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Title: Obama defeats the Israel Lobby
Source:
aljazeera.com
URL Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/op ... 013/01/201311075440294575.html
Published: Jan 13, 2013
Author: MJ Rosenberg
Post Date: 2013-01-13 15:46:52 by Ferret Mike
Keywords: None
Views: 11170
Comments: 26
As long as Israel's security is not put at risk - "and no president would put it at risk" - the president will prevail. In 1983 or thereabouts, during my four year stint at AIPAC, the powerful organisation that is the main component of the pro-Israel lobby, I asked Tom Dine, its executive director, if a president of the United States could ever successfully challenge Israel's behaviour even in cases when US national security interests were clearly at stake. My question related specifically to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza that began in 1967 and which seemingly made an Israeli-Palestinian agreement impossible. It also was, as it is now, the primary source of Arab and Muslim anger against the United States. The reason for my question was my fear that the power of the lobby was such that a president could not prevail against it. Even matters that did not directly affect Israel like US arms sales to allies like Jordan and Saudi Arabia, would meet massive resistance from Israel, the lobby and its huge chorus of supporters in Congress. How, I asked Dine, could the United States ever get Israel to actually yield occupied territory if it became clear that the Arabs were ready for peace, as in fact became the case after the 1993 Oslo agreement between Israel and the PLO? Dine responded that although he hoped the day would come when Israeli leaders (and hence the lobby) would be ready for "compromise", he did not think a president could make Israel do anything it didn't want to do given the power of the organisation he led and "our friends in Congress". But then he added a caveat: "Of course, if a president pushed hard enough, and told the American people that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was damaging US interests and that he had a plan to end it, he would prevail." He elaborated: "By that I mean AIPAC would have no choice but to support him. We can never defeat a president who reaches over the heads of AIPAC and Congress and invokes his prerogatives as president of the United States or, even more, the national interest. The logic behind Dine's thinking was simply that American Jews would never allow themselves to be perceived as putting Israel's interests over America's because (1) that would be bad for Jews and (2) American Jews are Americans before they are anything else. It is fine to strongly support the Israeli government even when it is at odds with the US government - but only up to a point. The point is when that support clearly contradicts US interests, as defined by the president. That is why the lobby was so outraged when Reagan administration officials suggested the lobby's opposition to an arms sale to Saudi Arabia represented the wrong answer to the question of "Reagan or Begin?" That little phrase - "Reagan or Begin" - won the battle for the administration. That is why any criticism of the lobby that even hints at the lobby's putting Israel's interests above America's produces such fury, hence the recent hysteria over the use of the term "Israel Firster". American Jews will not tolerate the suggestion that they are anything but good Americans. Fighting a president over a national security issue is simply not sustainable. Although a president's choice for Secretary of Defence is not in really a national security issue, it does get to the question of an American president and his security prerogatives. After all, the Department of Defence personifies US national security. Once President Obama made clear that he would nominate Hagel, the game was over. Of course, the lobby claims that it actually did not fight to prevent the naming of Hagel. That is just silly. As someone who worked at AIPAC, in Congress and the State Department for 20 years, I know more than most that, when it comes to the Israel issue, nothing happens without the lobby's involvement. AIPAC is, like most professional lobbies, highly protective of its role. Its associates and friends, widely quoted in the media as demanding that Hagel not be appointed, would never have been so aggressive without AIPAC's go-ahead. That is how it works. It always has. Frankly, I am surprised that the president went ahead over the lobby's opposition. I am well-known for my belief that it could not be beaten, although I have always offered the caveat that it would be if a president fought back hard. Obama did, and Chuck Hagel will almost surely be the next Secretary of Defence. That is good news but far less significant than the implications for peace. As Dine told me all those years ago, if a president pushes for a peace agreement that advances US interests while not harming Israel's, he will prevail. That means that he can insist on an end to the occupation and the creation of a viable Palestinian state in the lands Israel has occupied since 1967. As long as Israel's security is not put at risk (and no president would put it at risk), the president will prevail. This is especially the case because an end to the occupation (with security guarantees for Israel and the new state) would advance Israel's security not damage it. The lobby will not be able to block a president determined to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on terms fair to both sides. It is like the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, said: "If you will it, it is no dream." It is, as Obama demonstrated with Hagel, just a matter of will. MJ Rosenberg served as a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow with Media Matters Action Network and prior to that worked on Capitol Hill for various Democratic members of the House and Senate for 15 years. He was also a Clinton political appointee at USAID. Follow him on Twitter: @MJayRosenberg The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
"The Department of Defence personifies US national security and once President Obama made clear that he would nominate Hagel, the game was over," writes author [Reuters]
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#1. To: Ferret Mike (#0)
Obviously, this one has.
How so?
F16 fighter jets to Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Obama is a Muslim. Why wouldn't Bathhouse Barry support his fellow worshipers of the Pedophile Mohammad?
Does this mean you disaprove of the 200 Abrams tanks too? I notice pressure is building to try to halt this sale currently going on. We as a nation have supplied many nations with weapons. I don't see this sales as being any more dangerous than many we have done in the past. Don't forget too that much of the Japanese war machine in WW II was built wuth scrap metal bought from the USA. ;-)
Obama is Christian, you are a dumbshit who needs your wife to tie your shoelaces in the morning and burp you aftet the morning bottle. Oh yes, she is the one who has to play moderator to get you top mind your manners in your own forum too.
Personally, Egypt would be far better off buying Russian aircraft or French Mirages, as even the enhanced F 16 is under powered and over extended airborne weapons platform and fighter. However, the Abrams tanks was a good buy for them.
