US imposes more sanctions on Iran for ballistic missile program
Press TV – March 24, 2016
The US Department of the Treasury has imposed financial sanctions on two more Iranian companies for allegedly supporting Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Washington’s latest legal move against Tehran was announced on Thursday, weeks after the United States imposed similar sanctions on 11 other companies and individuals alleged to be involved in the missile program.
The latest measures cut off Iran’s Shahid Nuri Industries and Shahid Movahed Industries from international finance.
The United States said the companies are working for an industrial group, which Washington alleged is in charge of Iran’s ballistic missile program.
The Treasury Department also imposed restrictions on two British businessmen, Jeffrey John James Ashfield and John Edward Meadows, for doing business with Iran’s Mahan Air.
Washington has accused the private airline of transporting funds and arms for the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
“We will continue to use all of our tools to counteract Iran’s ballistic missile program and support for terrorism [sic], including through sanctions,” said US Treasury official Adam J. Szubin in a statement.
Earlier on Thursday, the US Justice Department charged seven Iranians with coordinating a campaign of cyber attacks on dozens of American banks and a dam in New York state from 2011 to 2013.
The indictment described the suspects as “experienced computer hackers” who live in Iran and may have been working on behalf of the Iranian government.
On March 9, the IRGC successfully test-fired two more ballistic missiles as part of its military drills. The missiles dubbed Qadr-H and Qadr-F were fired during large-scale drills, code-named Eqtedar-e-Velayat.
The US claimed the tests violate a UN resolution. Russia, however, said the missile launches did not violate any UN resolution, and opposed the imposition of any new sanctions on Iran over the tests.
The US imposed sanctions on 11 companies and individuals for supplying Iran’s ballistic missile program after a series of missile tests last year.
The Iranian missile program “is totally for peaceful purposes and no measure can strip the Islamic Republic of Iran of its legitimate and legal right to boost its defensive capabilities and [safeguard] national security,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said on Thursday.
He said that Iran’s missile program is solely for protecting the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as combating terrorism and extremism, emphasizing that the country’s military might serves regional and global interests.
On January 16, US President Barack Obama signed an executive order lifting US economic sanctions on Iran.
Obama’s move came after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified that Iran has implemented its commitments made in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and announced to remove international economic sanctions against the country.
Iran and the P5+1 – the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany – finalized the text of the JCPOA in Vienna, Austria, on July 14, 2015.
Under the agreement, limits are put on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for, among other things, the removal of all nuclear-related economic and financial bans against the Islamic Republic.
A History of Silencing Israeli Army Whistleblowers From 1948 Until Today
By Jonathan Cook | Dissident Voice | March 23, 2016
One might expect that only historians would care to revisit the 1948 war that created Israel. And yet the debate about what constitutes truth and myth from that period still provokes raw emotions.
Much rests on how those events are reconstructed, not least because the shock waves have yet to subside. Israelis fear, and Palestinians crave, a clearer picture of the past because it would powerfully illuminate the present. It might also influence the international community’s proposed solutions for the conflict.
That is why the unearthing of an Israeli soldier’s letter from 1948 detailing what was probably the war’s worst massacre – one long buried by Israel – is of more than historical significance.
It comes as Moshe Yaalon, the defence minister, this week accused Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organisation that exposes military abuses, of “treason” for collecting evidence from the army’s current whistle-blowers.
Western understandings of the 1948 war – what Palestinians term their Nakba, or catastrophe – are dominated by an enduring Israeli narrative. Israel’s army, it is said, abided by a strict moral code. Palestinians left not because of Israel’s actions but on the orders of Arab leaders.
In this rendering, the Palestinians’ mass dispossession was the fault of the Arab world – and a solution for the millions of today’s refugees lies with their host countries.
For decades Israel’s chief concession to the truth was an admission that a massacre took place just outside Jerusalem, at Deir Yassin.
Israel claimed the atrocity was the exception that proved the rule: a rogue militia killed more than 100 villagers, violating Israel’s ethical codes in the chaotic weeks before statehood was declared.
Palestinians have always known of dozens of other large massacres of civilians from 1948 carried out by the Israeli army. The barbarity, they say, was intended to terrorise the native population into flight. This account puts responsibility on Israel for taking the refugees back.
