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My Position On A Fair Solution To The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

13 Mar

 

I wonder if the Israeli government now regrets that it didn’t consider the Arab League peace offer that was first issued in 2002 and then again in 2007. Every Arab state signed it and it was strongly backed by the Saudis who, in fact, drafted it.

It’s now called the Arab League Initiative but it actually began as a proposal by Saudi King Abdullah to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. Friedman announced it to the world in his column and it evolved, almost incredibly, into a full blown offer to Israel by the entire Arab world (yes, every single Arab country and the Palestinians).  In exchange for a return to the ’67 borders, Israel would not only achieve peace but normalization of relations with the Arab world: trade, travel, educational and cultural exchanges, security arrangements etc.

The precise wording was this: in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem:

 The Arab countries affirm the following:

(I) Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region; (II) Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace

The Arab League Initiative is not a full-blown peace treaty. It is rather a framework under which Israel would conduct negotiations with the goal of reaching agreements on all the critical points including the issues of “return” and Jerusalem. Nothing would be dictated to either side; nothing could take effect without full agreement by both sides.

In essence, the Arab League Initiative was a golden offer to Israel by every single Arab state (the end of conflict and isolation in return for giving up the lands won in the 1967 war. The Palestinian Authority also signed it and Hamas said that if a deal was reached, it would not “contradict the Arab consensus.”

But Israel refused to seriously consider it and, at Israel’s request, neither did the United States.. That pretty much killed it although the offer is still out there, ready for Israel to seize the opportunity at any time.

Of course, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government have never indicated any interest in a deal that requires giving up the occupied territories, which, of course, rules out any deal at all. However, given the changes in Israel’s regional standing since 2007, even Israeli right-wingers might be willing to rethink now.

Just look at the changes since 2007.

In 2007, when the Arab League Initiative was last issued, Israel’s most important ally President Hosni Mubarak was firmly in power. For 30 years, Mubarak was the guarantee that Israel would not have to worry about war with its powerful neighbor to the west. That was because Mubarak scrupulously adhered to its terms. Egypt’s new Muslim Brotherhood government has not indicated that it will back away from the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty but, no doubt about it, its future is dim.

The moderate Palestinian Authority is weaker than ever before. Due largely to the fact that it has not been able to achieve the return of any Palestinian land from Israel, and the failure of its attempt to declare statehood, it appears feckless and weak. Palestinians  view it as a tool of Israel. Meanwhile, Hamas has become thoroughly entrenched in Gaza and its Muslim Brotherhood allies are now in power in Egypt.

Hezbollah, formerly only a Shiite terrorist group now plays a dominant role in the Lebanese government. It is believed to possess 20,000 rockets which could reach Israel. In 2006, it launched some 4,000 of those rockets, causing the evacuation of northern Israel.

Turkey, since 1948 Israel’s staunch Muslim ally, turned against the Israeli government as a result of Israel’s blockade of Gaza and an Israeli attack on a Turkish ship that was sailing there with relief supplies for its population. The two countries are now barely on speaking terms.

And now the Assad government is on the verge of collapse. The Assad regime, although rhetorically hostile to Israel, has maintained peace with it since the 1973 war. Israelis view the Syrian regime, much as they viewed Mubarak’s, as totalitarians who maintained stability and the status quo.  The replacement of Assad by a more militantly pan-Arab regime will mean more trouble for Israel

And then there is Iran, which — whether it is developing nuclear weapons or not — successfully uses the 45-year occupation as a pretext to assert leadership among Arabs. As supposed champions of Muslim interests (including the Palestinians) the Iranians have gained considerable respect in the Arab world. This is ironic because Arabs and Persians have traditionally been hostile to each other; the Israeli occupation has helped create a new unnatural (and utterly cynical) alliance.

Israel is more isolated than ever before. And, if it attacks Iran, it is likely to lose any chance for ever achieving peace with the Muslim world. That might, however, be the least of its losses,

The bottom line is that the status quo no longer works to Israel’s advantage. Every day its position grows weaker as the region it is located in becomes more and more radical, and forces militantly opposed to Israel replace those who seemed more than willing to live with it.

It is hard to know if Israel’s situation is salvageable. It just may be too late to recover from the mistakes it made when opportunities like the Arab Initiative presented themselves.  Of course, the Palestinians missed their share of opportunities as well although they were understandably shell-shocked by the events of 1947-1948.

The change now is that events are moving the situation if not necessarily in the Palestinians’ favor, then definitely in opposition to Israel’s. After all, the new forces that are taking over the region have one thing in common: hate for the Israeli occupation and a determination to end it. And, on that score, they have an ally in Iran which cares little about the Palestinians but are quite good at using their plight to build support among all Muslims.