You're a liar Mike. You know them by their fruit. He props up the Muslims and always speaks for them. Obama wants to make real christians fund abortion. Listen carefully Mike. FUCK THAT PIECE OF SHIT. Screw his dog face wife. I don't even care for his alleged children.
He's only just gone to Christian services his entire life, dombshit. He is most obviously Christian. If you want to live in a fantasy world, go right ahead. Just don't expect the rest of us to follow suit.
He didn't go to no christian church. He went to some African hate Whitey circus act. He only went there so he could claim he was a christian. Something that he needed to get elected. You don't know what a christian is Mike. You worship Lucifer. People who worship Satan get to burn with him. Burn bitch burn. Or better yet open your eyes, repent and be renewed.
It's sad. I had a pleasent talk on government with a 14 year old girl here at the Cybercafe I am currently at and she knew way more about it than you seem to. Maybe you should of paid attention when you went to school like she did.
Here is what I know. They are corrupt. They don't follow the constitution. They don't give a shit about you or me. They can all go to hell. Except about I'll guess 5 percent of them. Not one good democrat in the country I can think of. Anyone who thinks Obama is a christian needs to have their head examined. I don't hate you Mike but you are so stupid sometimes. Just think Mike if you had your dress on I would be arguing with Jasmine.
Jasmine likes riding horses and is usually in jeans or pants. Personally, I don't find women's attire a good fit for my lifestyle either, as I am usually on a bicycle, and my knees are knobby as shit. ;-D
I'll tell her you said hi though. What can I say, I'm a nice guy and always willing to pass along a salutation.
Even when he lived in Indonesia? I call bullshit on your claim.
Don't ya just love how some people claim to know what somebody has done their entire life and not even know the guy...
“We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the ammunition box.”
Please. It's in the Secret Addendum of the Egypt/Israel Treaty. Nothing can be sold to Egypt by the US until the info is given to Israel on how to shoot it down.....;}
Not very secret if we know about it.
Yeah, ya gotta watch them l'il boys pard. Not. I was raised Catholic and my parents stuck me in some activities run by Protestant churches, and I not only am not that, I am not Catholic now either. You are fishing, and I find it disengenuous and not worthy as something to take seriously.
So you think there were no Christians in Indonesia in the fifties/sixties/early seventies? The place was a buzzing with new converts, and was a favorite of Mormon missionaries.
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
Oh boy; you are giving him facts. Now he'll really be confused.
Time and history march on, which appears to just confuse the conservative "brain".
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
It doesn't matter whether there were Christians in Indonesia since Obama wasn't one of them. From the New York Times: I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist, grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion, even as she was the kindest, most spiritual person I've ever known. She was the one who taught me as a child to love, and to understand, and to do unto others as I would want done. I didn't become a Christian until many years later, when I moved to the South Side of Chicago after college. It happened not because of indoctrination or a sudden revelation, but because I spent month after month working with church folks who simply wanted to help neighbors who were down on their luck – no matter what they looked like, or where they came from, or who they prayed to. It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God's spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose – His purpose.
Obama was registered as Muslim at SD Katolik Santo Fransiskus Asisi: Obama was registered at a Catholic school in Jakarta as "Barry Soetoro." A surviving document correctly lists him as born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961; in addition, it lists him having Indonesian nationality and Muslim religion.
What about Obama referring to his Muslim faith during this television interview?
That's one of the very few times he's told the truth... It seems to me like he's also claimed to be Catholic or Jewish, I forget which one it was.... But him being Christian, never in a million years especially after he admits he's "Heathen" (Muslim)...
“We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the ammunition box.”
As long as Israel's security is not put at risk - "and no president would put it at risk"
#2. To: Abcdefg (#1)
#3. To: Ferret Mike (#2)
#4. To: Abcdefg (#3)
#5. To: Abcdefg (#3)
#6. To: A K A Stone (#4)
#7. To: Abcdefg (#3)
(Edited)
#8. To: Ferret Mike (#6)
Obama is Christian
#9. To: A K A Stone (#8)
(Edited)
#10. To: Ferret Mike (#9)
He's only just gone to Christian services his entire life,
#11. To: A K A Stone (#8)
(Edited)
#12. To: Ferret Mike (#11)
It's sad. I had a pleasent talk on government with a 14 year old girl here at the Cybercafe I am currently at and she knew way more about it than you seem to.
#13. To: A K A Stone (#12)
(Edited)
#14. To: A K A Stone (#12)
#15. To: Ferret Mike (#9)
He's only just gone to Christian services his entire life
#16. To: Abcdefg (#15)
He's only just gone to Christian services his entire life
#17. To: Abcdefg (#3)
F16 fighter jets to Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood.
#18. To: mcgowanjm (#17)
It's in the Secret Addendum
#19. To: Abcdefg (#15)
(Edited)
"Even when he lived in Indonesia? I call bullshit on your claim."
#20. To: Abcdefg (#15)
Even when he lived in Indonesia? I call bullshit on your claim.
#21. To: mininggold (#20)
"So you think there were no Christians in Indonesia in the fifties/sixties/early seventies? The place was a buzzing with new converts, and was a favorite of Mormon missionaries."
#22. To: Ferret Mike (#21)
Oh boy; you are giving him facts. Now he'll really be confused.
#23. To: mininggold (#20)
So you think there were no Christians in Indonesia in the fifties/sixties/early seventies?
#24. To: Ferret Mike (#21)
Oh boy; you are giving him facts. Now he'll really be confused.
#25. To: CZ82 (#16)
#26. To: Abcdefg (#25)
What about Obama referring to his Muslim faith during this television interview?
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