But history is written by the victor.
In recent decades a few brave Israeli scholars have chipped away at the official facade. In the late 1990s a Haifa University student collected testimonies from former soldiers confirming that over 200 Palestinians had been massacred at Tantura, south of Haifa. After the findings were made public, he was pilloried and stripped of his degree.
A decade ago, the historian Ilan Pappe wrote a groundbreaking book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, arguing that massacres like the one at Tantura were exploited to drive out Palestinians. He and others noted the suggestive titles of military operations such as “Broom” and soldiers’ orders to “clean” areas.
Pappe now lives in academic exile in the UK.
The biggest obstacle to shifting Israeli and western perceptions of 1948 has been the lack of a clear paper trail connecting the political leadership to the massacres. Israel locked away bundles of documentation precisely not to jeopardise the official narrative.
But things are changing slowly.
Last year a key deception was punctured: that Israel urged many of the war’s 750,000 Palestinian refugees to return. In a letter to Haifa’s leaders shortly after the city’s Palestinians were expelled, David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, demanded that any return be barred.
Now another letter, located by Israeli historian Yair Auron and published last week for the first time in English by the Haaretz newspaper, trashes the idea of an ethical Israel army.
Written by Shabtai Kaplan, a soldier and journalist, the letter confirms long-held suspicions of a massacre – one that dwarfs Deir Yassin – at Dawaymeh, near Hebron. Soldiers executed hundreds of men, women and children who offered no resistance.
The massacre, near the end of the war, was carried out by elite troops under the command of Yitzhak Sadeh. He developed the Israeli army’s famous doctrine of “purity of arms”.
Kaplan argues that the Dawaymeh massacre was part of “a system of expulsion and destruction”, with a clear goal: “The fewer Arabs who remain, the better.”
Kaplan’s letter was consigned to the vaults, as were so many other documents from 1948 that officials considered too damaging.
Nearly seven decades later, in an age of 24-hour news and social media, Israel is still desperately trying to conceal its darkest episodes by bullying the army’s current whistle-blowers.
Last week Benjamin Netanyahu’s government launched an investigation into Breaking the Silence. On Sunday Netanyahu called the collection of soldiers’ testimonies “intolerable”, indicating that he may try to ban the group.
It is hard not to see parallels between the cover-ups of 1948 and those of today. Breaking the Silence’s disclosures, especially those relating to Israel’s series of attacks on Gaza, each of which has left hundreds of civilians dead, similarly give the lie to the army’s continuing claims of ethical behaviour.
In his 1948 letter, Kaplan observed of the failure by the political leadership to hold anyone to account for the massacres: “Inaction is in itself encouragement.”
Israel’s politicians hoped then that the Palestinians could be quickly terrorised from their lands. Decades later, the atrocities continue – and to the same end. But Israel must face facts: the days when such systematic brutality could be kept under wraps are now over.
Jonathan Cook, based in Nazareth, Israel is a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books).
Sanders’ Written Remarks to AIPAC
By Stephen Lendman | March 23, 2016
AIPAC is a rogue lobbying group with enormous influence in Washington, one-sidedly supporting Israel at the expense of regional peace and Palestinian rights.
Bernie Sanders addressed its annual conference in spirit, not in person, delivering his remarks in written form – expressing longstanding support for a ruthless apartheid state run by hate-mongering Zionist zealots.
“Israel is one of America’s closest allies,” he said, “and we – as a nation – are committed not just to guaranteeing (its survival), but also to its people’s right to live in peace and security.”
Fact: Both countries partner in each other’s high crimes, Sanders failed to explain.
Fact: Israel’s survival isn’t threatened. Its only threats are ones it creates. Sanders paid no heed to its longstanding reign of terror on defenseless Palestinians.
Fact: Calling their freedom fighters “terrorists” mocks their dignity, humanity, and “right to live in peace and security” Israel systematically denies them.
Claiming as president he’ll “work tirelessly to advance the cause of peace as a partner and as a friend to Israel” belies reality.
No peace process exists, not now or earlier going back decades. Israel rejects it out-of-hand, pretending otherwise, wanting historic Palestine for Jews only, its people denied their fundamental rights.