President Obama needs to explain all this to the Israelis. He needs to tell them that not only has their regional situation deteriorated, they do not have the standing in Washington that they once did either. Every poll on the issue show that Democrats have become increasingly even-handed in their views of Israel and the Palestinians while the more hawkish Republicans are suddenly split between the long dominant neocons and the more isolationist view held by Ron and Rand Paul. As for the lobby, Chuck Hagel’s confirmation as Secretary of Defense demonstrates it is no longer all-powerful.

It’s time Israel read the handwriting on the wall. It should stop any expansion of settlements and fully end the blockade of Gaza, as first step towards acknowledging its new situation. Those actions alone would restore its friendship with Turkey. And it should acknowledge through words and deed that it is ready for negotiations based on the Arab League Initiative.

Negotiations won’t start now, in the midst of the current turbulence in Syria and elsewhere. But Israel needs to be ready as soon as the dust settles. Additionally, it should end its threats toward Iran and let the Obama administration know that it favors lifting sanctions in return for tangible steps by Iran toward ensuring that its nuclear program is a civilian program and will remain one. Currently it supports”crippling sanctions” until Iran give up its right to any form of nuclear development. That simply won’t fly.

All those who care about the survival and security of Israel should encourage it to take these steps. It is no act of friendship to encourage Israel to dig in when the tides of history are running against it. Israel is too important to be lost because its leaders refused to accept “yes” as an answer. That is what the Arab League initiative is: a big yes. I just hope that the offer is still there because, if it isn’t, it is hard to imagine another way for Israel to break out of its current predicament.

If the United States is truly Israel’s ally, and not just its enabler, that is the message President Obama will deliver to Israel loud and clear. Supporting Israel’s current course may be politically safe but it is no act of friendship. In fact, it is quite the opposite. There is no excuse for America not to help Israel avoid looming catastrophe, none at all.

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How Obama Beat The Lobby

6 Mar

I am not one for admitting I am wrong but sometimes the evidence is so overwhelming that I have to say it. I was wrong.

I have been repeatedly wrong when I said that the Israel lobby could not be defeated unless and until the President of the United States confronted it directly. In that situation, I always knew the United States would prevail. But I did not understand that a deft president could beat the lobby through indirect means – by quietly using his authority to prevail.

That is what happened when the Obama administration first nominated and then achieved the confirmation of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense.

There, of course, are those who accept the line put out by the lobby, most notably its main component AIPAC, that it was neutral on Hagel.

That is just silly. If AIPAC was neutral, it could have ended the whole battle against him by issuing a statement that it recognized a president’s right to choose his own cabinet. That might not have stopped Republican groups like Bill Kristol’s Emergency Committee For Israel or Sheldon Adelson’s Republican Jewish Coalition from pursuing its smear campaign against Hagel but it would have stopped the very mainstream American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League from joining the attack. AIPAC’s public silence on a campaign waged by its closest allies demonstrated what it wanted: Hagel’s defeat. So did the fact that it supplied the anti-Hagel senators with the “information” it used to bludgeon him with at his kangaroo court of a confirmation hearing.

President Obama outsmarted the lobby by ignoring it. He knew that if he could get Sen. Chuck Schumer to endorse Hagel, then the game would be over. That is because he, as a Jew and New York’s senior senator, is the de facto head of the lobby’s forces in Congress.

A reflexive lobby man, Schumer might have been expected to oppose Hagel and thereby give a signal to his fellow Democrats that doing so was the only safe position. Had he done that some Democrats would have feared not opposing Hagel. With most Republicans already on record as opposing his nomination, just a shift of a few Democrats would have killed the nomination. Schumer’s announcement in support of Hagel guaranteed that not a single Democrat would oppose him.

So what convinced Schumer to stand with Obama on Hagel? My friends on Capitol Hill, who without exception correctly predicted Schumer’s position, tell me that it was made clear to him that he could not oppose Obama on Hagel and still expect to become leader of Senate Democrats when Harry Reid retires. No threats were made because none needed to be made. Schumer was simply led to understand that he was not getting a pass on this one. Add to that the unprecedented public campaign supporting Hagel. This time the lobby did not have the field to itself. With veterans’ organizations, former Secretaries of State and Defense, and retired generals speaking out in support of the former Nebraska senator, the lobby was out-flanked.

And so Hagel was confirmed. The lobby was defeated. And its friends are devastated.

In a Jewish Tablet piece called, “How AIPAC is Losing” the militant lobby supporter Lee Smith asks “just how powerful is AIPAC if a man who refers to it as the ‘Jewish lobby’ and has defiantly claimed that he is not an “Israeli senator” is slated to be our next secretary of Defense?”

