I haven't left my house in days.
I watch the news channels incessantly.
All the news stories are about the election.
All the commercials are for Viagra and Cialis.
Election - erection - election - erection
-- either way we're getting screwed! -- Bette Midler.
===
Sowell on Hillary the stonewaller. (See 1 below.)
Tobin analyzes Netanyahu's recent comments. (See 1a below.)
===
Another episode that happened in the last few days was Hillarious' comments about The VA and how Republicans have blown the alleged problems out of proportion for political gain.
The facts are that her insensitivity and desire to score partisan and mean spirited points in a combative manner gets her in constant trouble as it should.
There have been delays and these delays led to deaths. Once vets are in the various hospitals care is relatively good but getting an appointment in order to get in the hospital is the issue and it is a real matter not contrived for political purposes.
I wonder how the "Queen" would respond were the shoe on her foot?
Hillarious, should she be elected God forbid, will continue to be as divisive as Obama if not more so. She, like Nixon, is paranoid, insecure and incapable of realizing Goblins are not after her - she invites them .
Virtually every government agency suffers from failing to measure up to their stated mission and public responsibility and when they are found wanting the various heads become evasive, lie, lose data and information and no one is ever found responsible or fired.
Government could not survive in the corporate world. (See 2 below.)
===
Taheri writes about Obama delivering a gift to Iran's leader! (See 3 below.)
===
I have been an AIPAC supporter for almost half a century. I am checking this story out and if true I will let AIPAC support Coons and Booker with someone else's money. I refuse to assist those who bite the hand that feeds them, have weak stomachs, place their personal interests above that of my nation and our allies. (See 4 below.)
My cousin heads the Israeli office of The World Jewish Congress! (See 4a below.)
===
Dick
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1)
Hillary 2.0 still the same stonewalling law-breaker ByThomas Sowell
Now that Hillary Clinton's e-mails have finally been recovered and revealed, after three years of stalling and stonewalling, they showed explicitly that she knew from the outset that the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens and others was not a result of some video but was a coordinated terrorist operation.
Many people may share Senator Bernie Sanders' complaint that he was tired of hearing about Hillary Clinton's e-mails. But the controversy is about issues far bigger than e-mails.
One issue is the utter disaster created by the Obama administration's foreign policy in Libya, carried out by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
An even bigger issue is whether high officials of government can ignore the law and refuse to produce evidence when it is subpoenaed. If they can, then the whole separation of powers -- the checks and balances in the Constitution -- gives way to arbitrary government by corrupt officials who are accountable to no one
This is not the first time Hillary Clinton has defied the law to cover up what she had done. When Bill Clinton was president, back in the 1990s, both he and Hillary developed the strategy of responding to charges of illegal actions on their part by stalling and stonewalling when either courts or Congress tried to get them to produce documents related to these charges.
Hillary claimed then, as now, that key documents had disappeared. Her more recent claim that many of her e-mails had been deleted was just Hillary 2.0. Only after three years of stalling and stonewalling on her part has the fact finally come out this year that those e-mails could be recovered, and now have been.
By this time, however, Hillary and her supporters used the same tactics that both Clintons used back in the 1990s -- namely, saying that this was old news, stuff that had already been investigated too long, that it was time to "move on."
That was Hillary 1.0. More recently Hillary 2.0 said, melodramatically, "What difference, at this point, does it make?"
One of the things that the former Secretary of State was now trying to cover up was the utter disaster of the Obama administration's foreign policy that she carried out in Libya.
Having intervened in Libya to help overthrow the government of Muammar Qaddafi, who was no threat to America's interests in the Middle East, the Obama administration was confronted with the fact that Qaddafi's ouster simply threw the country into such chaos that Islamic terrorists were now able to operate freely in Libya.
Just how freely was shown in September 2012, when terrorists stormed the compound in Benghazi where the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was staying. They murdered him and three other Americans who tried to defend him.
Moreover, the terrorists did not even have to go into hiding afterwards, and at least one of them was interviewed by journalists. That's how chaotic Libya had become.
Meanwhile, there was an American presidential election campaign in 2012, and Barack Obama was presenting himself to the voters as someone who had defeated Al Qaeda and suppressed the terrorist threat in the Middle East.
Obviously the truth about this attack could have totally undermined the image that Obama was trying to project during the election campaign, and perhaps cost him the White House. So a lie was concocted instead.
