The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is probably the most notorious work of anti-Semitic propaganda ever written. First surfacing publicly in 1905 after several years in private circulation, the work was a fabricated transcript of a secret meeting of rabbis plotting to control the world, as Gary Saul [...]]]>
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is probably the most notorious work of anti-Semitic propaganda ever written. First surfacing publicly in 1905 after several years in private circulation, the work was a fabricated transcript of a secret meeting of rabbis plotting to control the world, as Gary Saul Morson explains. Its initial purpose appears to have been to blame the Jews of Russia for the radical activity that was beginning to shake the foundations of the Tsarist Russian Empire. Translated into English, French, German, Polish, Spanish and Arabic, its unfounded claim that a global Jewish conspiracy seeks to rule the world has shaped and seeped into anti-Semitic propaganda for over a century.
The Protocols of the Elder of Las Vegas, on the other hand, is a 21st century work in progress, and it is no hoax. It’s about a casino magnate with an estimated net worth of just under $25 billion (the seventh richest man in the United States) who decides to devote a small portion of his vast wealth to a neoconservative agenda determined to thwart negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinians; prevent the reelection of an incumbent U.S. president; engineer the destruction of political liberalism; and reshape the political environments of the U.S. and Israel by funding the election of politicians who serve his own corporate and ideological interests. Following is a rough draft of the plot line so far.
Chapter One: The Neoconservative
In April 2007, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson’s newly-established Adelson Family Foundation gives a $4.5 million three year grant to the Shalem Center in Jerusalem to establish the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies to “explore topics ranging from democracy and security, to nationalism, terror and identity.” Heading the Adelson Institute is former Soviet dissident Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky, who, after arriving in Israel, became a nationalist hardliner. Named as Adelson Institute fellows are former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon (currently Israel’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Affairs); Yossi Klein Halevi (a contributing editor of The New Republic since 2008); Martin Kramer, an Middle East Studies professor and Washington Institute (WINEP) Fellow; and historian Michael Oren who became Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. in 2008.
The Adelson Institute’s first project is a June 2007 conference on “Democracy & Security” in Prague. Its agenda is a melange of neoconservative talking points: support for the U.S. war in Iraq; demanding human rights for freedom fighters (as long as they are not Palestinian); celebrating Eastern European resistance to Soviet domination and Communism, which had culminated in the integration of most former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO and the EU; and defending Israel’s right to absolute sovereignty. As Jim Lobe astutely noted at the time, the conference constitutes “a kind of ‘Neo-Conservative International’ designed to rally support for ‘dissidents,’ primarily from the Islamic world, and give them hope that ‘regime change’ in their countries is possible much as it was in the former Soviet bloc almost 20 years ago.
Within this “Middle East as Eastern Europe” neoconservative paradigm, Iran is accorded the role of “evil empire” once reserved for the Soviet Union. Two months later, in August, Sheldon Adelson is among the major donors who establish Freedom’s Watch, an advocacy group whose supporters overlapped with or were closely tied to the Republican Jewish Coalition. Freedom’s Watch immediately launches a 5 week, $15 million media blitz supporting President George W. Bush’s “surge” strategy in Iraq. In October, Freedom’s Watch sponsors a private forum of 20 “experts” on radical Islam and Iran.
Chapter 2: Ready for Prime (Minister) Time Player
In August 2007, after a failed attempt to purchase the Israeli evening newspaper Maariv, Adelson launches an Israeli newspaper of his own, Israel Hayom (Israel Today) with a reported $180 million investment. Israel Hayom soon achieves wide circulation. Not only is it free, it also offers home delivery at no charge. For Adelson, Israel Hayom would be a tool with which to remove Prime Minister Ehud Olmert from office, and replace him with Benjamin Netanyahu.
Olmert resigns as Prime Minister on July 29, 2008 after being accused of corruption during his previous posts as cabinet minister and Jerusalem’s mayor. The charges included taking $150,000 in bribes from a U.S. businessman and defrauding Israeli charities by double-billing them for overseas fundraising trips. Israel Today regales its readers with sensationalist headlines and accounts of Olmert pocketing cash-stuffed envelopes and enjoying a lavish lifestyle in luxury hotels. Olmert insists he is innocent and will ultimately be vindicated.
