheldon Adelson. That is called treason. Miriam Adelson is first and foremost a foreign agent. She is trying to engage in the same practice as her late husband. If she were a Russian, North Korean or Iranian this would be a front-page story. Israeli billionaires receive no such oversight.
It’s a tragedy to see so many national decision-makers betraying the US Constitution by pledging allegiance to an archaic, barbaric delusion in exchange for mere money and “power”.
It’s equally tragic that reporters like Judy Woodruff and Amy Walters must bury facts and sanity to maintain their careers. Clearly, the depth and breadth of the corruption is truly Orwellian.
“Governor Ron DeSantis: “We were the first statewide elected official to do public events in Judea and Samaria [biblical names for the West Bank]. Because we understand history, we know those are thousands of years of connection to the Jewish people. I don’t care what the State Department says, they are not occupied territory, it’s disputed territory.” ”
There’s a phrase that describes the words disputed territory: linguistic detoxification. ( It’s a thing: https://natlogic.com/linguistic-detoxification/ ). You take some awful situation and associate it with words that have a positive connotation. And what connotation does the word disputed have? It brings to mind the idea that some fair judicial process is going to take place, lawyers and judges and dusty law books will be involved. That last soccer goal scored by the U.S team? It’s being disputed, it could go either way!
No, the West Bank isn’t disputed territory in any meaningful sense of the word disputed.
Sounds to me like the Zionists are desperate.