And, most significantly, how much influence does the lobbying organization actually exercise if it can’t carry the day on the single issue that’s been at the very top of its agenda for over a decade: stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

Despite an operating budget of more than $60 million, on the most crucial issue facing Israel’s security, AIPAC has lost the policy debate. The winners include those who believe you can’t stop a nation from getting the bomb if it’s determined to do so, those who think the Iranians have a right to nuclear weapons, and those who argue the Iranians can be contained—among them, our new Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

In other words, the lobby is not all-powerful. A determined president can defeat it, a lesson Obama will bear in mind in the future, particularly in reference to the lobby’s singular focus on war with Iran.

But will Hagel’s presence make a difference? Who knows? But we do know this: a win is a win. And so is a defeat.

I was wrong. The lobby can be beaten. Obama scared it into public silence and then defeated it. Nice work, work that will only become easier as younger Jews, and the non-Orthodox 90%, continue to abandon a lobby that is at variance with their liberal worldview. Ethnic chauvinism is on the rise in Israel (along with its twin, racism) but not here. Israel’s “demographic problem” can be solved by withdrawing from the occupied areas. The same can’t be said of AIPAC’s problem. Like the Republican Party, its base is growing smaller and narrower every day.

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AIPAC Goes Public: It Intends To Exempt Israel From Sequester

5 Mar

The great Congressional Quarterly reporter Jonathan Broder has gotten AIPAC to go on the record with its plans to exempt Israel from sequestration. (I can’t provide link as CQ is by subscription only.)

He writes of the “battalions” of AIPACers who descended on Congress today to demand “tighter sanctions against Iran, relief for Israel aid from automatic spending cuts, and a new designation of the Jewish state as a ‘major strategic ally,’ a status that would help insulate Israel from any further aid cuts.

At the top of their agenda is convincing lawmakers to support a new Iran bill (HR 850) from House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., and supported by ranking Democrat Eliot L. Engel of New York, that would extend existing sanctions targeting Iran’s energy and financial transactions to include an even broader range of its commerce with the rest of the world. Several senators are working on a measure which is expected to be even more expansive.

The grassroots lobbyists also asked lawmakers to find some way to shield the $3.1 billion in annual U.S. aid to Israel from the automatic across-the-board spending cuts that took effect on March 1. Under the sequester, Israel stands to lose $155 million. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.

Broder quotes an AIPAC official who says,  “We are saying that an alternative should be found to sequestration because it is bad policy. We believe it is essential for American and Israel security interests that the assistance be maintained and not reduced.”

Broder quotes House Foreign Affairs Committee chair. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, as seeking ways to exempt Israel but notes (here is a shocker) Brad Sherman (D-CA) disagrees:  “An exemption for Israel would raise questions. If there’s one exemption, what other exemptions will there be?”

So AIPAC  is demanding an exemption for Israel. And Brad Sherman thinks such an exemption would raise questions. (Knowing Brad, he is probably too busy plotting war with Iran to care about this issue).

What does it all mean?  There will be an exemption for Israel if it can be pulled off in the dark. Don’t count the lobby out. This is their specialty.

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Israeli Government, AIPAC Worry About A Backlash If Israel Is Exempt From Sequester: Let’s Create It

5 Mar

Check out this piece in the Jerusalem Post. It notes my prediction that AIPAC could suffer a “backlash” if  aid to Israel is exempted from sequestration but says that the lobby is “doubling down” on achieving it. 

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which opened its annual policy conference on Sunday, will take to Capitol Hill Tuesday for a morning of lobbying, including a push to provide Israel with its full $3.1 billion in military aid for 2013 and 2014, as well as $211m. in additional funding for the Iron Dome missile-defense system. AIPAC will also promote legislation designating Israel a “major strategic ally,” a new alliance status that may help it keep its aid.

 

The lobbying agenda did not reference funding for joint missile defense programs, which the Pentagon will consider when divvying up its budget cuts. The other two lobbying agenda items will be devoted to legislation on Iran, one in the House, and one in the Senate.

It then added: “Some critics worried that attempts to exempt Israel from painful budget cuts while the rest of the US was forced to absorb them would cause a political backlash.”

It is clear from the article that Israelis are worried about that backlash, almost as much as AIPAC is untroubled by it. It is hard to believe, but it’s a fact, that AIPAC and its associated lobbying organizations are far more hard line than even the Netanyahu government. AIPAC relishes going to war with a U.S. President because it is a show of macho power and helps fundraising efforts. The Israeli government, which has skin in what AIPAC considers a game, is more cautious. (Ultimately, the Long Islanders of AIPAC are safe regardless of what happens to Israel; they can always find another hobby. Israelis can’t.)

In any case, we need to exploit the nervousness Israel seems to be feeling about AIPAC’s sequester exemption. The special treatment for Israel that AIPAC is demanding is a metaphor for the whole US-Israel relationship but even more for AIPAC’s stranglehold over US policy. 