The lie was that the attack was not by terrorists -- who supposedly had been suppressed by Obama -- but was a spontaneous protest demonstration against an American video insulting Islam, and that protest just got out of control.
Now that Hillary Clinton's e-mails have finally been recovered and revealed, after three years of stalling and stonewalling, they showed explicitly that she knew from the outset that the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens and others was not a result of some video but was a coordinated terrorist operation.
Nevertheless, Hillary 2.0, along with President Obama and national security advisor Susan Rice, told the world in 2012 that the deaths in Benghazi were due to the video, not a terrorist organization that was now operating freely in Libya, thanks to the policy that got rid of the Qaddafi government.
Yet that key fact was treated by the media as old news, and what was exciting now was how well Hillary 2.0 outperformed the Congressional committee on television. If the corruption and undermining of the American system of Constitutional government eventually costs us our freedom, will the media say, "What difference does it make now?"
1a)
Puncturing the False Hopes of Peace
2)
Many in the news media may remain too infatuated with their "Hillary momentum!" narrative to pay this story much heed, but Republicans ought to clip this comment and pummel her with it:
Before we proceed any further, kindly allow me to remind you that Hillary Clinton's party is currently filibusteringa bill that funds the VA, using America's veterans as a bargaining chip to try to force Republicans to agree to unrelated spending increases. President Obama is engaged in similar "hostage taking," having just vetoed bipartisan defense legislation that, among other things, would pay the troops. Setting that aside, let's address Mrs. Clinton's arguments one by one:
(1) The VA's struggles are attributable to the GOP's refusal to adequately fund the agency, with its failure being a deliberate ideological goal. Wrong on all counts. The VA's problem is not underfunding; its budget nearly tripled between 2000 and 2012, outpacing both the rate of medical price inflation and new patient demand. In the wake of the VA scandal, which shocked and angered Americans, Congress earmarked billions in additional funds for the agency. The wait time problem has gotten worse. Providing quality healthcare to the veterans who've earned our help is a bipartisan priority. It's one of the few forms of government-run healthcare that both sides agree is appropriate. The VA mess has nothing to do with Republican ideology or insufficient government expenditures. It's failing all on its own, under the crushing weight of bureaucratic excess, inefficiency and corruption.
(2) The VA scandal itself has "not been as widespread as it has been made out to be." By what possible metric? The agency's Inspector General has called the wait time manipulation abuses "systemic" in nature. Here's a Daily Beast headline from last spring: "VA Admits Fraud is 'Systemic.'" USA Today: "Delayed care is everywhere." Another IG report published this fall concluded that, "more than 300,000 American military veterans likely died while waiting for health care -- and nearly twice as many are still waiting...[the report] says 'serious' problems with enrollment data are making it impossible to determine exactly how many veterans are actively seeking health care from the VA." Once again, the already-unacceptable wait times have increased. "Not widespread," Hillary shrugs.
(3) Those veterans who do manage to get care are satisfied with their treatment. Some veterans do get good quality care from the VA. Others have had decidedly negative experiences. The trouble is that far, far to few of them receive timely care. That's the whole problem -- the chronic, broad-based cover-up of which exploded into a major scandal. Clinton denounces (and overstates) Republicans' desire to "privatize" the VA, but guess who favors increased private options within the system? The vast majority of veterans, according to pollreported by the Military Times in February.
Hillary Clinton tries to lay this abject failure of big, corrupt, inept government at the feet of her political opponents, relying on flimsy evidence and outright distortions to do so. Her mistaken belief that the scope of the VA scandal has been overblown by Republicans betrays a fanatical partisanship and unbending ideological commitment to the proposition of ever-expanding government, no matter how stark and tragic its failures may be. She is wholly incapable of fixing a problem that she willfully refuses to even acknowledge; the result is crippling denial, coupled with partisan point-scoring. Her callousness and cluelessness demonstrated in the clip above present an opportunity for conservatives to build both a political case against her as a candidate, and an ideological case against sprawling, unaccountable Statism. The ponderous federal bureaucracy can't even properly execute critical, consensus tasks on which virtually all Americans agree. Perhaps we shouldn't be empowering them with even more authority and responsibility.
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The late Ayatollah Khomeini dreamed it; President Barack Obama is trying to deliver it: the end of Pax Americana.