In a CNN interview this past May, Olmert explains to Christiane Amanpour that he had been the victim of a right-wing conspiracy involving American millionaires determined to thwart his peacemaking efforts and destroy his political career:
“[Trying to make peace] was a killer for me,” he said. “I had to fight against superior powers, including millions and millions of dollars that were transferred from this country by figures in the extreme right-wing who tried to topple me. There is no question about it. I know the names of people who spent millions of dollars who tried to stop me. They wanted to prevent a government led by me from achieving peace.”
In July 2012, Olmert is acquitted of major corruption charges, but found guilty of a lesser charge of breaching the public trust. Olmert calls for an investigation of “right wing American Jews” who had used their money and influence to topple him from power. Former government Minister Haim Ramon tells Israel Radio:
American right-wing Jews who filed countless complaints against Olmert have to be investigated. They saw Olmert as the man who could deliver an agreement with the Palestinians. Consider what Olmert could have done had he remained prime minister for two more years instead of Netanyahu.
Adelson’s intransigence on the Palestinian issue also brings him into conflict with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Adelson has been underwriting the cost of trips to Israel for members of Congress — although only for Republicans sponsored by an AIPAC-affiliate — and contributed toward a luxurious new office building for AIPAC in Washington DC, according to Connie Bruck in the New Yorker. Adelson is infuriated when he discovers that AIPAC is supporting a letter signed by 130 members of the House of Representatives that asks the Bush administration to increase economic aid to the Palestinians, a measure also supported by the Israeli government.
Chapter 3: All the President’s Money?
In 2011, Adelson forges an alliance with Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. Adelson and his wife contribute $10 million to Gingrich‘s Winning Our Future political action committee. Adelson’s cash enables Gingrich’s campaign to run ads vilifying rival Mitt Romney‘s record at Bain Capital. When Gingrich drops out of the GOP primary race, Adelson begins negotiations with Romney. In June, “a well-placed source in the Adelson camp with direct knowledge of the casino billionaire’s thinking” hints to Forbes‘ Steve Bertoni that Adelson might even be willing to make “limitless” donations to Romney’s campaign in order to prevent Barack Obama’s re-election.
“What scares me is the continuation of the socialist-style economy we’ve been experiencing for almost four years,” Adelson tells Bertoni in an interview. The man who amassed more wealth than anyone in the U.S. during the three and a half years Obama has been in office — $21.6 billion, which is about 90% of his current fortune — declares, “I believe that people will come to their senses and not extend the current Administration’s quest to socialize this country.”
Adelson has other items on his agenda besides putting the lid on creeping “socialism” in the U.S. During Romney’s Israel visit, Netanyahu gave Romney a letter signed by the heads of all non-Arab political parties in Israel requesting clemency for Jonathan Pollard, an American convicted of spying for Israel while employed by U.S. naval intelligence. Pollard was sentenced to life in prison 27 years ago. All U.S. presidents including Obama have declined to free Pollard, who supporters say has served more time in prison than any other spy in U.S. history. An associate of Adelson’s, identified as a major Republican donor, tells the Daily Beast’s Eli Lake and Dan Ephron that Adelson is putting pressure on Romney to commit to freeing Pollard if he is elected. Romney’s response has been that he’ll have to wait until he is president and has access to top level national security files to make a decision about Pollard. That’s not the sort of answer Adelson likes to hear, so it’s being touted as evidence that Romney is a principled and independent thinker, not Adelson’s yes-man, despite the lure of massive cash infusions. According to Jonathan S. Tobin: ”The Romney campaign isn’t shy about making it clear that even the most beneficent contributor to the candidate’s coffers can expect nothing more than a civil hearing.”
“When Adelson was merely rich, he wrote checks for causes that he favored and for politicians whom he supported,” writes Connie Bruck. “Occasionally, he demanded to be heard. But he did not expect to play a significant role in U.S. foreign policy, or in Israel’s strategic decisions, or in the fate of a sitting Israeli Prime Minister. That was before he acquired many billions of dollars.”
Chapter 4: The Tycoon
Sheldon Adelson’s empire of shifting Sands was on the brink of bankruptcy in 2008. Now he is the 14th richest man in the world. ProPublica and Frontline have been co-publishing some in-depth reporting about Adelson’s business methods that may be under investigation, including “Inside the Investigation of Leading Republican Money Man Sheldon Adelson” and “New Questions about Sheldon Adelson’s Casino Operations in Macao.” Thomas B. Edsall also provides a detailed discussion of the business aspects behind Adelson’s success and questionable practices by which he may have attained it in the New York Times.