Naturally J Street is not opposed to exempting Israel as the Post article points out. It has red lines: its biggest one is never ever to seriously oppose AIPAC on anything. (Sometimes I wonder if AIPAC created J Street as a safe alternative to itself. It has turned out that way).

In any case. Let’s exploit the sequestration issue to (1) prevent AIPAC from taking money away from needy people here to give to the Israeli military and (2) to point out what AIPAC is. You fill in that blank. I’ve said it enough!

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Hebron Is The Occupation

4 Mar

I wonder if all these Democratic politicians who attend the AIPAC pander-fest ever think about the occupation. Has any of them ever been to Hebron?

They should go to Hebron, a major city on the occupied West Bank — one that successive Israeli governments have said Israel will hold on to no matter what.  It won’t change their political calculations. They kiss up to AIPAC to for campaign contributions  but at least they will know what they are defending in the name of political expediency.

No, I don’t urge Republicans like Ted Cruz, John McCain or Lindsey Graham to go. They wouldn’t see anything wrong with it anyway. In fact, they would love it. Nor the likes of  New York Democrats like Chuck Schumer or Kristen Gillibrand who never give the Middle East a thought; they are on AAP, AIPAC Automatic Pilot. I’m talking about the Dick Durbins, Carl Levins, Al Frankens, Tammy Baldwins and the Elizabeth Warrens who actually allow themselves to feel compassion and, if they were honest, rage.

I have visited Hebron a half-dozen times, once as part of an official U.S. government to monitor Palestinian elections.   Much of what follows comes from a report I wrote back in 2006 but, note, Note: the situation has only deteriorated. 

Hebron is considered holy by both Jews and Muslims because of the presence there of a cave thought to be the burial place of Abraham, the patriarch of both Jews and Muslims.

Predominantly Palestinian, Jews also lived in the city, adjacent to the tomb, until 1929 when a pogrom launched by Arab fanatics resulted in the murder of 69 Jewish civilians and the end of the Jewish presence in the city.

In 1967, following the Six Day War — with Israel now in control of the West Bank, including Hebron — ultra-religious Jewish nationalists pressured the Israeli government to permit Jewish settlers to reclaim, and move into, properties that had belonged to the Jewish community prior to 1929.

The government refused.  It arranged for Jewish worship inside the tomb but not for civilian settlement inside the city, which it considered to be both impractical and provocative.  Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was personally close to the Palestinian mayor and opposed any Jewish settlement in the city, but especially settlement by the most fanatical and racist elements of the population. Besides, only a tiny group of extremists (many from the United States) had any interest in living inside Hebron.

The settlers snuck in anyway, establishing illegal outposts in the heart of Hebron, which have been tolerated by successive Israeli governments ever since.  Following the Oslo agreements of 1993, the Israeli army withdrew (temporarily) from all Palestinian cities except Hebron, where troops remained to defend the settlers.

In 1997, the Israeli army withdrew from 80% of Hebron, remaining only in an area labeled H-2 which includes Abraham’s burial place, the souk (Arab market) and the Jewish settlement.

Some 400 settlers live in H-2 in the midst of 20,000 Palestinians, protected by soldiers from the IDF.

On my last visit to Hebron, I walked into the heart of H-2 following a short inquisition by a soldier.  The soldier was pretty nasty and, when I complained, he asked me how I would feel if I was risking my life to defend settlers who routinely called him and his fellow Israeli soldiers “Nazis.”  (The settlers hate the IDF because the Israeli army prevents them from tormenting the Palestinians even more than they already do.  The army imposes restraints and the settlers want to be able to attack the unarmed Palestinians whenever they feel like it.)

My first stop was the mosque which encompasses Abraham’s tomb.  As I walked down the steps toward the mosque, a young Palestinian made the point of informing me that I was following the same route Jewish zealot Baruch Goldstein took when, in February 1994, he burst into the mosque and shot dead 29 Muslims at prayer.

Goldstein is a hero to the Hebron settlers.  His burial place (in a tourist park named after Meir Kahane) was turned into a shrine where settlers annually celebrate Goldstein’s murder spree with parties and games. (In 2004, police arrested some of them for holding an illegal celebration of both the Goldstein murders and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.) For Palestinians, of course, the Goldstein massacre is a symbol of the ultimate threat.

I left the mosque and walked through the mostly deserted souk toward the settlers’ neighborhood. There wasn’t much to see, just settlers strutting around with rifles and a few Arabs trying to sell their wares in what was once a thriving market and is now mostly abandoned.  And there is the graffiti in English and Hebrew promising death to all Palestinians.

But the most striking thing was the steel mesh screens that the Arabs installed just above the heads of pedestrians to protect them from the garbage and excrement routinely dumped by the settlers from their second floor windows.  The screens catch all sorts of disgusting stuff and lethal objects like cinder blocks, although liquid debris does make its way to the ground or on the heads of anyone below.

It’s an appalling sight.  Imagine looking up and seeing and smelling the foulest debris just above your head, stopped only by mesh.  But then everything about H-2 is appalling, including the fact that Israeli soldiers are forced to serve there.

In 2005, a group of 70 soldiers who had served in Hebron created a photographic and video exhibit at a Tel Aviv college about their experiences there called “Breaking Silence.”  The exhibit, which was a huge success, described from the soldiers’ point of view the dehumanizing experience that serving in Hebron had on them.  Many spoke of the fear they had — not only of the Arabs or of the Jews — but of being terribly transformed as human beings by the experience.

One soldier spoke of being frightened by the “rush” he felt from giving Arabs orders:

I was ashamed of myself the day I realized that I simply enjoy the feeling of power…Forget for a moment that I think that all these Jews are nuts and that I believe we should leave the territories. But how dare [a Palestinian] say “no” to me? I am the Law! I am the Law here!

Once I was at a checkpoint, a so-called strangulation checkpoint, blocking the entrance to a village. On one side a line of cars wanting to get out, and on the other side a line of cars wanting to get in. I stood there, gesturing “you to do this,” “you do that.” You start playing with them, like a computer game. “You come here, you go there.” You barely move, you make them obey the tip of your finger. It’s a mighty feeling.

A second soldier wrote:

The thing that…affected me emotionally…was when we had just arrived in Hebron.  I was on guard duty, when suddenly, from one of the small streets, a settler girl shows up and shouts at me very urgently: “Soldier, soldier, come quickly, there’s an Arab here who’s attacking a girl.” I got very alarmed and advanced with my weapon cocked. The scene that unfolded was of an Arab with his two children. He’s trying to protect them from another settler girl who’s throwing stones at them. I blow my fuse and start screaming at her….She’s screaming back that they are Arabs and should be killed…and the father, poor guy, says, with helpless eyes, “We’re used to it, we’ve been here a long time now, it’s alright.”

A third soldier spoke of the day a group from abroad came to visit Hebron for the Jewish holidays:

One morning, a fairly big group arrived, around 15 Jews from France. They were all religious Jews. They were in a good mood, really having a great time, and I spent my entire shift following this gang of Jews around and trying to keep them from destroying the town. They just wandered around, picked up every stone they saw, and started throwing them at Arabs’ windows, and overturning whatever they came across.

There’s no horror story here: they didn’t catch some Arab and kill him or anything like that, but what bothered me is that maybe someone told them that this is one place in the world where a Jew can take all of his rage out on Arab people, and simply do anything. Come to this Palestinian town, and do whatever they want, and the soldiers will always be there to back them up. Because that was my job, to protect them and make sure that nothing happened to them.

Note that this soldier said that he had no “horror story” to tell, just an ordinary day for soldiers, not to mention Palestinians, in Hebron.  And that is, of course, the greatest horror.

That is why Hebron is significant.  In one neighborhood, in one city, on any given day, anyone can experience the settlement enterprise in all its reality — terrible for the Palestinians and terrible for the Israelis, too.

If anyone tells you that settlements are no big deal, just ask him if he’s seen Hebron.  Image

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AIPAC Pandering: The Democrats Are Much Worse Than Republicans

4 Mar

It’s hard to watch the AIPAC conference for more than a few minutes at a time. For me, the worst part is the pandering (and lying) by Democratic politicians eager to raise money for their next campaign.

So far, Joe Biden has been the worst. He is heavily funded by the Adler family of Miami Beach (he even brought President Obama to their home for a fundraiser), one of the big AIPAC families. Here is Biden talking about how the head of the Adler klan and another AIPAC mogul gave him his “formal education” on the Middle East. (Not to mention all that money.

And, of course, Biden (like John Kerry) knows better than his AIPAC speeches indicate. I have talked to him about Israel and Palestine.He can name the top Palestinian leaders in Fatah and Hamas and tell you the differences between their respective positions. He believes Israel needs to end the occupation and talk to Hamas. He would not dare say it publicly, although he has said  it so often privately that it is amazing the media never reports it.

But Biden does what he thinks he has to because, for politicians like him (that is, pretty much all politicians), nothing is more important than keeping donors happy. Call him a hypocrite but he cries all the way to the bank.

The Republicans are different. Supporting the occupation and threatening war with Iran come naturally to them. They don’t need lobby money for their campaigns and they don’t get Jewish votes anyway.  (This is not to say that they don’t like Sheldon Adelson’s money, just that as the pro-business party, they don’t need it). They support Netanyahu because they believe that the west needs to crush the Muslim world. They do not feign Islamophobia. It’s them.