The topic was at the center of a daylong seminar in Tehran last week attended by ambassadors from Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, plus a number of Islamic Iranian officials and scholars.
The five Latin American nations with left-wing regimes represent one of the “clusters” that former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tried to organize as points of anti-American “resistance” across the globe. Another “cluster” consisted of Lebanon, controlled through the local branch of Hezbollah, Syria, under Bashar Al-Assad, and parts of Iraq dominated by pro-Tehran armed groups. The plan was to set up another “cluster” by breaking up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) bloc through the Finlandization of some of its members while seizing control of Yemen through local Trojan outfits.
Next month, Tehran is scheduled to host the fifth annual “End of America” conference with a number of professional anti-American figures from Europe and the US itself also expected.
However, the timing of the exercise is puzzling. For the first time in almost a decade, the presidency, and part of the government including the foreign ministry seem to be controlled by the so-called Rafsanjani faction that has been trying to make a deal with the Americans since the late 1980s.
Many in Tehran now wonder whether this year’s “End of America” will take place at all. A number of “Afro-American families of victims of US police brutality” have already been invited along with European religious leaders and scholars opposed to the “Great Satan.”
Some pro-Rafsanjani commentators in Tehran, including a few in the entourage of President Hassan Rouhani, argue against the holding of another “End of America” conference as unnecessary at best and wanton provocation at worst.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif argues that the US has shown its goodwill by bending backward to satisfy Iran’s demands in the nuclear negotiations. It would be foolish to provoke the US at a time that Tehran needs Washington’s support to destroy the edifice of sanctions and kick the whole nuclear saga into the long grass.
More than 30 years ago, Khomeini’s intransigence led to the destruction of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, depriving Iran of a friend in Washington. It would be foolish to repeat the same mistake by humiliating Obama and, through him the Democrat Party, thus helping the return to power of the Republicans who are committed to making life difficult for the Khomeinist regime.
Seen from Tehran the ideal outcome of next year’s presidential election in the United States would be the nomination and victory of either Vice President Joseph Biden or Secretary of State John Kerry. Both men have a history of decades of support for the Khomeinist revolution and the Islamic Republic and remain committed to promoting closer ties with Tehran under the mullahs.
Another four, or perhaps even eight years of Obama’s policies would nicely coincide with the duration of the Vienna nuke deal which envisages “a final closing of the dossier” by 2023 at the latest. Until then, Iran would be kept a year away from building a nuclear arsenal if it so decides. After that, Iran could do so within 60 days, again if it so wished.
More importantly, another eight years of Obama’s strategy would make it immensely difficult, if not impossible in practical terms, for any future US administration to revive the Pax Americana as a viable option. The Obama strategy is aimed at shrinking the American military footprint across the world. Dozens of bases are being closed down or reduced to merely symbolic proportions. Within what is left of Obama’s presidential term, the US army alone is scheduled to fire at least 40,000 of its soldiers. Under Obama the US has undergone the biggest cut in defense expenditure it has experienced since the heady days of post-Cold War and its “peace dividends”.
More importantly, perhaps, Obama has managed to sour, if not actually destroy, America’s old alliances in many parts of the world, notably the Middle East. Even an old and loyal ally such as Great Britain has publicly played the card of privileged ties with China, implicitly taking note of the American retreat.
Obama has changed the image of the US as “the winner” into the loser as borne out by a series of crises from the annexation of Georgian and Ukrainian territories by Moscow to the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the resurgence of Taliban in Afghanistan, not to mention Tehran’s heightened profile in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.
Obama’s dramatic “red line” warning to Assad, followed by an equally dramatic consumption of humble pie, highlighted the United States’ new status as “the loser.”
The American global retreat has already led to a more emphatic assertion by China of its position as a great Asian power. It has also encouraged the nationalist trend in Japan to the point of seeking constitutional change to allow the nation to deploy troops abroad and, later perhaps, even develop a nuclear arsenal.
Latin America is divided into two rival blocs of left and right powers, with the US less and less regarded as a major player.
In Europe and central Asia, Russia is moving fast to regain part of lost influence and project power wherever it can. Many of the local conflicts mothballed thanks to US mediation are becoming active again, from Transcaucasia to the Indo-Pakistani Subcontinent.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is exploding in the void created by the total collapse of US-backed “peace talks.”
