Exclusive: Donald Trump’s Israel policies may have more to do with outmaneuvering Democrats than they do with any concern for Middle East peace, argues Jonathan Marshall.
By Jonathan Marshall
Vice President Mike Pence addresses the Knesset, Israeli Parliament, in Jerusalem January 22, 2018.
Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to Israel last week revived warnings by foreign policy experts over the Trump administration’s controversial announcement that it will break with past policy and relocate the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
“It’s still mysterious just how Mr. Trump believes he has advanced the cause of peace, or fortified America’s standing in the world, with that decision,” the New York Times editorialized. “Its costs in terms of American isolation, on the other hand, were evident throughout [Pence’s] trip.”
Henry Siegman, former executive director of the American Jewish Congress, earlier derided the “stunning level of ignorance” displayed by Trump’s decision. The Washington Post called it a “big risk,” predicting rightly that it would inflame opposition in the Arab world and give new ammunition to extremists in the region. Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted that the president’s move would “undermine the prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and severely, perhaps irreparably, damage our ability to broker it.”
All these and myriad similar comments were valid, but they missed the point. Trump doesn’t care a whit about peace in the Middle East, or who he alienates abroad: He cares about winning votes at home. Equally important, he cares about splitting the Democratic Party off from its funding base. To that end, Trump and his crew have a pretty good idea what they’re doing.
Defunding the Democrats
For years now, GOP has executed a successful plan to undermine major financial and organizational pillars of the Democratic Party by demonizing once popular groups like plaintiff lawyers (“tort reform”), unions (“right to work”), public employees (“privatization”), and especially public school teachers (“school choice”).
Exploiting the issue of Israel in much the same way, Republican strategists have aimed at neutralizing the Democratic Party’s largest individual donors, who are overwhelmingly Jewish.
Many of those donors also have a long history of financial support for Israel, and of discouraging public debates in the United States over its policies. Raising doubts about the Democratic Party’s commitment to Israel thus became a GOP ploy to dry up portions of that traditional funding base.
In 2003, just before the start of the Iraq war, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Tex., had exactly that strategy in mind when he denounced the Democratic Party to a group of 150 Orthodox Jewish leaders.
“DeLay has been the driving force in the Republican effort to capitalize on President Bush’s strong support of Israel and his leadership in the war on terrorism to weaken Democratic support and financial backing from Jews,” wrote political analysts Thomas Edsall and Alan Cooperman.
A GOP strategist told them, “There are only a few key pillars left holding up the Democratic coalition, especially financial pillars, and if we can fracture one of them, they [Democrats] are going to go into 2004 in big trouble.”
Edsall and Cooperman added, “In presidential elections, Democratic candidates depend on Jewish supporters to supply as much as 60 percent of the money raised from private sources. Any significant reduction in the financial support will weaken Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party organizations.”
A Partisan Issue
As part of that strategy to defund the Democratic Party, Republicans have sought to turn Israel from a bipartisan issue—a bedrock principle of the traditional Israel Lobby, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—into a partisan one their party could exploit.
That became easier as Israel itself turned hard right politically under the leadership of the Likud Party, headed now by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His unyielding crackdown on the Palestinians, vigorous campaign against President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, and tacit support for Mitt Romney in 2012 thrilled conservatives, alienated liberal Democrats, and left strong supporters of Israel within the Democratic Party divided.
Further driving a wedge between Democrats and Republicans, Israel today resembles a Trumpian state more than a liberal democracy, as tribalism, authoritarianism, and religious zealotry increasingly define its politics. “Israeli’s secular democrats are growing increasingly worried that Israel’s future may resemble Saudi Arabia and Iran more than Europe,” writes journalist Israel Rafalovich.
None of that bothers Christian conservatives in the United States, many of whom believe the gathering of Jews in Israel heralds the Second Coming of Christ. Borrowing from Trump’s bag of divisive culture-war issues, Netanyahu told a large Christian Zionist audience last summer that “Israel has no better friend in America than you,” calling them allies in a “struggle of free societies against the forces of militant Islam.”