But could his obsession with politics be setting up Adelson for another downfall? Howard Stutz suggests in the Casino City Times that Adelson’s investors have reason to be concerned about the declining profitability and downgraded value of shares in Adelson’s casino empire, while he lavishes his largesse on philanthropy and politicians:
A few days after Las Vegas Sands Corp. disappointed investors with quarterly earnings declines that sent the company’s share price tumbling and had analysts breaking out in a cold sweat, Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson jetted to Israel to watch presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney deliver a speech in Jerusalem. “It was a great speech. Loved it,” Adelson told Bloomberg News.
In Israel, he was treated like a rock star. Adelson, 78, was swarmed by Israeli citizens, Romney donors, and the press as he slowly made his way to his wheelchair after the speech. Back in the U.S., Argus Research downgraded its view of Las Vegas Sands stock. The firm placed a Hold recommendation on the shares, a change from its previous Buy rating. The weaker outlook reflected Argus’ concerns that revenues and profits from Las Vegas Sands’ four Macau casino developments were in trouble. During the quarter, net income from Macau declined 40 percent. Argus said the Chinese economy seems to be slowing.
Analysts openly wonder if Adelson, Las Vegas Sands’ controlling stockholder with 57 percent of the outstanding shares, is being distracted from the casino operations by his bi-continental political endeavors. “With shares falling will Sheldon open his wallet for [Las Vegas Sands] or the GOP?” Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets gaming analyst Steve Wieczynski asked at the top of a critical July 26 research report discussing the company’s quarterly results.
Chapter 5: The Outcome
A New York Times editorial views Adelson as “the perfect illustration of the squalid state of political money, spending sums greater than any political donation in history to advance his personal, ideological and financial agenda, which is wildly at odds with the nation’s needs.”
The Protocols of this Elder of Las Vegas is no conspiratorial fabrication. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the last chapter has yet to be written. Will money ultimately decide the 2012 U.S. election? And if it does, will it be Sheldon Adelson’s?
]]>
With the annual policy convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) coming up in just a few days, many observers are expecting this to be the time when Israel pushes its hardest on the United States to take a more aggressive stance in its ongoing confrontation with Iran over the latter’s nuclear program.
With four days to go, it seems that the Israeli push is picking up steam.
Ha’aretz reports today that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to “publicly harden his line against Iran” before he meets with US President Barack Obama on March 5. This is an important piece of timing, as Obama will be speaking at the AIPAC conference on the 4th, the day before Netanyahu meets with him.
To an extent, then, Netanyahu is already making it clear to the AIPAC audience what they should be looking for in the President’s speech, as well as communicating a warning to Obama about what Netanyahu expects from him.
This is only one piece of the gathering pressure. Obama will be walking into something of a lion’s den at AIPAC, much more so than last year, when the President spent weeks after the conference dealing with the political fallout from wide, and often intentional, misinterpretations of his speech and his testy scenes with the Israeli Prime Minister.
Three of the four major Republican candidates – Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich–will also be speaking, and it is a sure bet that they will try to outdo each other in painting Obama as weak on Iran. The lone Republican candidate opposed to increased aggression toward Iran, Ron Paul, was not invited.
Other speakers will include key Iran hawks such as Senators Joseph Lieberman and Johnny Isakson, and neoconservative stalwarts Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol. Obama will have some supporters speaking as well, such as Senator Carl Levin, and Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta. But the mood in the Washington Convention Center is likely to be heavily pro-war.
It is no coincidence that just this past Monday, reports stated that Israel had made it clear to top US officials that they had no intention of warning the United States if they decided to attack Iran on their own. This news certainly heightened the tension level and increased the pressure on Washington to harden its own stance on Iran lest the Israelis take matters into their own hands.
Netanyahu went on the offensive last week, after General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested Israel ought not attack Iran. Complaints were registered by Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to every US official that they could reach, including National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and Vice President Joe Biden. Dempsey backtracked after hearing of Obama’s displeasure at the remarks. But it seems clear he was speaking his mind the first time.
Netanyahu went even further in his meeting with a cadre of US Senators, implying that Obama was trying to “interfere in Israeli politics,” an ironic charge considering the activities of the very group whose conference Netanyahu will be speaking at in a few days.