Sanders knows what he won’t explain, one-sidedly supporting Israel while pretending otherwise. His voting record belies his claim about being “a friend not only to Israel, but to the Palestinian people.” When did he ever introduce legislation supporting their rights? Never!
He backs naked Israeli aggression on the phony pretext of responding to Hamas rocket attacks, used only in self-defense.
Saying he “believe(s) that Israel, the Palestinians, and the international community can, must, and will rise to do what needs to be done to achieve a lasting peace” ignores what never happened before and won’t now.
Again, Sanders knows what he won’t say, maintaining the fiction of efforts for regional peace when none exist. Washington and Israel systematically undermine them.
His formula for peace isn’t reality based. After decades of Israeli state terror, slow-motion genocide affecting an entire population, punctuated by intermittent premeditated wars, apartheid worse than South Africa’s, and governance of, by and for hate-mongering Zionist zealots, how can anyone believe it wants peace and stability.
Sanders is like all the rest, demanding “Hamas and Hezbollah renounce their efforts to undermine the security of Israel… Peace has to mean security for every Israeli from violence.”
Saying “attacks of all kinds against Israel” must end is code language for wanting Palestinians denied their international law guaranteed right of self-defense.
Adding “peace also means security (and well-being) for every Palestinian,” their right to “self-determination, (and) ending ‘what amounts’ (sic) to the occupation of Palestinian territory, establishing mutually agreed upon borders, and pulling back settlements in the West Bank (like earlier) in Gaza” ignores no possibility of achieving any of the above.
Sanders failed to explain Ariel Sharon’s so-called disengagement from Gaza transferred its settlers to stolen Palestinian West Bank land, displacing Palestinians from what’s rightfully theirs.
It put Jews out of harm’s way ahead of three Israeli wars of aggression on Gaza – in 2008-09, 2012 and 2014, along with frequent aerial and ground assaults, an entire population terrorized and besieged for nearly a decade with no prospect for relief.
Sanders saying “economic blockade of Gaza” must end ignores its political imposition, unrelated to security concerns.
Expressing rhetorical support for “a sustainable and equitable distribution of precious water resources so (both sides) can thrive as neighbors” ignores his one-sided support for Israel for 30 years.
He willfully lied, claiming Israel’s 2014 Gaza war followed “weeks of indiscriminate rocket fire into its territory and the kidnapping of (its) citizens.”
Operation Protective Edge was planned months in advance, naked Israeli aggression unrelated to Hamas rockets (launched only in self-defense after repeated Israeli provocations) and nonsensical kidnapping claims.
Sanders can’t get his facts straight, including false claims about Hamas “construct(ing) a network of tunnels for military purposes.”
They’re built as a vital lifeline, supplying goods essential to survive, restricted or prohibited by Israel’s suffocating blockade, one of many examples of its genocidal policy – what Sanders never explains.
His address featured numerous examples of misinformation and one-sided support for Israel. Rhetorically expressing concern for Palestinian rights rang hollow.
Throughout his political career, he never cared. Why should anyone believe he turned a new leaf.
Judge him and other politicians only by their voting record. Rhetoric is meaningless.
Stephen Lendman can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book as editor and contributor is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.
UN set to establish database of businesses involved in Israeli settlements
MEMO | March 23, 2016
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is set to vote on Thursday on whether to establish a database of businesses involved in Israeli settlements.
The UNHRC, meeting in its 31st session, will be considering four resolutions under Item 7, which focuses on the impact of the Israeli occupation on human rights in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories. Such resolutions are routinely adopted.
A resolution on Israel’s illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan, however, has reportedly upset European Union member states, in particular by calling for “a database of all business enterprises involved” in illegal settlement activities, which will be updated annually.
The database is presented as a follow up to an earlier fact-finding mission, which investigated “the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”
Middle East Monitor understands from sources familiar with the discussions taking place that European Union member states will either vote against, or abstain from, the resolution. The UK is reportedly expected to vote against, with significant pressure being applied on Palestinian officials to remove the paragraph establishing the database of businesses involved in settlement activities.
The resolution notes that “the settlement enterprise and the impunity associated with its persistence, expansion and related violence continue to be a root cause of many violations of the Palestinians’ human rights, and constitute the main factors perpetuating Israel’s belligerent occupation of the Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, since 1967.”