The good news is that as the country gets “browner,” as the black, Latino, and Asian vote continues to grow (and moves into the Democratic party), the lobby will have a harder time keeping the Democrats in line. No matter how many free trips AIPAC gives up-and-coming minority politicians. it  cannot keep up with the disdain progressive voters  feel for Likud Israel.  Combine them with the Democratic party’s large left and soon the Democrats tip…toward justice. That means playing the role of honest broker and peace maker, not bloviating Israel lover.

Does this mean the Jews will go to the Republicans. No way. Only 5% of Jews vote with Israel in mind. But the big money controlled by the lobby will. As will the whole AIPAC crowd that puts Israel’s interests above America’s.

AIPAC knows this is happening. They know  its future is with the GOP. Happily, America’s future isn’t, which means the lobby will soon be on the permanently losing side.

As for Israel, the decline of AIPAC is only good news. It needs peace with the Palestinians. It does not need empty rhetoric from empty politicians. As the segregationist left the Democrats for the GOP after LBJ’s civil rights laws, so will the AIPAC crowd go to the Republicans. It is inevitable.

And it’s good news. Biden’s bloviating for Israel will soon be history.

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Lobby To Get Israel Exempted From Sequestration

1 Mar

Douglas Bloomfield, who served as AIPAC’s chief lobbyist for more than a decade, reports this week that the lobby intends to insist that the United States not include Israel’s $3 billion grants package in the sequester that goes into effect today. Writing in the New York Jewish Week, Bloomfield says:

At a time when sequestration is about to take a big bite out of the Pentagon budget, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) will be sending thousands of its citizen lobbyists to Capitol Hill next week to make sure Israel is exempted from any spending cuts.

This could prove a very risky strategy at a time when millions of Americans will be feeling the bite of the sequestration debacle, from the defense budget to the school lunch program.

But not aid to Israel, which will be untouched if AIPAC gets its way.

At one time I wouldn’t have believed AIPAC would dare try something this nervy.That is it because traditionally AIPAC has been very cautious about not taking actions that suggested putting Israel’s interests over America’s. Demanding that Israel be exempt from cuts that virtually every American will feel seems so counterproductive as to almost be suicidal for the lobbying powerhouse.

Nonetheless, everything I hear indicates that Bloomfield is right although I doubt AIPAC will have the gall to insist on insulating AIPAC from the cuts that will occur in this year’s budget. More likely, it will wait until Congress is putting the 2014 cuts in place (there is more Congressional discretion in allotting the pain after 2013) before demanding not just that Israel go to the head of the line but that it not be forced to stand in the line at all.

No matter when Israel is exempted, and by how much, it is wrong and would represent nothing more than another power play by the lobby. After all, a cut of $175 million out of a $3 billion U.S. grant is nothing that Israel can’t handle. Besides, since when is any foreign aid gift automatic, so automatic that it is provided whether the donor can afford it or not. Even teenagers don’t demand a car when his parents are filing for bankruptcy. Additionally, if aid to Israel (thelargest chunk of the foreign aid budget) is protected, mandated sequestration cuts will have to be proportionately increased on other recipients, primarily African countries which receive much needed development assistance (hunger, poverty, disease prevention) .

But that’s AIPAC or, to use the more encompassing term, the Israel lobby. At its conference this week it will, if Bloomfield is right, not only demand that Israel be exempt from sequestration, but also that Congress enact legislation declaring that Israel is a “major strategic ally.”

That is a designation not enjoyed by any other nation, JTA [the Jewish Telegraphic Agency] pointed out, noting it may be a step toward the goal of some conservatives of divorcing assistance to Israel from all other foreign aid spending.

But all this is nothing compared to the centerpiece of AIPAC’s lobbying activities this coming week. According to theDaily Beast, the lobby will also dispatch its 13,000 delegates to Capitol Hill to promote a resolution on Iran that is being introduced by Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). The resolution “urges that, if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in self-defense, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.”

In other words, if Israel goes to war with Iran we are at war too.

Daily Beast quotes Columbia University professor, Gary Sick, who says that the effect of the resolution would be to authorize Israel to decide when and if the U.S. goes to war. “This legislation would effectively entrust that decision to a regional state…. Such a decision is an American sovereign responsibility. It cannot be outsourced.”

I don’t know what can get AIPAC off this dangerous course. Surely it understands, as the Forward reported this week, that the idea that the lobby runs U.S. foreign policy is now even the staple of popular culture as demonstrated in February alone on Saturday Night Live, the Kevin Spacey miniseries “House of Cards” and at the Academy Awards.

