President Obama and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in New York on the sideline of the UN General Assembly and there was more talk about the president playing golf in Israel and visiting the country in his post-presidency than there was about the vaunted two-state solution.
On Monday, Donald Trump and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio hailed counter-terrorism tactics that civil rights advocates found alarming, especially as Islamophobic attacks are on the rise amid rancorous campaign rhetoric. Their comments came after a Saturday night bombing in Manhattan injured 29 people. An Afghan-born suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, is now in police custody.
Vermont Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and Kentucky’s Rand Paul were among the dozen holdouts from a letter the Israel lobby group AIPAC circulated seeking to limit President Obama’s actions to oppose Israeli settlements in his last months in office. Still, many progressive US senators as well as vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine signed on to an Israel lobby letter designed to limit President Obama’s actions against the Israeli occupation, now nearly 50 years old.
Most Democrats think the $38 billion dollar aid package the U.S. signed with Israel last week—the highest in U.S. history—is “too much or way too much” money, while Republicans are split on the amount, according to a survey conducted by the Brookings Institute.
Pfizer supports Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidency. It also produces Prevenar 13, a pneumonia treatment that costs $10 a course, a price too high for some of the millions of children who get it each year. Clinton should email or phone her friends at Pfizer and get them to lower the price.
Antisemitism echoed by Trump supporters is felt as a threat by Jews. We have been able to make a life in the United States, with no limits except those internalized, but reawakened Christian hostility has always been a consideration. Israelis are more used to racism.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton participated in a public forum with veterans on Wednesday night, describing how they’d defeat Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Although they diverged on the methods their answers were the same — more war in the middle east. Clinton is playing the role of Ego in American foreign policy, rationalizing unethical decisions, owning up to some questionable decisions (Iraq) but not others (Libya). Meanwhile, Trump is the remorseless Id, the base impulse of empire to seize land and resources through the promise of deadly force. The Id knows colonialism isn’t about bringing the blessings of civilization to conquered, it’s about exploiting them and their resources. Trump seems to understand that in a way Clinton doesn’t, or at least won’t admit.
Jeffrey Goldberg says that Netanyahu’s “manipulations” worked on President Barack Obama. He means that Netanyahu used the Israel lobby to stymie Obama’s initiatives on Israel.
New York Times reporters Mark Landler and Mark Mazzetti write that President Obama’s Syria policy is unchanging, a fact “that frustrates many analysts because they believe that a shift in policy will only come when Mr. Obama leaves office.” But readers will learn nowhere in this article that other analysts argue persuasively that Obama’s hesitation to add even more fuel to the flames in Syria is the right thing to do.
Obama made no progress on Israel and Palestine in the last 7-1/2 years, Debra DeLee of the liberal Zionist group Peace Now says, but he can make a “gift” to the next president in the last three months of office by taking steps against settlements and for the two-state solution at the U.N.