The resolution goes on to express concern that “some business enterprises have, directly and indirectly, enabled, facilitated and profited from the construction and growth of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
The UNHRC resolution also notes that “products wholly or partially produced in settlements have been labelled as originating from Israel”, and that “private individuals, associations and charities in third States” are “involved in providing funding to Israeli settlements and settlement-based entities, contributing to the maintenance and expansion of settlements.”
As well as the database, the draft text urges all states to “provide guidance to individuals and businesses on the financial, reputational and legal risks, including the possibility of liability for corporate involvement in gross human rights abuses as well as the abuses of the rights of individuals, of becoming involved in settlement-related activities.”
On Monday, the UNHRC head from outgoing Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Makarim Wibisono, who presented his final report to the Council.
Among other recommendations, “he urged Israeli authorities to…halt the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, to refrain from acts causing the forced displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and to urgently implement recommendations by the United Nations Children’s Fund with respect to the detention of children.”
Palestinians face severe restrictions during Jewish holiday
Ma’an – March 23, 2016
BETHLEHEM – Palestinians faced severe movement restrictions on Wednesday, as Israeli authorities shut down all movement through checkpoints in and out of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip ahead of the Jewish holiday of Purim.
An Israeli army spokesperson said that beginning at 1 a.m. on Wednesday and lasting until midnight Saturday, the checkpoints would be closed to all Palestinians with the exception of humanitarian cases.
Palestinian citizens of Israel, as well as holders of foreign passports, would still be allowed to pass through the checkpoints, she said, noting: “They’re only closed for Palestinians.”
She said Palestinians could seek to arrange “special circumstances” with Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
Sources inside the Palestinian liaison department confirmed the measures would be extended to the Kerem Shalom and Erez crossings into the Gaza Strip, with only humanitarian cases and a limited number of Palestinian Christians allowed to leave the blockaded coastal enclave.
Israeli police spokesperson Luba al-Samri said there would be heightened security measures, including a number of police patrols, across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank throughout the holiday.
Palestinian access has also been restricted to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, with all Palestinian men younger than 50 denied entry to the site, which is the third holiest in Islam.
Access restrictions to the mosque compound during a succession of Jewish holidays last September played a major role in triggering a wave of unrest that has since left more than 200 Palestinians and nearly 30 Israelis dead.
Tensions were running high in the West Bank on Wednesday morning after Israeli forces escorted hundreds of Israelis, including settlers, to holy sites there, with clashes breaking out nearby Joseph’s Tomb near Nablus.
The Jewish holiday of Purim, which commemorates the Biblical account of the saving of the Jewish people from Haman, an ancient Persian vizier, begins Wednesday evening and ends late Thursday this year.
Netanyahu equates intifada with terrorism
MEMO | March 23, 2016
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Palestinians of making their way to statehood through knives, Israeli newspaper Maariv reported.
During his speech at the AIPAC conference in Washington yesterday, Netanyahu branded all attacks as terrorist activity, including the Palestinian resistance attacks against the Israeli occupation carried out in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“What is happening is a continuous attack against all of us,” Netanyahu said. “What is enough for them is eradicating us and imposing their absolute domination over us. But, this will not happen my friends.”
“The only solution is cooperation and unity in the war against them… Political and moral unity.”
Israeli Minister Facebook Rant Blames Brussels Bombing on EU Labeling of Illegal Settlement Goods
21st Century Wire – March 23, 2016
Now here’s another interesting take on the Brussels Attacks.
There are three possible angles you could read this story from:
1. This Israeli minister is essentially saying that because the EU chose to worry about the Palestinian plight, it reaped the scourge of Islamist terror on its capital.
2. This Israeli minister is a few cards short of a full deck.
3. And finally there’s this option: by blaming the EU for accurately labeling its food products that come from from illegal settlements, is this Israeli minister somehow inferring that the Brussels bombing was a retaliation for that EU regulation?
It’s hard to know for sure, but at the very least, the Israeli minister’s off-hand comments are very revealing about the current schizophrenic political mindset in Tel Aviv…
Middle East Monitor – March 22, 2106
The EU’s labeling of goods from illegal Israeli settlements led to the bombing in Belgium, Brussels, today, The New Arab reported an Israeli minister saying.