That view was almost immediately parroted by Senator John McCain, who blamed Obama for the “…daylight between America and Israel in our assessment of the [Iranian] threat.” McCain was in such tight lock-step with Netanyahu that the Jerusalem Post reported the following:
McCain sided with Jerusalem in the debate with the US over the time to act against Iran – whether it was only when the Iranians made the political decision to assemble a bomb, as Washington seems to maintain, or before they could fortify all their nuclear installations against military attack, as Israel argues.
“There is no doubt that Iran has so far been undeterred on the path of acquiring nuclear weapons,” McCain said.
That quote could easily have come from Netanyahu himself. So could this one, from Senator Lindsey Graham, who was also at that meeting: “People are giving Israel a lot of advice here lately from America. I just want to tell our Israeli friends that my advice to you is never lose control of your destiny.” Or in other words, ignore what my country, which provides you with enormous financial and diplomatic assistance, often to its own detriment, has to say about a course of action that could deeply affect its interests.
Graham also referred to the present time as a “never again” moment, stoking the flames of Holocaust memory that are so effective at blocking out rational thought, for Jews and often for non-Jews too.
These steps are only the beginning, and the sense that, as Ha’aretz put it, citing officials in both Washington and Jerusalem, that there is “…a serious lack of trust between Israel and the United States with regard to the issue of a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities,” likely means a good deal of public jockeying is going to happen before the AIPAC conference.
Obama was made to look bad by Netanyahu last year, with far less at stake than there is now. He’ll have to be at least as much on his toes this year, as the wolves will be out for him at the AIPAC conference.
]]>Adelson is perhaps the most well-known heavy hitter among contributors largely motivated by their extreme hawkish stances on Israel. He has been honored by the far-right [...]]]>
Adelson is perhaps the most well-known heavy hitter among contributors largely motivated by their extreme hawkish stances on Israel. He has been honored by the far-right Zionist Organization of America (ZOA, a group so extreme even AIPAC tends to try to keep its distance from them), but he has also been a major funder of AIPAC, making sure he keeps his hand in mainstream US politics on this issue and enabling him to exert a strong push of those politics toward the right.
Adelson’s love of Gingrich is rooted in their mutual passion for crushing unions and privatizing Social Security, but it flowers in their mutual zeal for maintaining Israeli control of the West Bank and support for the farthest right wing of Israeli politics.
It is telling that Adelson is committing such extensive resources in a desperate attempt to hoist Gingrich above Republican front-runner, Mitt Romney, as Romney is very far from being a dove on Middle East matters.
Romney’s foreign policy team draws heavily from former Bush Administration figures, and six of the twenty-two were members of the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century (PNAC), a key group in pressing for war with Iraq and advocating granting a much freer hand to Israel in dealing with the Palestinians.
All that, however, is not nearly radical enough for Adelson, who demonstrated his strong preference for Gingrich’s views which are more closely related to the Christian evangelicals (who still largely reject Gingrich for his personal history) than Romney’s anti-Islam but more strategically-oriented ideology.
Adelson underwrote AIPAC’s luxurious new office building in Washington. Having visited both the old and new AIPAC offices, I can testify that Adelson’s money was well-spent. The offices are as comfortable and luxurious as those of major corporations, and the security system there is almost as elaborate as the White House’s.
But Adelson broke with AIPAC over the organization’s tepid support for the Annapolis Conference in 2007, the Bush Administration’s program for maintaining talks toward a two-state solution which were exposed by the Palestine Papers as a sham serving as a cover for ongoing Israeli intransigence.
That remains too liberal a cause for Adelson. But the issue is not Adelson’s political views in and of themselves, but rather his willingness to put his money where his mouth is.
His huge gift to Gingrich might backfire, as it will undermine the attacks Newt has been launching on Romney for all of his “millionaire backing,” that Romney has garnered through his own super-PACs. But with his campaign in decline, Newt had little to lose.
Adelson is not a man to miss an opportunity. After the US Supreme Court opened a golden road to unlimited individual and corporate financing of political campaigns in its famed decision in the case of Citizens United v Federal Elections Commission, the so-called super-PACs came into being. Adelson, one of the wealthiest men in the US, recognizes an opportunity for him to have a powerful influence on US policy.
Adelson knows well how to do this. His efforts to influence young US Jews takes its most prominent form in the massive support Adelson gives to the Birthright program, which brings Jewish high school and college students to Israel for a carefully managed tour and vacation. And Adelson doesn’t stop there.
