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American mouthpieces for Israeli regime had unrivaled access to Obama White House: Former Official

Press TV – March 2, 2021

A former senior US official has said some 20 American mouthpieces for the Israeli regime had unrivaled access to the White House during Barack Obama’s presidency, highlighting the close link between Israeli lobbies and the White House and Congress.

Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser under Obama, said he had to meet with Israel lobbyists as much as all other interest groups combined.

He said there were 10 to 20 individuals who invariably took the position of the Israeli regime and were apparently scripted by the Israelis in some cases.

“You just have this incredibly organized pro-Israel community that is very accustomed to having access in the White House, in Congress, at the State Department. It’s taken for granted, as given, that that’s the way things are going to be done,” Rhodes said in an interview with US-based Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Rhodes said White House national security aides were expected to appear at the Israel lobby group AIPAC’s annual conference, but if they paid attention to Arab-American or peace groups, they could “get in trouble.”

The former Obama official said he was warned at times by members of Congress about the “acute” financial threat of taking on the lobby as the Israel lobby’s access was reinforced by “compliant media and Congress.”

Rhodes said the Biden team is forgetting the “history,” that Israel made life hell for Obama, when the Obama White House pretended that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu believed in a “two-state solution” when he never did.

He also recalled Netanyahu’s pressure by calling on “vast” rightwing media resources in the US.

“The media interest is dramatically intensified [on this issue]. And that’s both a very aggressive kind of pro-Likud media in the United States. It’s also just the mainstream media delights in any Israel controversies. Netanyahu knew that he could gin up the rightwing pro-Likud media in the United States, which is pretty vast, but he also knew that if he needled Obama he would create a week-long political story, because political reporters view Israel as a domestic political story, not a foreign policy issue.”

Regarding efforts to block anti-Israeli moves at the UN, the former Obama official said whenever there was an international incident like the Goldstone Report or the Turkish Flotilla,” you have to make sure that you’re doing everything that you can at the UN to kind of block this from going forward.”

On Iran, Rhodes said “by the way, it’s not as if anyone plans to “decenter” Jews! Today it is no coincidence that the top three officials in the Biden State Department — Tony Blinken, Wendy Sherman and Victoria Nuland — are all Jewish. These appointments are meant to reassure the Israel lobby of Biden’s support.”

“The same reason Obama hired Hillary Clinton as secretary of state in 2008 by reaching out to an Israel lobbyist to be the intermediary. The same reason that for many years all of the Treasury undersecretaries for counter-terrorism, enforcing Iran sanctions, were Jewish.”

March 2, 2021 - Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism