Story of Israel’s influence shadows the Russian influence story
Philip Weiss on February 14, 2018
As everyone knows, a special counsel is
investigating Russia’s influence in the last election, and as the prosecutor’s
circle closes round the Trump White House, a constitutional crisis is looming….
And maybe, just maybe, Donald Trump will go down. Meantime the springs of
outrage over Russian interference are refreshed daily on
our media, with many a conspiracy
theory, some of which are surely true.
Whatever you think of Russia’s actual influence
over the 2016 election (I’m dubious), the running sideshow to the story has
been Israel’s presence in our politics. As the Russia caper unfolds
breathlessly, there have also been revelations about Israel’s interference in
policymaking. But of course that interference is not a scandal worthy of
investigation; that interference never draws the wrath of the liberal press.
Here are three recent incidents that no one is
investigating.
First, as we surmised a
couple weeks back, it
appears that Al Jazeera has put the brakes on an investigative documentary of
the operations of the Israel lobby in the U.S. because Qatar is cultivating
better relations with the U.S. establishment, or, in a word, with the Israel
lobby itself. We’d all been hoping for bombshells from the documentary ala the
bombshells from Al Jazeera’s undercover probe of the lobby in the U.K. But
even the New York Times is now reporting on pressures
to can the documentary, as Qatar and the rival Saudis each host delegations of “prominent
American Jewish leaders” in an effort to win favor in U.S. policy circles.
The Times says some congresspeople are trying to
punish Al Jazeera for the unaired documentary:
Representative Josh Gottheimer, Democrat of New
Jersey, is among the lawmakers asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to require
Al Jazeera to register as a foreign agent — a designation that could limit its
access to American officials and facilities. The congressional request, which
has yet to be issued, follows a recent revelation that an undercover Al Jazeera reporter
secretly filmed pro-Israeli organizations in Washington.
Gottheimer’s letter cites “Al Jazeera’s record
of radical anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel broadcasts,” Armin
Rosen reports at
Tablet; and he notes
that FARA registration would be a disaster for Al Jazeera’s scores of
reporters.
It should go without saying that Gottheimer is a
tireless friend of
Israel. Last year he
undercut the Obama administration over its last-gasp abstention on the
excellent anti-settlements resolution
in the Security Council. Whether his
devotion springs from his Jewish background or his need to raise cash
in Democratic national politics is anyone’s guess.
But let’s be clear about what’s going on. A major
network seems to be sitting on a lengthy investigation about foreign influence,
and no one is up in arms about that. No, a Clintonite congressman wants to
punish the network for daring to seek to expose the Israel lobby. And the New
York Times, which chronicles every bit of evidence of Russian interference with
shock, lets this pass as s.o.p. — in an article that is an unspoken
testament to the power of the lobby, from its description of Alan Dershowitz
and Morton Klein as Jewish leaders who flew out to the Gulf, to the chorus of
Aaron David Miller, longtime peace processor, and Richard Goldberg, of the
neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
2, In the fallout over the lately-declassified
Nunes memo on the origins of the Russia investigation, Democrats insist that
the investigation had an honest impetus: In May 2016, Trump aide George
Papadopoulos revealed to an Australian diplomat in London that the Russians had
dirt on the Clinton campaign– a trove of hacked emails from the Democratic
National Committee. The New York Times:
The hacking and the revelation that a member of the
Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors
that led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s
attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump’s associates
conspired.
So once again the revelations from those emails,
including the DNC’s alignment with the Clinton campaign and efforts against the
Sanders campaign, count for nothing in our discourse.
Many of those emails document the Clinton campaign’s deference in
foreign policy positioning to Israel and its advocates. Clinton took a
stand against Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to satisfy donors, and as a counter to her support for the Iran
deal. She received advice on BDS from Benjamin Netanyahu: “Israel must attack
its attackers. The best defense is a good offense: ‘attack, attack, attack’”.
She promised to meet with Netanyahu in her first month in office at the urging
of a pro-Israel aide who had met with Netanyahu and said she needed to repair
President Obama’s damage to the special relationship. She made a call to the
pro-settlement Jewish leader Malcolm Hoenlein so as to distance herself from
the Obama administration, resulting in a headline in the New York
Times “Clinton Wants to Improve Ties to Israel.” And megadonor Haim Saban
promptly thanked Clinton by citing other donors: “pls be aware that these
articles will be mailed to thousands of people who are interested in the
subject matter and who have been asking themselves ,,,,and me ,many times
‘Where is Hillary on this.'”
Trump was of course involved in the same game:
trying to please pro-Israel donors. His love of Sheldon Adelson gave us the
disgraceful Jerusalem embassy decision and let us not forget that one of the
crimes of the Russia probe involves an effort by a Trump aide to interfere on
behalf of Israel against the Obama administration’s foreign policy during the transition
in 2016. Former national security adviser Mike Flynn has pleaded guilty to
lying to the FBI about contacts with the
Russians, aimed at thwarting
that U.N. Security Council resolution declaring Israeli settlements a flagrant
violation of international law. (The Russians didn’t play ball.)
3. Finally, there’s this item. The Department of
Justice has dropped its case for
corruption against New
Jersey Senator Robert Menendez following a hung jury in Menendez’s trial last
year. Menendez is expected to resume his place in the Senate as the top Democrat on Foreign
Relations. And Menendez is right back to being a mouthpiece for
Israel.
Eli Clifton suggests that maybe
the fix was in between
Justice and Trump’s biggest donor, Sheldon Adelson: perhaps a “quid pro quo was
reached between Adelson, Trump, and Menendez in which Menendez would back
Adelson’s hawkish foreign policy positions in the Senate.”
Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam each contributed the maximum allowable amount, $10,000 each,
to Menendez’s legal defense fund. That’s a bit surprising considering that
Sheldon and Miriam Adelson are the biggest source of funding to groups
supporting Trump’s candidacy. They reportedly gave about
$35 million to the Future
45 Super PAC that support Trump’s general election bid and contributed more than $80 million to help elect Republicans in 2016.
Sheldon Adelson has been clear about what he
expects for his money. He pushed Trump to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem,
lobbying Trump inside the White House and in the pages of the Las Vegas Review
Journal, which
the Adelsons own.
Adelson says he wishes he’d served
in the Israeli army, and he’s a
major player in rightwing Israeli politics. His gifts on both sides of the
aisle in the U.S. remind us that there’s only one game in town on Israel
policy, the pro-Israel game. Chuck Schumer leapt to his feet to cheer Trump’s
Jerusalem lines in the state of the union speech. My progressive
congressman says he’ll never stop supporting Israel; and BDS is anti-Semitic.
While Sen. Dianne Feinstein‘s criticism of Israel is a dissenting murmur.
The interests of the two countries are held to be
congruent in official circles; and the damage of this false belief to America
has been endless.
About Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
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