He founded and continues to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the Israeli daily, Yisrael Hayom (Israel Today), a right wing publication which strongly supports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, thanks to Adelson’s funding, is distributed free not only throughout Israel, but also on flights into and out of the country.
Adelson has sometimes been referred to as the “George Soros of the right.” This might be a fair comparison in terms of each man putting his money into his politics, but Soros does not have any single issue on which he focuses, and on which he is determined to push influence, as Adelson does on Israel.
Adelson has cleverly used his vast resources to help push Israeli public opinion to the right and to influence US politics in the same direction. True, he is focusing strongly on trying to get the White House back for a Republican, and one with extreme views on Israel; but his massive funding is influencing the full political spectrum on this issue.
Adelson is the biggest donor to a wide spectrum of Jewish causes. As a result, he has an enormous influence in this community, as well as in Israel. Despite his favoring of the Likud coalition, that influence explains why he is also honored by Labor and Kadima politicians there.
Adelson was seen attending last year’s AIPAC conference, and whether he has truly abandoned that group is open to question. And it perhaps can be of some consolation that Adelson is pumping so much into Gingrich’s campaign, one which is not very likely to succeed.
But the massive donation does shine an important light on how a very few well-heeled individuals are influencing US policy in the Middle East. The easing of campaign financing regulations may have emboldened Adelson and others like him, but perhaps it will also make more US citizens stand up and notice how these important decisions are really being made.
]]>To imagine a Gingrich presidency, one must turn to his attenuated term as Speaker of the House (attenuated because his fellow Republicans could take no more of it). Gingrich took control of determining who could chair House committees and swept away long-serving conservatives who he deemed insufficiently confrontational. If he was uncertain whether committees would do his bidding without question, he bypassed them altogether and created his own Newt-appointed task forces to write the laws. Leadership positions were awarded to those who raised the most money for the party. The party of Newt rose within, and became the core of, the Republican side of the House of Representatives. Congress as a governing institution was transformed into a Roman-style arena for combat. Imagine now a cadre built around allegiance to Newt Gingrich at the center of American government: not even Lyndon Johnson was so insistent on fealty.
Read more.
]]>For all the hawkish Mideast rhetoric among the GOP presidential field, Newt Gingrich is quickly distinguishing himself for right-wing stances on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the latest such posturing, the former House speaker cited an example of Palestinian incitement against Israelis — a real issue, but just [...]]]>
For all the hawkish Mideast rhetoric among the GOP presidential field, Newt Gingrich is quickly distinguishing himself for right-wing stances on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the latest such posturing, the former House speaker cited an example of Palestinian incitement against Israelis — a real issue, but just not quite in the fact-free way Gingrich confidently spoke of in last week’s Republican debate.
Gingrich was asked about his earlier remark, plucked from “an ideological tract disguised as history,” that Palestinians are an “invented” people — a view he hasn’t walked back, but qualified with support for a two-state solution to the conflict. At last week’s GOP presidential debate, however, Gingrich doubled down and declared of the Palestinians, “These people are terrorists.” He went on:
They teach terrorism in their schools. They have textbooks that say, ‘If there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left?’ We pay for those textbooks through our aid money. It’s fundamentally time for somebody to have the guts to stand up and say, enough lying about the Middle East.
Watch a video of Gingrich’s remarks at the debate:
Gingrich invoked truth and spoke with certainty. But an Associated Press fact check of his quite specific claim — that U.S. money pays for school textbooks that teach math by counting Jewish deaths — found it didn’t check out:
Three researchers — [George Washington University political scientist Nathan] Brown, Itamar Marcus from Palestinian Media Watch and Eldad Pardo from IMPACT-SE — said the example Gingrich cited in the Dec. 10 Republican debate does not exist in the texts. Gingrich’s office did not respond to two emailed requests for further comment.
Incitement in the Mideast conflict is a complicated and serious issue, and it’s an impediment to peace. By making false claims about incitement, Gingrich cheapens the discourse on this serious issue.
The full AP article describes religious schools in Occupied Palestinian Territory — constituting about 750 Palestinian students of the Territories’ 1.6 million students — that glorify martyrdom. A study found that government schools, which teach more than 700,000 students, had two examples of anti-Jewish sentiments in their textbooks, but the largest concern was that the Israeli national narrative was omitted from the books.