Ending Pax Americana may turn out to be good for the Americans in which case Obama could enter history as a wise visionary.
However, even if such is the case, the mullahs have every interest to encourage Obama in his present strategy and, within their modest means, to help the Obama line continue under Kerry or, even Hillary Clinton as the least bad option.
Many might see the “End of America” world as a far more dangerous place. The mullahs, however, would regard it as the fulfilment of Khomeini’s dream.
Amir Taheri
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. Mr. Taheri has won several prizes for his journalism, and in 2012 was named International Journalist of the Year by the British Society of Editors and the Foreign Press Association in the annual British Media Awards.
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4)
4)
Our World: AIPAC’s devastating decision
By Caroline Glick
"Democratic Senator Chris Coons admitted that by supporting the deal, he was betraying his supporters and friends."
"Democratic Senator Chris Coons admitted that by supporting the deal, he was betraying his supporters and friends."
Democratic Senator Chris Coons from Delaware betrayed his backers and his voters when at the end of the summer, as the Senate returned from recess, he announced that he was supporting President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran.
Coons announced his decision in an address at the University of Delaware. There Coons acknowledged that the deal was terrible for America. He detailed all the ways the deal harms US national security and places US allies, including Israel at grave risk.
"Frankly, this is not the agreement I hoped for," Coons began.
"I am troubled," he explained, "that the parties to this agreement – particularly Iran – have differing interpretations of key terms, and I remain deeply concerned about our ability to hold Iran to the terms of this agreement as we understand them.
Coons continued, "Under this agreement, Iran retains a civilian nuclear enrichment program that grows steadily in scope and the hardened underground nuclear facility at Fordow continues to exist filled with centrifuges which, while sidelined from enrichment for fifteen years, are not permanently shelved.
"Once Iran verifiably meets its obligations," he went on, "it will gain access to tens of billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen by our sanctions. We should expect that Iran will use some of those funds to support and arm its proxies in the region - terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah that threaten and attack Israel, or to support the murderous regime of Assad in Syria and the Houthis in Yemen. Five years after the agreement, the UN’s embargo on conventional arms shipments to Iran will end, and eight years after the agreement, the UN embargo on ballistic missile technology will end."
In an interview with the Washington Post, Coons admitted that by supporting the deal, he was betraying his supporters and friends. Coons recounted to the paper how after holding a meeting with the Wilmington Jewish community, "a friend of more than 20 years told him to never speak to him again if he voted for a deal the friend believed would put Israel in grave danger because of the potential of an Iranian nuclear weapon."
Coons explained to the reporter, "This is, for them, a matter of life and death. That's not light, that's not easy."
But at the end of the day, he didn't care. Coons spit at his friend and his supporters and announced he would vote for the deal.
Coons' announcement of support for Obama's nuclear deal was a turning point in the fight to kill the deal in Congress by securing enough Senate Democrats to oppose it. With "pro-Israel" Coons' support in hand, the administration shifted its efforts from securing enough votes to uphold a presidential veto of a Congressional vote to oppose his Iran deal to securing enough senate votes to prevent a vote from even taking place.
During the battle against the deal and in the aftermath of Obama's victory among Senate Democrats, many commentators assumed that the reason Obama was able to convince lawmakers like Coons to vote against their better judgment, against US national security interests, and against their constituents' wishes was because Obama could make them a better offer of future support than AIPAC could.
It was argued at the time that Coons and his ostensibly pro-Israel colleagues like New Jersey senator Cory Booker, could afford to lose AIPAC. The anti-Israel financial backers emblematically represented by financier George Soros and his brainchild J Street, who have become the strongest forces in Obama's Democratic Party, would pick up the slack.
As it works out, Soros won't be needing to ante up. According to a report by Bloomberg reporter Eli Lake, AIPAC has decided to let bygones be bygones.
According to Lake's report, earlier this month AIPAC featured Coons at a luncheon in New York for its members from the real estate industry. As Lake explained, although the event was not a fundraiser, "Luncheons like those Coons attended…are one of the perks for pro-Israel lawmakers. The AIPAC members who attend these affairs have deep pockets and often contribute to both parties."
Sean Coit, a Coons spokesman told Lake, "I think even those who disagree with his decision on the nuclear agreement recognize that he remains a strong friend of Israel and the pro-Israel community."