Netanyahu was right: 78% of white evangelicals support Israel, more than almost any other group. Given that they are also among Trump’s strongest allies, it’s no wonder Republicans today are far more likely (52%) to have a favorable opinion of Netanyahu than Democrats (18%).
As a result, the GOP’s dream of capturing Israel as a partisan issue is coming true.
“The partisan divide in Middle East sympathies, for Israel or the Palestinians, is now wider than at any point since 1978,” the Pew Research Center reported this week. “Currently, 79% of Republicans say they sympathize more with Israel than the Palestinians, compared with just 27% of Democrats.”
The Republican Jewish Coalition, citing the survey, crowed, “Republican Support for Israel Soars as Democrat Support Wanes.”
The Embassy as a Political Wedge
Trump’s decision to relocate the U.S. embassy drove this wedge even deeper. A strong majority of Christian evangelicals backed the move. Alluding to the Book of Revelations, televangelist Pat Robertson said “it’s absolutely crucial in terms of biblical prophecy that [Israel] maintain control over [Jerusalem] … It’s going to be a major battle, it will be over Jerusalem.”
The fact that the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn the administration’s decision was a feature, not a bug. It gave UN Ambassador Nikki Haley raw meat to throw at Trump’s base of aggrieved America Firsters, as she spoke hotly of “exercising our right as a sovereign nation” and threatened to cut funding to the world body.
Outbreaks of violence by Palestinians in reaction to the announcement were also selling points for Trump and Netanyahu, furthering their narrative that the United States and Israel are lonely defenders of order and Judeo-Christian civilization.
“Religious conflicts, like racial and ethnic ones, are critical to Trump’s appeal,” observed journalist and political scientist Peter Beinart. “He needs Mexican-Americans to rape and murder white girls. He needs African-American athletes to ‘disrespect the flag.’ And he needs Muslims to explode bombs and burn American flags. . . . If Trump has to invent these dangers, he will. In the case of Jerusalem, however, he can go further: He can help create them.”
Above all, however, the decision furthered the GOP’s long-range strategy of driving a wedge between the Democratic Party and its biggest traditional funders.
Even as most American Jews oppose an immediate move of the embassy, mainstream Jewish organizations like AIPAC, which disproportionately represent Jewish donors, generally greeted the decision (no doubt with some private reservations).
Hard-line pro-Israel political funders lauded the administration’s break with past U.S. policy. President Trump reportedly acted at the urging of his biggest backer, the hawkish casino billionaire, Sheldon Adelson. According to reporter Eli Clifton, Adelson and his wife donated $35 million to help elect Trump in 2016, in part because Trump promised to move the embassy. Adelson also forked over another $5 million for Trump’s inauguration.
As grassroots Democrats grow more skeptical of Israel’s right-wing government, the question is whether major Democratic donors will tolerate a diversity of opinion toward Israel within the party, in keeping with progressive values.
For example, Hillary Clinton’s single biggest financial backer was Adelson’s friend Haim Saban, a strongly pro-Israel billionaire. To keep him and other large donors on board, Clinton strongly attacked the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and promised to meet with Netanyahu her first month in office. If the Democrats next time put up a candidate like Bernie Sanders, who is more critical of Israel’s leadership, there’s strong reason to believe funders like Saban would hold onto their wallets.
The specter of losing critical financial support will undoubtedly motivate more clashes between party insiders and progressive insurgents who decline to give unconditional support to Israel. The Democratic Party may try to sidestep such conflicts by focusing on economic, environmental, and other winning causes. But Trump and the GOP will surely keep stoking the Middle East as a hot domestic wedge issue as long as they can.
Jonathan Marshall is the author or co-author of five books on international affairs and national security, including The Lebanese Connection: Corruption, Civil War, and the International Drug Traffic (Stanford University Press, 2012).
It’s amazing how we still have fools believing the Bernie Sanders will stand up to Israel…
See Sanders on the ÉSubject of Israel and BDS below:
1- 5:15min https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piWbS2bAvTY
2- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf2cCdgwgoM
He signed the letter with all the senators asking the UN to stop bullying Israel.
Bernie is a decoy. He is not the right person to follow. We are getting fooled again.
Jews are only loyal to other Jews.