Last year, the Washington Institute For Near East Policy (WINEP) noted some progress against Palestinian incitement in textbooks, while important areas of concern persist. “We need to recognize what needs to be improved and recognize and praise the progress that’s been,” WINEP chief Robert Satloff said. “We need to stay away from hysteria and its opposite, whitewash.”
]]>In the confrontational, climactic scene of the the classic 1964 Cold War film Seven Days in May, President Jordan Lyman barks a question in frustration at Gen. James Mattoon Scott, the leader of a right-wing military conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government. “Why in the [...]]]>
In the confrontational, climactic scene of the the classic 1964 Cold War film Seven Days in May, President Jordan Lyman barks a question in frustration at Gen. James Mattoon Scott, the leader of a right-wing military conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government. “Why in the name of God don’t you have any faith in the system of government you’re so hell-bent to protect?” says the president, slamming his hand on the table. A much toned down version of this drama plays out today, too. Only now it’s the generals — the top brass, no less — using strong language to remind politicians of the delicacies of the American republic.
Perhaps taking their cues from Congress or neocon websites, GOP presidential candidates long ago settled on a battle cry against President Obama’s national security record: the almost universal theme that the President should do to what the generals tell him. Texas governor Rick Perry said it about Afghanistan and Iraq. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said it about reinstating Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (many generals were for the repeal). Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said he would do what the generals want on Afghanistan, before backing down. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich went the other way, reversing his support for civilian control in favor of wondering why Obama “overrule(d) all his generals.”
But during a press availability while traveling in Saudia Arabia, the top U.S. military officer sang a different tune, using harsh language to describe the talking point about deferring national security and war decisions to the generals. Asked about the line, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said:
I’ll probably make news with this but I find some of those articles about divergence or control of the generals to be kind of offensive to me.
And here’s why. One of the things that makes us as a military profession in a democracy is civilian rule. Our civilian leaders are under no obligation to accept our advice; and that’s what it is. Its advice. It’s military judgments, it’s alternatives, it’s options. And at the end of the day, our system is built on the fact that it will be our civilian leaders who make that decision and I don’t find that in any way to challenge my manhood, nor my position. In fact, if it were the opposite, I think we should all be concerned.
Dempsey isn’t the first top military officer to tell politicians about the chain-of-command recently. This summer, the last two Joint Chiefs chairmen, Gen. David Petraeus, since retired and leading the CIA, and the now-retired Admiral Michael Mullen, explained the concept in hearings on Capitol Hill.
]]>Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is courting the Republican Jewish vote with a series of statements showing his unwavering support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pro-Israel American conservatives. On Wednesday, he declared that he would appoint former U.N. ambassador — and [...]]]>
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is courting the Republican Jewish vote with a series of statements showing his unwavering support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pro-Israel American conservatives. On Wednesday, he declared that he would appoint former U.N. ambassador — and outspoken über-hawk — John Bolton to be Secretary of State if elected president. In an interview released today, he struck out an even more extreme position by declaring Palestinians “an…invented people.”
He told The Jewish Channel:
We’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab community and they had a chance to go many places. And for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel since the 1940s. It’s tragic.
Watch it:
Gingrich, much like former Senator Rick Santorum, is effectively denying the right of Palestinians to a state, a position that goes against the policy positions of the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama administrations.
With this assertion comes questions as to where Gingrich thinks the Palestinian — or “Arabs” as he refers to them — should go. Will residents of the West Bank gain full voting rights in a unified Israeli state? Will Israel allow them to stay as second-class citizens with limited voting and legal rights? Or is he in favor of forced deportation?
Gingrich isn’t the only GOP presidential candidate to stake out political ground which, if actually implemented as U.S. policy, would effectively end U.S. support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Rick Perry have all endorsed moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and Michele Bachmann claims to “already have secured a donor who said they will personally pay for the ambassador’s home to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”
]]>Number of times the following words were mentioned:
War: 52
Iran: 45
Israel: 35
Nuclear: 31
Afghanistan: 30
Pakistan: 28
Syria: 20
China: 13
Mexico: 10
Iraq: 7
Egypt: 5
Yemen: 0
Speaking about Iran at this weekend’s Republican foreign policy debate, the candidates seemed to only agree on one thing: President Obama wasn’t getting the job done. Instead, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the president should undertake “covert operations” to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions. [...]]]>
Speaking about Iran at this weekend’s Republican foreign policy debate, the candidates seemed to only agree on one thing: President Obama wasn’t getting the job done. Instead, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the president should undertake “covert operations” to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions. At the debate, Gingrich said:
GINGRICH: There are a number of ways to be smart about Iran and relatively few ways to be dumb. And the administration has skipped all the ways to be smart. [...]