Well, he's a strong friend of Israel if you consider someone to be a friend of Israel who supports a deal that his pro-Israel friends consider to be an existential threat to Israel.
In other words, he's a friend of Israel if being pro-Israel means being anti-Israel.
Democrats in general are overjoyed with AIPAC's decision to host a politician who openly admits he sold Israel down the river.
For instance, Democratic political operative and former Clinton White House staffer Steve Rabinowitz told Lake, "We're all waiting to see what the dynamics are going to be since the Iran deal vote and where AIPAC, congressional Republicans and the Israeli foreign ministry are each going to come down. I think this is great sign from AIPAC."
A great sign, indeed.
The truth is that AIPAC is in a miserable position. As Lake acknowledged, the group, which has rightly worked to secure and cultivate bipartisan support for Israel has been railroaded for six and a half years by the Obama administration. The White House has worked relentlessly to make Israel a partisan issue and has repeatedly hung AIPAC out to dry and undercut it at every turn.
And the damage has taken its toll. AIPAC and its supporters have far less influence among Democratic lawmakers than they did when Obama entered office.
AIPAC's decision to provide a platform for Coons to meet potential donors shows that at this dangerous crossroads, AIPAC is exercising bad judgment.
Obama will be gone in a year and three months. The question now before AIPAC and Americans in general is whether Obama's anti-Israel supporters will hold sway in the Democratic Party in the coming years or whether the post-Obama Democratic party will abandon his anti-Israel positions and return to its former support for the Jewish state.
By hosting Coons, AIPAC is helping Obama transform Israel into a partisan issue. If AIPAC wants Democrats to support Israel they should seek out and support Democratic candidates who will support Israel – even when the chips are down. Among incumbent Democrats, they should limit their support to those who opposed the Iran deal.
What message are Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer, Ben Cardin, Joe Manchin and Robert Menendez, who endangered their standing in their party by opposing Obama's Iran deal to take from AIPAC's embrace of Coons?
The obvious message to them is that they were stupid to stick their necks out. If AIPAC is no longer willing to limit its support to Democrats who actually support Israel then it is no longer a pro-Israel organization in any real sense. Rather, it is a partisan organization that will support Democrats regardless of their position on Israel.
And what message does AIPAC's decision to feature Coons at its luncheon for high rollers send to Republicans?
Had Republican Senator Rand Paul supported Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, he would have been vilified as an anti-Semite by his political opponents. AIPAC no doubt would have lavished support on his Democratic opponent if he or she were willing to utter a few pro-Israel platitudes.
In other words, AIPAC is saying that it exercises a double standards. Whereas the pro-Israel lobby expects Republican lawmakers to support Israel, it supports Democratic lawmakers who oppose Israel.
And, if AIPAC abandons its expectations of Republicans, as its event for Coons indicates it has for Democrats, and supports anti-Israel politicians regardless of their partisan pedigree, then AIPAC will cease to function as a pro-Israel organization at all.
Clearly AIPAC is struggling to get its arms around its loss. The $20 million its Super Pac Citizens for a Nuclear-Free Iran spent to scuttle the deal managed to secure the votes of just four Democratic senators. Today it faces the dismal reality in which Democratic lawmakers believe the upside of voting with their convictions, the will of their voters and America's national security interests is smaller than the downside of voting against Obama and his Democratic party.
But surrendering to Obama is not the answer. If AIPAC wants to remain relevant, (or reinstate its relevance) in Washington, it needs to follow a simple rule. It must support those who support Israel and oppose those who oppose Israel.
Chris Coons voted for a deal that constitutes a mortal threat to Israel and to the US-Israel alliance. He is not a supporter of Israel. And neither are his 41 Democratic senate colleagues who supported the deal.
But lots of other Democrats do support Israel. It is AIPAC's job to find them, support them and stand by them. This is must do first and foremost by exacting a price from those who failed to stand up and be counted last summer when the chips were down.
Coons announced his decision in an address at the University of Delaware. There Coons acknowledged that the deal was terrible for America. He detailed all the ways the deal harms US national security and places US allies, including Israel at grave risk.
"Frankly, this is not the agreement I hoped for," Coons began.
"I am troubled," he explained, "that the parties to this agreement – particularly Iran – have differing interpretations of key terms, and I remain deeply concerned about our ability to hold Iran to the terms of this agreement as we understand them.
