A long NYT Magazine article on Netanyahu’s influence on the White House buys the Israeli premiere’s line that his power comes from “the ability to sway public opinion in the United States against the regime in Iran,” and leaves out the millions that Sheldon Adelson, Netanyahu’s friend, has given to Trump and Republican causes. Leaves out AIPAC too, though author Ronen Bergman has spoken to the Israel lobby group and lavished praise on it.
Trump’s claim that Jews who vote Democratic are “disloyal” is ugly and dangerous, but he is only echoing Zionist indoctrination: that American Jews must give unconditional support to Israel. New York Times columnist Bari Weiss praises the idea that “Jews should be loyal to Israel,” while Trump aide Elliott Abrams says Jews, except in Israel, “must stand apart from the nation in which they live.”
Trump’s refrain that the Democrats are anti-Israel is a strategic effort to foster division among Democrats over Israel so that he can get Jewish donors and voters in 2020. That division exists. The party’s progressive base wants to strip US aid to Israel, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Israeli President Rivlin are leaping in to assure the Democratic establishment that Israel is above politics.
A ‘New York Times’ analysis of the Israeli government’s refusal to allow two American congresswomen to visit the West Bank embraces a central claim of the Israel lobby, that bipartisan support for Israel is critical to US national security, and leaves out Trump’s largest donors, the Adelsons, for whom Israel is the overriding issue.
Polling suggests that Netanyahu will fall from power in Israel’s September elections His Hail Mary to stay as prime minister and avoid indictment is that the Trump administration interferes, by releasing its peace plan, thereby putting pressure on Netanyahu’s rivals to make a government with him, says Evan Gottesman of Israel Policy Forum.
Imagine the Russians having the power over Congress the Israel lobby has. Imagine a wildly lopsided Congressional vote condemning a grassroots campaign for human rights in Russia. Trump, contrary to liberal fantasies, has done things that Putin doesn’t want, including opposing a pipeline to Germany from Russia. He has given Israel almost everything it wants except an actual US war against Iran.
Miriam Adelson writes in the Israeli newspaper she publishes that Donald Trump is on the side of justice and the Bible should include a “Book of Trump.” What’s her angle? Kathryn Shihada says she is selling Trump as a prophet to American Jews and scripting Trump’s tweets for the occasion of Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
The media can’t talk about Sheldon Adelson when discussing the US confrontation with Iran over nukes, though he’s only Trump’s biggest donor, and John Bolton’s protector, and he was at White House officials’ side when they took part in a settlers’ bash in occupied Jerusalem.
Democratic candidates assail Trump’s Iran policy, while Miriam Adelson hails it in biblical terms at an Israeli conference alongside Netanyahu. But journalists never ask Trump whether his biggest donors, the Adelsons, are pushing war because they fear it will stoke anti-Semitism.
Neither the US political establishment nor the people want a war with Iran, and Donald Trump knows it’s a political disaster. But 9 years ago Obama was seen as untrustworthy on Iran, and the lead reporter on the Middle East Jeffrey Goldberg goaded him to attack Iran with a report that Israel was going to attack Iran, a report that proved false.