First of all, maximum covert operations to block and disrupt the Iranian program, including taking out their scientists, including breaking up their systems, all of it covertly, all of it deniable.
Second, maximum coordination with the Israelis in a way which allows them to maximize their impact in Iran.
Watch the video:
Long-shot candidate Rick Santorum also said he hoped the U.S. was undertaking “covert activity” to curb Iran’s program.
But, as the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus points out, “Some of the activities they suggested may be underway but not publicly acknowledged.” Publicly calling for covert activity, as Gingrich and Santorum did, may provide for a satisfying political punch because the administration is unlikely to defend its record. To do so could possibly hamper ongoing efforts and, more to the point, would destroy any of the deniability that Gingrich calls for. Announcing covert operations means that they, by definition, can never be carried out.
But media accounts help piece together what indeed seems like wide-ranging covert activity by the U.S. and Israel, working hand-in-hand. The New York Times reported in January that the U.S. and Israel had worked together to develop the powerful Stuxnet computer virus that destroyed some of Iran’s centrifuges, slowing down its nuclear work. And one imagines that when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israeli and American “security cooperation is unprecedented,” he could well have been talking about work on Iran issues. Former prime minister and current defense chief Ehud Barak also recently said: “I can hardly remember a better period of support, American support and cooperation and similar strategic understanding of events around us than what we have right now.”
Just this weekend, at least one massive explosion rocked an Iranian missile base outside Tehran, killing a major figure in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Force’s missile program. Speaking to Time magazine, a Western intelligence source fingered Mossad, Israel’s vaunted spy agency. As recently as this summer, nuclear scientists have been turning up dead in Iran, victims of likely assassins riding motorcycles and using either guns or so-called “sticky bombs” that adhere to the sides of vehicles. Others, too, have noticed the likely covert war against Iran’s nuke program, but not the GOP candidates. To do so might get in the way of their attacks, not on Iran but on the Obama administration. Maybe the administration isn’t being so “dumb” after all.
]]>After the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog released its periodic report yesterday, replete with rich details about possible military dimension of Iran’s nuclear program, conservative hawks — ranging from journalists to think-tankers and even a presidential candidate — stepped up their support for a military strike on the [...]]]>
After the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog released its periodic report yesterday, replete with rich details about possible military dimension of Iran’s nuclear program, conservative hawks — ranging from journalists to think-tankers and even a presidential candidate — stepped up their support for a military strike on the Islamic Republic. While many in Congress are pushing for draconian sanctions on Iran, those not on Capital Hill are pushing a step farther.
Here’s a quick round-up of statements supporting a U.S. or Israeli attack from GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, former Bush administration U.N. ambassador John Bolton, Wall Street Journal opinion and editorial writer Bret Stephens, and Council on Foreign Relations scholar Max Boot.
STEPHENS: [T]he policy debate… needs to abandon the conceit that there is a third way between allowing Iran’s nuclear drive to proceed effectively unhindered or to use military force to stop it…. A (bad) argument can be made that a nuclear Iran could be contained.
BOOT: Really stopping the Iranian program would require much tougher steps on the part of the U.S.–steps such as a naval blockade to cripple the Iranian economy and/or air strikes to cripple Iran’s military capacity.
GINGRICH: Well, if the Israelis decide as matter of national survival that they have to eliminate the Iranian nuclear capacity, I would strongly support them automatically… I think to ask them to take that risk is unconscionable.
BOLTON: The only alternative now is the potential for a pre-emptive military strike against their military program, either by the United States or Israel. Diplomacy has failed. Sanctions have failed.
Watch clips of Gingrich and Bolton:
It’s worth keeping in mind the right wing has been calling for an attack on Iran absent any evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program and well before the IAEA’s report.
“Iran’s nuclear program has produced much demagoguery and dangerous speculation,” the Atlantic Council’s Barbara Slavin noted yesterday in a Politico op-ed. “Dozens of other countries, however, have conducted nuclear research without becoming nuclear weapons states,” she said, adding, “It’s not too late to dissuade Iran from building and testing a nuclear weapon.”
]]>