Robert Parry on the Clinton/Trump AIPAC ‘Pander-Off’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OktOl4MaKRE
In a discussion based on his March 22, 2016 Consortium News article, Parry addressed pro-Israel Lobby influence during the 2016 presidential election.
Pro-Israel Lobby war hawks clamoring for military action against Iran:
The Atlantic – David Frum
Weekly Standard – Bill Kristol
New York Times – Bret Stephens
Brookings Institution – Robert Kagan, Martin S. Indyk, Kenneth M. Pollack
Council on Foreign Relations – Max Boot, Elliot Abrams
Foundation for Defense of Democracies – Mark Dubowitz, Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht
Middle East Forum – Daniel Pipes
Commentary magazine – John Podhoretz
Middle East Media Research Institute – Meyrav Wurmser
Institute for the Study of War – Kimberly Kagan
American Enterprise Institute – Frederick Kagan, Danielle Pletka and David Wurmser
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP)
Hudson Institute
Philip Giraldi, a founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), is a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the United States Central Intelligence Agency.
Giraldi notes the loud clamor for war with Iran arising from Jewish American exponents of the pro-Israel Lobby:
“To be sure, the urging to strike Iran comes from many quarters, to include generals in the Administration who always think first in terms of settling problems through force, from a Saudi government obsessed with fear over Iranian hegemony, and, of course, from Israel itself. But what makes the war engine run is provided by American Jews who have taken upon themselves the onerous task of starting a war with a country that does not conceivably threaten the United States. They have been very successful at faking the Iranian threat, so much so that nearly all Republican and most Democratic congressmen as well as much of the media seem to be convinced that Iran needs to be dealt with firmly, most definitely by using the U.S. military, and the sooner the better.”
http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/americas-jews-are-driving-americas-wars/
Giraldi acknowledges the Americans who “rose into prominence when they obtained a number of national security positions during the Reagan Administration and their ascendancy was completed when they staffed senior positions in the Pentagon and White House under George W. Bush” who were “all Jewish and all conduits for the false information that led to a war that has spread and effectively destroyed much of the Middle East. Except for Israel, of course.”
Conventional Hasbara (overtly pro-Israel) and Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti-Israel” and fake “anti-Jewish) propaganda trolls assault the comments section of Giraldi’s piece and other critical discussions of pro-Israel Lobby interference in American foreign policy. In fact, criticism of Jewish Americans who choose to operate in thrall to a foreign government (Israel) is pro-American and pro-peace, not “anti-Jewish”.
I didn’t waste time reading this article because the title is bass-ackwards. Israel exploits Trump and the GOP. Oh, and the Dems, media, financial system, you name it.
A timely explanation may be Trump’s expressed goal of expanding the military budget and the removal of budget limits as an implicit olive branch for welfare spending parity[1]. Raising tensions in the Middle East (and elsewhere) may artificially marshal public support for Trump’s guns & butter plan. Of course, none of this is beneficial to the public or for a sustainable economy, rather it harks back to the first half of the 20th century (income tax, central bank, liberty bonds, BIS, London Gold Pool, US Treasury Debt Open Market Operations, Gold Reserve Act, and MEFO bills).
A full accounting of the $21 trillion of accounting discrepancies between 1998 and 2015 (including HUD) may be more fruitful. Our public debt and trade deficits may be more a source of totalitarian threat to the nation. More desirable means may be at our disposal for raising government revenue that are less costly to the average business and average taxpayer, while concurrently tamping down on speculation[2]. I’m afraid that excessive US military budgets, welfare programs and infrastructure projects may not be a viable solution for encouraging peace at this time, either. Neither stifling or subsidizing foreign trade may be a boon for average businesses or working taxpayers over time. Let’s focus on a more production solution.
The Israel-Palestine question does pull at the heart-strings, but has little sentimental effect on the wallet. Israel may have to muddle through on it’s own to resolve the issue. Charity begins at home and that’s where it’s needed at this time, not in far away lands,.. and even less so in the Middle East with a future hydrogen economy on the horizon[3-7]. Let’s face it, the US has proven that it is not an honest broker between Israel and Palestine.