Minister of Science, Technology and Space, Ofir Akunis, said Europeans lost sight of “terrorism of extremist Islam” by focusing on boycotting Israeli goods instead allowing the attacks to take place.
“Many in Europe have preferred to occupy themselves with the folly of condemning Israel, labeling products, and boycotts. In this time, underneath the nose of the continent’s citizens, thousands of extremist Islamic terror cells have grown,” Akunis wrote on Facebook.
“There were those who repressed and mocked whoever tried to give warning. There were those who underestimated. To our sorrow, the reality has struck the lives of dozens of innocent people.”
‘Non-negotiable’: Clinton attacks Trump at AIPAC for ‘neutrality’ remarks about Israel
RT | March 21, 2016
In a speech to the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton took Republican front-runner Donald Trump to task for voicing a “neutral” position on Israeli-Palestinian talks.
“We need steady hands,” Hillary Clinton, a former secretary of state, told thousands of attendees at the AIPAC conference in Washington, DC on Monday. “Not a president who says he’s neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday, and who-knows-what on Wednesday, because everything’s negotiable.
Israel’s security, she proclaimed to loud applause, “is non-negotiable.”
Clinton’s criticism of Trump, while not naming him directly, stemmed from remarks he made during a CNN-hosted Republican debate on February 26, when all of the candidates were asked about their stances on Israel and a peace agreement between the Jewish State and Palestine.
Trump said he supported Israel but added, “As president there is nothing I wouldn’t do to bring peace to Israel and its neighbors. It is probably the toughest negotiation in the world. I am pro-Israel. It doesn’t do any good to take sides against the neighbors,” said Trump. “If I could bring peace it would be one of my greatest achievements.”
Clinton told AIPAC about her long ties to Israel, having first visited the country 35 years ago. Then she moved on to highlight her work as a New York senator and as secretary of state, all of which led to a “deepening and strengthening the US ties to Israel” and supporting a “secure and democratic homeland for the Jewish people,” according to Clinton.
The Democratic presidential hopeful said the US couldn’t be neutral when “rockets rain down on residential neighborhoods, when civilians are stabbed in the street, when suicide bombers target the innocent. Some things aren’t negotiable, and anyone who doesn’t understand that has no business being our president.”
A new president from day one, Clinton told conference goers, will immediately face a world of “both perils and opportunities.”
“The next president… [will] start making decisions that will affect the lives and livelihoods of Americans and the security of our friends around the world, so we have to get this right,” Clinton said.
“Candidates for president who think the United States can outsource Middle East security to dictators, or that America no longer has vital, national interests at stake in this region are dangerously wrong,” said Clinton. “It would be a serious mistake for the United States to abandon our responsibilities or cede the mantel of leadership for global peace and security to anyone else.”
Clinton pointed to three evolving threats in the Middle East: “Iran’s continued aggression, a rising tide of extremism across a wide arc of instability, and the growing effort to de-legitimize Israel on the world stage,” which she noted make the “US-Israel alliance more indispensable than ever.”
“We have to combat these trends with even more security and diplomacy,” said Clinton.
While Trump was due to address AIPAC later on Monday, Clinton also referred to his proposal to temporarily ban all foreign Muslims from entering the US and “playing coy with white supremacists.”
“We’ve had dark chapters in our history before,” Clinton said, pointing to America’s refusal to allow a ship packed with Jewish refugees to dock in the US in 1939.
“But America should be better than this, and I believe it’s our responsibility as citizens to say so. If you see bigotry, oppose it. If you see violence, condemn it. If you see a bully, stand up to him,” Clinton said, receiving a standing ovation from the group.
AIPAC bills itself as nonpartisan and has never endorsed a candidate, but the organization does play a big role in partisan political debates over issues of interest to Israel.
A group of rabbis and other pro-Israel leaders were planning to protest Trump’s speech. Clinton’s comments were well-received, as the audience of Israel supporters loudly cheered throughout her address, not just when she was taking swipes at Trump.
‘Dismantle the disastrous deal’: Trump tells AIPAC Iran deal is ‘number one priority’
RT | March 22, 2016
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump told attendees at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference that he didn’t come to pander, saying “that’s what politicians do,” but he did make a promise related to the Iran nuclear deal.