Coons continued, "Under this agreement, Iran retains a civilian nuclear enrichment program that grows steadily in scope and the hardened underground nuclear facility at Fordow continues to exist filled with centrifuges which, while sidelined from enrichment for fifteen years, are not permanently shelved.
"Once Iran verifiably meets its obligations," he went on, "it will gain access to tens of billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen by our sanctions. We should expect that Iran will use some of those funds to support and arm its proxies in the region - terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah that threaten and attack Israel, or to support the murderous regime of Assad in Syria and the Houthis in Yemen. Five years after the agreement, the UN’s embargo on conventional arms shipments to Iran will end, and eight years after the agreement, the UN embargo on ballistic missile technology will end."
In an interview with the Washington Post, Coons admitted that by supporting the deal, he was betraying his supporters and friends. Coons recounted to the paper how after holding a meeting with the Wilmington Jewish community, "a friend of more than 20 years told him to never speak to him again if he voted for a deal the friend believed would put Israel in grave danger because of the potential of an Iranian nuclear weapon."
Coons explained to the reporter, "This is, for them, a matter of life and death. That's not light, that's not easy."
But at the end of the day, he didn't care. Coons spit at his friend and his supporters and announced he would vote for the deal.
Coons' announcement of support for Obama's nuclear deal was a turning point in the fight to kill the deal in Congress by securing enough Senate Democrats to oppose it. With "pro-Israel" Coons' support in hand, the administration shifted its efforts from securing enough votes to uphold a presidential veto of a Congressional vote to oppose his Iran deal to securing enough senate votes to prevent a vote from even taking place.
During the battle against the deal and in the aftermath of Obama's victory among Senate Democrats, many commentators assumed that the reason Obama was able to convince lawmakers like Coons to vote against their better judgment, against US national security interests, and against their constituents' wishes was because Obama could make them a better offer of future support than AIPAC could.
It was argued at the time that Coons and his ostensibly pro-Israel colleagues like New Jersey senator Cory Booker, could afford to lose AIPAC. The anti-Israel financial backers emblematically represented by financier George Soros and his brainchild J Street, who have become the strongest forces in Obama's Democratic Party, would pick up the slack.
As it works out, Soros won't be needing to ante up. According to a report by Bloomberg reporter Eli Lake, AIPAC has decided to let bygones be bygones.
According to Lake's report, earlier this month AIPAC featured Coons at a luncheon in New York for its members from the real estate industry. As Lake explained, although the event was not a fundraiser, "Luncheons like those Coons attended…are one of the perks for pro-Israel lawmakers. The AIPAC members who attend these affairs have deep pockets and often contribute to both parties."
Sean Coit, a Coons spokesman told Lake, "I think even those who disagree with his decision on the nuclear agreement recognize that he remains a strong friend of Israel and the pro-Israel community."
Well, he's a strong friend of Israel if you consider someone to be a friend of Israel who supports a deal that his pro-Israel friends consider to be an existential threat to Israel.
In other words, he's a friend of Israel if being pro-Israel means being anti-Israel.
Democrats in general are overjoyed with AIPAC's decision to host a politician who openly admits he sold Israel down the river.
For instance, Democratic political operative and former Clinton White House staffer Steve Rabinowitz told Lake, "We're all waiting to see what the dynamics are going to be since the Iran deal vote and where AIPAC, congressional Republicans and the Israeli foreign ministry are each going to come down. I think this is great sign from AIPAC."
A great sign, indeed.
The truth is that AIPAC is in a miserable position. As Lake acknowledged, the group, which has rightly worked to secure and cultivate bipartisan support for Israel has been railroaded for six and a half years by the Obama administration. The White House has worked relentlessly to make Israel a partisan issue and has repeatedly hung AIPAC out to dry and undercut it at every turn.
And the damage has taken its toll. AIPAC and its supporters have far less influence among Democratic lawmakers than they did when Obama entered office.
AIPAC's decision to provide a platform for Coons to meet potential donors shows that at this dangerous crossroads, AIPAC is exercising bad judgment.
Obama will be gone in a year and three months. The question now before AIPAC and Americans in general is whether Obama's anti-Israel supporters will hold sway in the Democratic Party in the coming years or whether the post-Obama Democratic party will abandon his anti-Israel positions and return to its former support for the Jewish state.