[1] Ending The Warfare/Welfare State | Forbes | 2011
[2] Automated Payment Transaction tax – Wikipedia
[3] The Hydrogen Economy Animation | Youtube
[4] Solar Hydrogen Fuel Stations | Youtube
[5] Building a hydrogen refueling station in 48 hours (time-lapse) | Youtube
[6] Check out the first hydrogen-electric semi-truck, the Nikola One | Youtube
[7] Honda’s Hydrogen Home Pump | Youtube
I was pleased to discover one public official who hasn’t sold his soul to the Israel lobby – a judge in Kansas who recently struck down new anti-BDS legislation because it violates First Amendment principles. I intend to send that judge a thank you note.
Let me know if anyone one else spots one of these rare birds because I’d like to thank each of them personally.
The Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, voted in Congress last summer in support of Jerusalem being Israel’s capital. Schumer criticized Trump for not being confidant enough in deciding to move the embassy.
It has been shown that a well informed population is less subject to money in politics… money for advertisements/propaganda.
This suggests the main problem we face is with our Forth Estate. We are entertained not informed.
Consider the Public Television menu. Antiques Roadshow, Downton Abbey, Doc Martin, the Ancestry show, British Baking, etc. Minimal commitment to preparing the public to participate in policy making decisions. Usually inform after the vote. The Newshour is reasonable but never saw a war it didn’t promote. The destabilization of Europe by regime change in Syria and Newshour viewers didn’t have a clue as to the essential details..
Being as Public Television depends on public contributions, its reputation is essential, so that may be the most logical place to start demanding reform/improvement.
Counter the influence of Ken Adelson’smoney in politics with a competent PBS.
“…mainstream Jewish organizations like AIPAC…”? Really, Mr. Marshall, give me a break.
Expoit??? That has such a one-sided, “using” connotation.
Yeah sure, in the sense of mutual power-politics. But the reality is more along the lines of obsequiousness to perpetual Neo-lib/con war.
Is it any wonder that the Evil Empire has evil friends and allies? Israel and our handy-dandy terrorist pals around the world have a lot in common – like racist/religious beliefs and practices.
And of course the Empire’s “Elites” are all white racists to the core.
Before the election of Trump I remember reading the overwhelmingly fawning, nauseatingly self-demeaning speech prepared by/for Hillary Clinton, taking her vision of the American relationship with Israel “to a new level” and looking forward to welcoming Netanyahu as her first guest as Madame President. It is hard to believe anyone could outdo this effort, but Trump/Kushner/GOP have succeeded. How anyone can describe the USA as a democracy or a free country is beyond me.
Exactly. The US mass media sold a pop culture of zero ethics, disregard for democracy, money=virtue=power, and acceptance of zionist tyranny. Money control of elections put zionists into every office of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. There is little left to save; one must cheer any opponent of oligarchy, zionism, and even the Jews, regardless of extremism. Perhaps it was the same in Germany before Hitler.
“Anon” vomits up the obligatory Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti-Zionist” and fake “anti-Jewish”) propaganda troll rant about “the Jews” that suddenly appears whenever the pro-Israel Lobby or Israeli government meddling in US electoral politics are under discussion.
Actually the comment is not anti-Jewish, Abe. But from an historical perspective, it seems unlikely that the anti-zionists will be liberated from zionism without the extremism of the anti-Jews. At least the increasing anti-Jewish expressions show that more and more are not fooled by the zionists; hence the cheering. Sorry to trouble my Jewish friends, but that appears to be the historical reality.
None here at CN are fooled when Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti-Zionist”) propaganda trolls start showing up to “cheer” the “extremism of the anti-Jews” and share “historical perspective” about “Germany before Hitler”.
The reality is that criticism of Israeli government meddling and pro-Israel Lobby interference is not in any way “anti-Jewish” or “anti-Semitic”.
The purpose of these escalating Inverted Hasbara assaults on independent investigative journalism online is to smear sites with the false appearance of “anti-Semitism”.
‘Perhaps it was the same before Hitler? ‘
Do some research and find out for yourself how Jews were hated for their greed and lack of ethics and morals! But I am sure you are aware of what history shows, but you are pretending not to know.
I know jewish ways of negating anything that affects jewish behavior. I have known Jews, who were absolutely devious and who took pride in their deviousness.