As one who believes that the lobby is a bad influence in American life, I suppose I should be glad that the lobby’s overreaching is finally being taken note of. On the other hand, I don’t like it. The Lobby, despite its claims, does not speak for most American Jews, not by a long shot. (In 2008, the American Jewish Committee poll found that just 3 percent of Jews cast their votes with their focus on Israel, findings that were repeated in a Florida only poll in 2012).Moreover, there is no indication that those Jews most focused on Israel share AIPAC’s (an organization with just 100,000 members) hard line approach.

Nonetheless, AIPAC’s aggressiveness tars us all, and Israel too. I recall back in 1973, when Israel was attacked by Egypt and Syria on Yom Kippur, America rushed to its aid, saving the country from possible collapse. Few questioned that doing so was the right thing to do. But that was before its lobby became a punch line in jokes about Jewish power, jokes that – as the case of Chuck Hagel demonstrated – are not fabricated out of thin air.

The lobby has outlived its usefulness. Its work no longer helps make Jews or Israel more secure. In fact, it accomplishes the opposite. It’s time for Israel to finally do what Yitzhak Rabin tried to: divest itself of the lobby.

 

Rightist & COMMENTARY Bloggers On Payroll of Anti-Semitic Malaysian Government

1 Mar

This makes my week.

It turns out that some key right-wing bloggers (including Seth Mandel of Commentary) have been on the payroll of the anti-Semitic, gay-baiting and repressive government of Malaysia.

Josh Trevino, who founded Red State, a far right blog and who prides himself as being a big Netanyahu supporter, was paid $389,724.70 to promote the Malaysian government’s cause. He then spread the dough around by subcontracting with other conservative bloggers including the “pro-Israel” Commentary editor Mandel. Also, cashing in were conservative writer Ben Domenech, who made $36,000 and Rachel Ehrenfeld, the director of the American Center for Democracy, who made $30,000.

I don’t care much about Trevino. Trevino is a rightist who strikes me as a racist, one who tends to invoke Israel to convince people that he is not anti-Semitic. There is no reason to think he would have scruples about being paid by an anti-Semitic regime, one that continues to persecute the leader of the democratic opposition as both an Israel lover and gay, two of the worst things one can be in Malaysia. (Trevino is best known for saying it was fine with him if Israel killed Americans participating in the Gaza relief flotilla).

But Mandel is obsessed with loving Israel and demonizing anyone who doesn’t. And he takes money from the Malayasian government! Here is his defense.

I was blogging about issues relating to Israel and anti-Semitism in 2010, and Josh approached me about a Malaysian opposition figure who had made anti-Semitic comments and was affiliated with anti-Israel organizations. I had full editorial freedom – Josh never saw anything I wrote until after it was published – and I had no relationship with the Malaysian government. I was paid by Josh for what was probably a handful of blog posts in the fall of 2010, I believe, while working as a freelancer in Washington.

What a liar. No one has ever accused the Malyasian opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, of being anti-Semitic or anti-Israel. No one.

In fact, just this week Hamas denounced Ibrahim as a tool of Israel. Surely Mandel saw the Jerusalem Post piece about how Ibrahim’s support for the two-state solution is being exploited by the Malyasian government (yeah, the one that paid Trevino and Mandel) which has labelled him a Jew-lover.

I guess Mandel was mixed up. Ibrahim is demonized as a Jew-lover and he thought that meant Jew-hater.

And so it goes with the right. Yes, some are in the right for the hate. But a lot of them are in it for the money. Trevino is good on both counts. But Mandel? What a shonda? Selling out the Jews for $5500. Come on! You can do better than that.

 

 

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Times Profiles Michael Goldfarb: A McCarthyite Liar Who Is Just Doing It For Israel

24 Feb

Sunday’s New York Times features an important piece that will serve to alert progressives and Democrats to the latest brand of right-wing provocateur: young zealots who are not “movement” conservatives but who move from pro-Israel activism to the right at large.

Although they ally themselves with more traditional right-wingers, their central concern is Israel, and not so much Israel per se as supporting Prime Minister  Binyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right. Although they stridently adopt traditional right-wing stands on the usual litmus issues, those are just window dressing. Their driving issue is Israel.

The Times piece was occasioned by Goldfarb’s central role in promoting the line that Chuck Hagel is hostile to Israel. The article begins by telling the story of Goldfarb’s most recent triumph.

At 11:42 a.m. on Feb. 14, a conservative online magazine called The Washington Free Beacon posted a dispatch about a speech Chuck Hagel gave in 2007 in which it said he called the State Department “an adjunct to the Israeli foreign minister’s office.”

The report was based on “contemporaneous” notes an attendee posted online. An hour later on the floor of the United States Senate, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina urgently cited that statement as another reason to delay Mr. Hagel’s nomination as defense secretary.

Mr. Hagel denied saying it, and no recording has surfaced. But after a successful filibuster against the nominee, a group called the Emergency Committee for Israel effectively declared partial victory and vowed to “redouble its efforts to bring to light Mr. Hagel’s complete record.”

