Meet Dan Lederman: South Dakota politician for Israel
Dan Lederman poses with an Israeli soldier
By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | February 13, 2017
Former state senator Dan Lederman has just been elected chair of the South Dakota Republican Party. Lederman is a fervent supporter of Israel.
A 2011 profile in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), “Meet Dan Lederman: The Jewish bail bondsman legislator from South Dakota,” emphasizes how Lederman benefits Israel.
The profile, by JTA’s Ron Kampeas, begins with: “AIPAC photo-ops? Check. Initiate and pass Iran divestment bill? Check. Pheasant-hunt fundraisers, sandbagging for flood protection… Check. Could Dan Lederman, an energetic and peripatetic 38-year-old Republican state senator in South Dakota, set a new template for Jewish politicians?”
Kampeas quotes the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Matt Brooks, about Lederman: “He’s somebody who clearly could be governor, congressman, senator. He’s somebody who is totally committed to his constituents.”
And, it appears, to Israel.
Like most successful politicians, Lederman has worked to develop friendly relationships with voters, participating in pheasant hunts, helping during floods, etc. These relationships are useful, Kampeas observes, in promoting Israel:
“Such first-name-basis relationships in a state with only 800,000 people,” Kampeas writes, “help Lederman advance a pro-Israel agenda, one that he prominently displays on his website’s home page, where he touts his leadership on the Iran sanctions legislation as well as a pro-Israel resolution in the wake of Israel’s 2008-2009 Gaza military campaign.”
Lederman’s mentor has been fellow Republican State Senator Stan Adelstein, a mullti-millionaire known in the state for his philanthropy, and his commitment to Israel. A bio of Adelstein reports:
“From 1975 to 1982, and again in 1986, he was a U.S. Delegate to the World Assembly of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem, which he describes as a sort of ‘Congress of Jews of the world’ and the governing body of Israel before 1948.”
Kampeas writes: “Adelstein, who is 80, said he is pleased Lederman is taking his place as a prominent Jewish voice in a region where such voices are otherwise lacking — but which deserves attention from supporters of Israel.”
Adelstein points out: “South Dakota, Montana and North Dakota have just as many U.S. senators as New York, California and Pennsylvania. And South Dakota has two more U.S. senators than it has rabbis. I’m so grateful he’s taking the positions he is.”
Another person pleased with Lederman’s ascendancy is Steve Hunegs, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, which advocates for Israel.
JTA reports: “Lederman has acted as a bridge between the Jewish community and South Dakota conservatives, said Steve Hunegs… That’s key in a state where Republicans have supermajorities in both houses.”
Kampeas reports that the JCRC provided research to Lederman that he used in promoting Iran sanctions.
Lederman was originally a Democrat, but like many neoconservatives, he switched to the Republican party over U.S. foreign policies.
Kampeas reports: “Lederman’s trajectory to Republican lawmaker is not unusual for Republican Jews: He grew up in a politically active Democratic household and switched gears in college when he found that his concerns about national security did not jibe with those of the party with which he was raised.
“It’s the same narrative that shaped nationally prominent figures like Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary for President George W. Bush.”
While traditional conservatives are generally in favor of small government, balanced budgets and minimal foreign aid, neocons, like other Israel partisans, have promoted massive funding to Israel, now over $10 million per day.
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.
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From the Archives
The Occupied Mentality Syndrome
Saudi Arabia on the American chessboard – Part 2
By B. J. Sabri | American Herald Tribune | April 19, 2016
Since the Korean War, but particularly since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 until today, the United States has been steadily escalating its military presence in the Persian Gulf. Taking advantage of many colossal events of the past 36 years, [1] the hyper-empire has institutionalized its massive presence on land and sea, and expanded its objectives to include the unambiguous physical control of the area, as well as the clear understanding that local Arab governments should abide by them. The pretext is always the same: in “defense” of the national interests and security of the United States. From observing how the United States has been interacting with the governments of the region, and by judging from the size of its expeditionary force, we could reach a basic conclusion. The United States is occupying, de facto, the entire Arabian Peninsula. (Yemen, devastated by Saudi and American jets is yet to be conquered. Oman? Britain returned not as colonial ruler but as a soft occupying power.)
Under this articulation, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates are virtually occupied countries. If we compare this type of occupation to the mandate and protectorate regimes of the past, the results might be identical—the nations affected by it lose sovereignty. When Arab governments comply with the objectives of a foreign power that station military forces on their national milieu, then that power controls them in multiple ways including how they react to policy deliberations and what decisions they intend to take on specific issues. A good method to verify the concept of effective occupation is this: take notice of what the United States says and wants, and then compare it to what the gulf rulers do in response. (I shall discuss this detail at some point in the upcoming parts.)
If the presence of US forces or other means of political pressure are a factor in Saudi Arabia’s interventionist Arab wars, then we need to debate this issue. However, from the history of resistance to colonialism, we learnt: if a powerful state imposes its order on a nation by military means or other forms of coercion, and if this nation does not resist that imposition, then a mental subordination to the powerful state will ensue. This is especially true in the case of Saudi Arabia. One single event, 9/11, has transformed it from a US “ally” into an instant political hostage of the American Empire. … continue
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