Hitler had nothing to do with it. Jews were always hated, because they were deviants and usurers and always took take credit for inventions from other nations.
At a 2015 gala hosted by the Algemeiner Journal, Trump declared “We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent.” His bid for the presidency was announced soon after. Trump’s whole “insurgent” campaign, his purported break with GOP orthodoxy, questioning of Israel’s commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel’s undivided capital, were an elaborate propaganda scam engineered by the Israel Lobby from the very beginning. Trump’s efforts on behalf of Israel began immediately after the election, prior to his taking the oath of office.
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser on Middle East/Israel issues, gave his first on-the-record appearance at the Saban Forum at the Brookings Institution on 3 December 2017. Saban praised Kushner for attempting to derail a vote at the United Nations Security Council about Israeli settlements during the Obama administration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZyGpirUMvk
Kushner reportedly dispatched former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to make secret contact with the Russian ambassador in December 2016 in an effort to undermine or delay the resolution, which condemned Israel for settlement construction. Saban told Kushner that “this crowd and myself want to thank you for making that effort, so thank you very much.” Kushner thanked the audience at Brookings, a leading pro-Israel Lobby think tank, “It’s really an honor to be able to talk about this topic with so many people who I respect so much, who have given so much to this issue.”
During the keynote conversation, Kushner and Saban framed Middle East peace as a “real estate issue”. Kushner acknowledged that “We’ve solicited a lot of ideas from a lot of places.” Trump’s understanding of “regional dynamics” in the Middle East clearly manifests “a lot of ideas” from pro-Israel war hawks from the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. Make no mistake, Israel and the pro-Israel Lobby exploit Trump and the GOP, as well as Clinton and the Democrats.
Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump (and all their rivals from the 2016 presidential campaign) are Israel-Firsters deep in the pockets of the pro-Israel Lobby. Trump’s current policies are not significantly at variance from Clinton’s equally pro-Israel policy agenda.
The fracture between the Trump and Clinton contingents of the pro-Israel Lobby is rooted in the personal predilections of their major American Jewish oligarch donors. Billionaires Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban are the Koch Brothers of the pro-Israel Lobby.
Both Adelson and Saban are staunch supporters of the Israeli military, vehemently opposed to the global BDS movement against Israeli apartheid, and obsessed about starting war with Iran.
When Adelson and Saban shared the stage at the Israeli American Council’s inaugural conference in Washington, D.C. in 2014, Saban quipped, “There’s no right or left when it comes to Israel”.
Despite their shared pro-Israel Lobby objectives, Adelson and Saban had a fracas in 2015 over political tactics
https://forward.com/news/israel/321793/haim-saban-dumps-pro-israel-coalition-over-sheldon-adelsons-far-right-wing/
The Republican Party and Democratic Party campaign platforms in 2016 reflected right and left pro-Israel Lobby orientations. Even the Sanders sheepdog campaign was a far-left pro-Israel Lobby iteration.
The Russia-gate conspiracy theory, eagerly promoted by both key right and left pro-Israel Lobby figures (including Jewish and Christian Zionists, as well as sheepdog Sanders), is partly an effort to distract attention from the pro-Israel Lobby meddling in American electoral politics and its pernicious influence on US foreign policy.
Well said.
Thanks Abe, but if Sanders had run against Trump, I would have voted for him. I contributed to his campaign, and although you may call him a sheepdog, I think he was the only decent one running. I didn’t like when he backed Hilary and had to turn him off as he exalted her virtues, but I still like him.
I don’t know what to make of this article, since neither party has been fair and balanced when it comes to Israel’s multiple crimes in it’s illegal occupied territories, or have democrats been fair and balanced in trying to broker a peace deal in the region. I think Mr. Marshall fails to recognize the democrats have played a significant hand in democratizing their own party, and mainly by pandering not only to their Jewish voters, but the 10% in this country. They side line their liberal base, and if they go down, they played a large part in their own downfall. Personally I don’t think the Jewish people who reside in the US are going to suddenly switch sides and become republicans, and fund their overall agenda.