All in all, it was a very bad day for Mr. Hagel, and a smashingly good one for the conservative political operative of the moment – Michael Goldfarb.

Blocking (at least temporarily) a president’s cabinet appointment, based on imaginary evidence, is serious business but, as reporter Rutenberg points out, it is all fun and games for Goldfarb who “as he tells it, he is simply trying to have fun while practicing his admittedly combative brand of politics….” Although he also says, “We get up every day and say, how do we cause trouble?”

The piece describes other instances of Goldfarbian fun, all of which amount to personal smears of people he doesn’t like. With Goldfarb and the Free Beacon in general, the issue is usually Israel.

And that is no surprise because it is Israel that drives these new right-wing activists. As Rutenberg points out:

Mr. Goldfarb did not come up via state politics, Capitol Hill or the Republican National Committee, proving grounds that made the careers of top party operatives like Lee Atwater, Karl Rove and Matt Rhoades, the campaign manager for Mitt Romney.

His career was spawned, rather, in the conservative confines of The Weekly Standard and allied organizations, namely the Project for the New American Century, which is well known for promoting the war in Iraq.

The Weekly Standard, published by Bill Kristol, is the most influential neoconservative organ in the country, heavily promoting both Netanyahu’s policies and bellicose policies toward Iran while the Project for the New American Centurywas created back in 1997 to promote both war with Iraq and an end to U.S. support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It was not so much conservative or Republican as Likud.

And such is the case with Goldfarb and the other young right-wing activists who, unlike their nominal cohorts in the overall right-wing movement (the Tea Party, for instance) are primarily obsessed with preserving U.S. support for hard line Israeli policies.

The Goldfarbs of the world suspect, probably correctly, that Democrats and liberals in general can not be permanently counted on to back onerous Israeli policies toward the Palestinians and so they line up with the right. If the price for admission to that fraternity requires them to support reactionary policies on issues like guns, gays, health care, racial equality, taxes and the like, so be it. Those aren’t their issues: Israel is. And from there, it is just a short leap to Jews.

And so they injected the very last thing we needed into American politics in the 21st century. That is the ugliest bacillus of the 19th and 20th: what used to be called, “the Jewish question.” This is not fun and games. This is ugly and dangerous and harms both the United States and Israel which ends up being associated with the deceitful partisan attacks made in its name. The Times deserves credit for exposing it.

 

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Watch AIPAC Get Israel Exempted From Sequestration

9 Feb

On March 1, if the White House and Congress do not reach a deal, the automatic budget sledgehammer known as the “sequester” will cut $1.2 trillion out of government spending, equally divided between domestic programs and the military.

These cuts would be devastating but, at this point, they could very well happen.

Here is my question? Will AIPAC succeed in getting an exemption for Israel programs, the largest item by far on the foreign aid side?

Already AIPAC’s cutouts on the Hill are getting ready to save Israel’s aid. At the Hagel confirmation hearing last week, Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY)  who combines Chuck Schumer’s zealousness in serving AIPAC with utter ignorance of foreign policy, asked Hagel point blank if he would ensure that Israel’s aid would be kept at current levels if the sequester takes place.  Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) has chimed in on the devastating effects sequestration would have on poor Marylanders and on Israel.

Our commitment to Israel and its security is unprecedented and unwavering. U.S. security assistance to Israel in the annual foreign aid and defense appropriation bills are the most tangible manifestation of American support to one of our strongest allies. These critical funds are especially vital during this time of tremendous turmoil in the Middle East, particularly as Iran is aggressively working to acquire a nuclear-weapon capability. Indeed, our military and intelligence cooperation with Israel has never been closer.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and, in this time of turmoil, we count on Israel as a strong, stabilizing force in that region. With the on-going civil war in Syria, an uncertain government in Egypt and the growing threat of a nuclear Iran, America’s support for Israel must continue.

This is not the time to financially cripple our own nation or that of our allies. Too many nations are watching for any weakness in our national resolve or lack of support for our allies. I believe sequestration would be a self-inflicted wound that would not only endanger our nation’s economic recovery, but also jeopardize our prestige and influence in the world.

The usual AIPAC blah blah,

It is hard to believe that AIPAC would dare exempt Israel from cuts that are going to impact every American or that it will exempt the IDF from cuts that will affect the US Armed Forces. Or that it will preserve the largest item in the foreign aid budget intact thereby forcing proportionately larger cuts on USAID programs to combat hunger, illiteracy and poverty in Asia, Africa and the Americas.

On the other hand, AIPAC is shameless and so are their wholly owned subsidiaries in Congress.

Let’s keep an eye on this. Letting AIPAC know that we are watching might prevent its latest run on the bank.

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