By hosting Coons, AIPAC is helping Obama transform Israel into a partisan issue. If AIPAC wants Democrats to support Israel they should seek out and support Democratic candidates who will support Israel – even when the chips are down. Among incumbent Democrats, they should limit their support to those who opposed the Iran deal.
What message are Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer, Ben Cardin, Joe Manchin and Robert Menendez, who endangered their standing in their party by opposing Obama's Iran deal to take from AIPAC's embrace of Coons?
The obvious message to them is that they were stupid to stick their necks out. If AIPAC is no longer willing to limit its support to Democrats who actually support Israel then it is no longer a pro-Israel organization in any real sense. Rather, it is a partisan organization that will support Democrats regardless of their position on Israel.
And what message does AIPAC's decision to feature Coons at its luncheon for high rollers send to Republicans?
Had Republican Senator Rand Paul supported Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, he would have been vilified as an anti-Semite by his political opponents. AIPAC no doubt would have lavished support on his Democratic opponent if he or she were willing to utter a few pro-Israel platitudes.
In other words, AIPAC is saying that it exercises a double standards. Whereas the pro-Israel lobby expects Republican lawmakers to support Israel, it supports Democratic lawmakers who oppose Israel.
And, if AIPAC abandons its expectations of Republicans, as its event for Coons indicates it has for Democrats, and supports anti-Israel politicians regardless of their partisan pedigree, then AIPAC will cease to function as a pro-Israel organization at all.
Clearly AIPAC is struggling to get its arms around its loss. The $20 million its Super Pac Citizens for a Nuclear-Free Iran spent to scuttle the deal managed to secure the votes of just four Democratic senators. Today it faces the dismal reality in which Democratic lawmakers believe the upside of voting with their convictions, the will of their voters and America's national security interests is smaller than the downside of voting against Obama and his Democratic party.
But surrendering to Obama is not the answer. If AIPAC wants to remain relevant, (or reinstate its relevance) in Washington, it needs to follow a simple rule. It must support those who support Israel and oppose those who oppose Israel.
Chris Coons voted for a deal that constitutes a mortal threat to Israel and to the US-Israel alliance. He is not a supporter of Israel. And neither are his 41 Democratic senate colleagues who supported the deal.
But lots of other Democrats do support Israel. It is AIPAC's job to find them, support them and stand by them. This is must do first and foremost by exacting a price from those who failed to stand up and be counted last summer when the chips were down.
4a) World Jewish Congress slams Palestinian 'culture of hate'
"The series of attacks against Jews in Israel is the direct result of incitement by radical elements who call upon Palestinian youth to murder Jews," the board asserted.
Cartoon on Facebook page of news portal "Palestine Now" shows Palestinian making victory sign with his fingers, drawn as two knives.. (photo credit:MEMRI)
The World Jewish Congress issued a scathing rebuke of the Palestinians on Tuesday, lamenting what it termed a “culture of hate in the Palestinian media, in schools and on social networks.”
In a resolution passed during the organization’s Governing Board meeting in Rome, the international Jewish representative body both reaffirmed its endorsement of a two-state solution while casting blame for a recent escalation of violence on the Palestinian leadership.
“The series of attacks against Jews in Israel is the direct result of incitement by radical elements who call upon Palestinian youth to murder Jews,” the board asserted.
The WJC urged Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, along with the leaders of regional Arab states, to refrain from the spreading of “malicious claims against Israel, especially using inflammatory rhetoric.”
Such rhetoric is used to “treat terrorists as heroes.”
Radical Islamists who brought weapons to the Temple Mount were singled out as “endangering this holy site and attempting to turn it into a battlefield,” while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts in “maintaining the status quo” and decision to prevent Knesset members from ascending the mount were lauded.
The WJC also condemned UNESCO, both for its recent statements on the Temple Mount, which it termed a “litany of demonstrable falsehoods,” and for its description of both the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron as being exclusively holy Muslim sites.
The group did, however, describe UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova as having shown “great courage” for repudiating her body’s “flagrant distortion of history.”
While the WJC said it felt great concern over Abbas’s apparent repudiation of the Oslo Accords during his recent appearance at the UN General Assembly, it did state that “two-states for two peoples is the only workable, realistic basis for a true and lasting peace,” and called for the immediate resumption of direct negotiations.
WJC General Counsel Menachem Rosensaft said “it was a very well attended meeting representing Jewish communities from literally around the world and President Lauder stated his view that the two-state solution was the only viable option, essentially reaffirming what he wrote in his opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post and he stated his reasoning was this was his strongly held view and the governing board adopted a resolution reaffirming the position of the World Jewish Congress in support of a two-state solution.”
Writing in the Post on Sunday, Lauder called for a swift resumption of talks, stating that “Rather than lay blame for what has caused this recent outbreak of violence, I am keenly focused on where we go from here.
“As we speak, Israelis are living in a constant state of fear. And lone, disaffected Palestinians are taking matters into their own hands, carrying out brutal acts. Some would say that there is no way to have constructive talks in this environment, but I believe now is precisely the time for dialogue,” Lauder wrote.
He called upon Abbas to reign in extremists while also stating that Netanyahu must “reach across boundaries with magnanimity and generosity to acknowledge the fact that President Abbas is the commanding voice for the Palestinian people, which deserves a state of its own.”
Earlier this year WJC President Ronald Lauder met with Abbas in Amman.
The pair had previously met in London in 2012. While Lauder recently told attendees at The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York that “no serious discussion about peace for the Jewish people of Israel can take place without a strong agreement for a viable two-state solution,” he has also been a consistent critic of Abbas.
Speaking with the Post last year, Lauder said Abbas does not want peace.
The Palestinian leader “could not have done more to destroy the peace process,” he said.
The leadership of the WJC is slated to meet with Pope Francis on Wednesday to mark the 50th anniversary of the Nostra Aetate declaration, a papal document that, which among other decrees, absolved the Jews from culpability in the death of Jesus.
Such rhetoric is used to “treat terrorists as heroes.”
Radical Islamists who brought weapons to the Temple Mount were singled out as “endangering this holy site and attempting to turn it into a battlefield,” while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts in “maintaining the status quo” and decision to prevent Knesset members from ascending the mount were lauded.
The WJC also condemned UNESCO, both for its recent statements on the Temple Mount, which it termed a “litany of demonstrable falsehoods,” and for its description of both the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron as being exclusively holy Muslim sites.
The group did, however, describe UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova as having shown “great courage” for repudiating her body’s “flagrant distortion of history.”
While the WJC said it felt great concern over Abbas’s apparent repudiation of the Oslo Accords during his recent appearance at the UN General Assembly, it did state that “two-states for two peoples is the only workable, realistic basis for a true and lasting peace,” and called for the immediate resumption of direct negotiations.
WJC General Counsel Menachem Rosensaft said “it was a very well attended meeting representing Jewish communities from literally around the world and President Lauder stated his view that the two-state solution was the only viable option, essentially reaffirming what he wrote in his opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post and he stated his reasoning was this was his strongly held view and the governing board adopted a resolution reaffirming the position of the World Jewish Congress in support of a two-state solution.”
Writing in the Post on Sunday, Lauder called for a swift resumption of talks, stating that “Rather than lay blame for what has caused this recent outbreak of violence, I am keenly focused on where we go from here.
“As we speak, Israelis are living in a constant state of fear. And lone, disaffected Palestinians are taking matters into their own hands, carrying out brutal acts. Some would say that there is no way to have constructive talks in this environment, but I believe now is precisely the time for dialogue,” Lauder wrote.
He called upon Abbas to reign in extremists while also stating that Netanyahu must “reach across boundaries with magnanimity and generosity to acknowledge the fact that President Abbas is the commanding voice for the Palestinian people, which deserves a state of its own.”
Earlier this year WJC President Ronald Lauder met with Abbas in Amman.
The pair had previously met in London in 2012. While Lauder recently told attendees at The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York that “no serious discussion about peace for the Jewish people of Israel can take place without a strong agreement for a viable two-state solution,” he has also been a consistent critic of Abbas.
Speaking with the Post last year, Lauder said Abbas does not want peace.
The Palestinian leader “could not have done more to destroy the peace process,” he said.
The leadership of the WJC is slated to meet with Pope Francis on Wednesday to mark the 50th anniversary of the Nostra Aetate declaration, a papal document that, which among other decrees, absolved the Jews from culpability in the death of Jesus.
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