Should have been…think Mr. Marshall fails to recognize the democrats have played a significant hand in un-democratizing their own party.
Remembering the famed White House correspondent Helen Thomas, may be appropriate at this time.
http://mondoweiss.net/2013/07/helen-thomass-anti-zionist-statements/
Having read a lot from Jews who do not support the Zionist regimes which have set the narrative for all Jews, could this deterrence by free thinking Jews from abiding by the Zionist dictates eventually cause a mass exodus of Jews out of Israel? Would more Jews prefer living in America, or how about Germany. I mean just look at how self conscious the Germans are over all things Jewish in remembrance of the Halocaust, and then consider if this German paranoia would not be the most perfect setting for all Jews to enjoy.
With this in mind, should we consider Helen Thomas being a prophet, or a journalist with a wicked anti-Semite temper?
> Would more Jews prefer living in America, or how about Germany. I mean just look at how self conscious
> the Germans are over all things Jewish in remembrance of the Halocaust, and then consider if this
> German paranoia would not be the most perfect setting for all Jews to enjoy.
The problem for satirists these days is that all too often, reality promptly tops your jokes:
There are already thousands and thousands of Jewish Israeli emigrees (many of whom left for political reasons) living in and around Berlin.
Tell me more T about the Jews living in Berlin.
During the P5+1 talks I wrote of how worried I was for the average Jew. My concerns were based on Bibi Netanyahu’s performances as Israeli PM, and his starched rhetoric to his Israeli ambitions. As it turns out I read how anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide, and wondered to if this is due to Netanyahu and his followers mean spirited words.
What the Israeli’s are doing to the Palestinian is without a doubt horrific by it’s nature, but the backlash that Jews may encounter from this Israeli mistreatment of the Arab will be beyond horrific.
So please, if you feel up to it T, give us the low down on Jews in Berlin. BTW I am not Jewish. Joe
Germans feel so guilty by the constant reminders of the “Holocaust” (I know some of you won’t like the quotation-mark) that they dare not criticise any Jew, and Jews know how to exploit their opportunity, as usual.
I know what I am talking about, having been the victim of a particular Jew, who had all the qualities of a real chosen Schmuck, and he did not deny it. He laughed at my sense of ethics. (Just look at their Manual of “recommended responses”, or whatever they call it.)
Jerry, I think you make a good point.
If liberal US Jews ceased contributing to Dems, perhaps that might be a positive development, since Dems. would no longer be beholden to vote for anything Israel wants. Meanwhile, Trump’s move is based on his being surrounded by a Zionist contingent, particularly his son-in-law, who is all for doing whatever Netanyahu’s Israel desires.
The wall street bankers (Jews) will show up in the next democrat primary, if needed, to stifle any progressive leaning candidates(s).
The one thing the bankers learned from Sanders’ campaign: One does not needs wall street money to mount a viable campaign. An outright dangerous idea to be smothered in the crib.
Very likely their donations to the Dems bought the deniable Clinton zionist war policies and other oligarchy policies that caused their loss to Trump. That may well be a primary means by which the Dems became Repubs.
The Dems simply used feminist/gay/climate issues as masks, to get activists for unstated oligarchy policies.
Gosh, it just wasn’t practical to get single-payer health care, even in Obama’s first two majority years.
Spot on. Hillary made sure to hide her Zionist financial masters from her base.
“Clinton to drop Israel from ‘public’ speeches, put it back in ‘with donors’ — email”
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/10/clinton-israel-speeches
My original response was deleted/censored, most likely because of links included, regardless of relevance.
As a result, I will try to respond again, without links (which can be accessed through the main website).
Juxtapose: World Stage[d] Mocking – of Christians, Jesus, God
Remember (and Watch): Beatitudes: a Godless Jesus
Correlate: Network[ed] Narratives (World Be Damned)
Listen, See, and Hear: Protest Music: War (In The Name of God)
Mr. Marshall, I still have a copy of “Cocaine Politics”, the book you co-authored with Peter Dale Scott, on my bookshelf. Assuming you still maintain a relationship with Professor Scott (who was largely responsible for introducing the concept of “deep politics” into the lexicon), maybe you could invite him to offer his ideas on the concept (particularly as it relates to the ‘persecution’ of Donald Trump).here at the ‘echo chamber’.
Troll alert. Please do not reply to BobS.
He is always around posting his stuff.
The only difference between yesterday and today is that today the disease has become endemic/global and the digital world has allowed the Deep state to get away with murder and provided them with untold wealth, and untold wars to keep the cogs turning
“the Deep state…”
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!
DEEP STATE!!!!
The author has got this wrong way round. “It should read: How Israel exploit the GOP and Trump”
Precisely. And, if the author were more honest, accurate and less partisan, would implicate those interests pulling both dem and repub strings at the national level.
Agreed.
“Its costs in terms of American isolation, on the other hand, were evident throughout [Pence’s] trip.”
I don’t understand the concept of American isolation. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem gratifies Israeli sentiments and directs financial thank you’s into the Republican party coffers and that is bad because other nations object? I don’t follow the logic. The Palestinians cannot be made to hate Israel more than they do now. Or the US.
“I don’t understand the concept of American isolation.”
The world beyond Israel/Palestine.
“Moving the embassy to Jerusalem gratifies Israeli sentiments and directs financial thank you’s into the Republican party coffers and that is bad because other nations object?”
Not when you’re in the habit of placing the interests of party before country, like candidate Nixon/Vietnam peace talks, candidate Reagan/Iran hostage negotiations, etc.
Of course, why shouldn’t our foreign policy with over 300 million Arabs be determined by 2 jewish donors who hate all Arabs?
Does this obvious ploy of Trump’s and the GOP really require analysis? The piece is interesting in one way among the commentary of the Respectables, Left and Riight, who dwell at the opposite end of the social spectrum from the Deploarables. It does not assume or say in some snarky way that Trump is stupid, which clearly he is not. Trump likes to call himself smart which is offensive to the Respectables. Bad manners and all that, you know. The Respectables like to make their point by calling others stupid.
Unfortunately you are exactly right. I”m not sure who in Manhattan or San Francisco determined the best way to court the midwest voter was to call them names but that is sure how it played out. And we got trump. Way to go guys, keep those millions flowing into the Democratic coffers and keep running the party for those half dozen donors. Really worked out in 2016.
Analysis is easy only when the facts are known, and Mr. Marshall has well expressed the facts hidden by mass media, that “the Democratic Party’s largest individual donors… are overwhelmingly Jewish” despite the fact that “79% of Republicans… sympathize more with Israel than the Palestinians, compared with… 27% of Democrats.” He has also stated the analysis well enough that it seems obvious to readers who did not suspect it previously.
It’s no surprise the Jewish donors and pro-Israel organizations in general do exactly the same thing that the US imperial government does all over the world. Play both sides, ensure an even match, profit wildly from the never-to-be-resolved conflict. Shockingly with no ambiguity, the divide and conquer via “education” and funding technique is on display throughout the travails of the Jews in the Old Testament as well as the history of imperial ambitions the world over.
How dumb it is that anyone is claiming a US politician uses Israel. Some wise guy rightly said, if you want to know who wields the power, look for the person you aren’t allowed to criticize.
Another way to look at this is that it has been part of “Bloody Bibi’s” efforts to manipulate the United States Government and its politics.
Throughout this article, it is clear that money and power are the only real considerations in the political maneuvers described. This is just taken for granted these days. Ethics and compassion play no role whatever in the power player’s decisions. Could this have anything to do with the horrible, near terminal condition of our world today?
Maybe you could pick a time in history it’s been any different.
Given the climate crisis we now face, and the sixth great extinction underway on this planet due to fossil fuel dependency, I can’t think of a time in history which approximates this moment. In pre-history, maybe the late Jurassic period. In that sense, money and power are performing the role previously played by a giant asteroid.
However, you probably don’t have to think hard to find a time in history when “money and power are the only real considerations” and “Ethics and compassion play no role whatever in the power player’s decisions”.
There have been small enclaves of societal sanity in our history, but they were soon overrun by the majority of blood thirsty egoists. We can only hope that past performance is not an infallible guide to future possibilities – otherwise our collective goose will soon be cooked.
Maybe during the Ice Age?