“My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran,” Trump said, speaking before AIPAC in Washington, DC on Monday evening. “I have been in business a long time… this deal is catastrophic for Israel – for America, for the whole of the Middle East… We have rewarded the world’s leading state sponsor of terror with $ 150 billion and we received absolutely nothing in return.”
Trump criticized the deal for not requiring Iran to dismantle its military nuclear capability and only limiting its nuclear program for a certain number of years. He chastised Iran for contributing to problems in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia by providing weapons and money.
“Iran is financing military forces throughout the Middle East and it is absolutely indefensible that we handed them over $150 billion to facilitate even more acts of terror,” added Trump. “During the last five years, Iran has perpetrated terror attacks in 25 different countries on five continents. They’ve got terror cells everywhere, including in the western hemisphere very close to home. Iran is the biggest sponsor of terrorism around the world and we will work to dismantle that reach.”
He then slammed the United Nations, decrying it for its utter weakness and incompetence and arguing that it was “not a friend” of democracy, freedom, the United States, or Israel, while also vowing to veto any attempt by the UN to impose its will on the Jewish state.
“With President Obama in his final year, discussions have been swirling about an attempt to bring a Security Council resolution on the terms of an eventual agreement between Israel and Palestine,” Trump said. “Let me be clear: An agreement imposed by the UN would be a total and complete disaster. The United States must oppose this resolution and use the power of our veto. Why? Because that’s now how you make a deal. Deals are made when parties come to the table and negotiate.”
Other Republican presidential candidates spoke before and after Trump at AIPAC.
Ohio Governor John Kasich stressed his experience in foreign policy.
“I don’t need on the job training,” Kasich told the audience on Monday, explaining he already knows about the dangers facing the US and its allies. He stressed his “firm and unwavering” support for Israel and vowed to work to stamp out intolerance, racism, and anti-Semitism.
Kasich called for the suspension of the Iran nuclear deal in response to recent ballistic missile tests, which he said were a violation.
“We are Americans before we are Republicans and Democrats,” he said, adding, “I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz also spoke at AIPAC after Trump. He attacked the billionaire businessman for promising to be “neutral” in brokering a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
“As president, I will not be neutral,” said Cruz. He added, “America will stand unapologetically with the nation of Israel.”
Anti-Trump protesters gathered outside the venue to voice their anger over Trump’s brash political rhetoric and his attendance at the conference.
The leader of one of Washington’s most prominent synagogues said that he felt compelled to denounce Trump as he spoke at a conference of Israeli activists.
Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of the Ohev Sholom congregation wept as he described to reporters the importance of standing up to what he viewed as Trump’s hatred, describing him as “wicked.”
“This man is inspiring violence,” Herzfeld said, according to the Associated Press. “He is an existential threat to our country.”
“This man is wicked,” Herzfeld added, referring to Trump. “He inspires racists and bigots. He encourages violence. Do not listen to him.”
Trump Makes Same Promise on Jerusalem We’ve Been Hearing Since 1972
By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep In America | March 21, 2016
Breaking news!
The news media is abuzz today with reports that, speaking before the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, an annual gathering of rabid right-wing Israel supporters, a presidential candidate vowed to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
So who was it this time? Donald Trump.
So why is this news? It’s not.
Promising to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital and to move the American embassy there is part of Pandering 101 for Oval Office hopefuls. Every candidate in the past few decades knows this. It’s an easy vow to make, and no one ever pays any political price for inevitably breaking it (since half of Jerusalem remains occupied territory and actually moving the embassy there would be a clear violation of international law, which doesn’t recognize Israel’s claim over the historic city). Making such an absurd promise plays well to the writhing masses at AIPAC confabs, establishes one’s Zionist bona fides, and is a quick and easy way to offend indigenous Palestinians living under occupation, apartheid and blockade without actually flipping them the bird.
Nevertheless, the press continues to report on this blustery promise, no matter who utters it, as if it actually merits attention.
While he repeated the promise today for AIPAC, Trump had already said it back in January. And Ted Cruz has too:
And Jeb Bush before him:
So did Mitt Romney in 2012:
And Ron Paul and Rick Santorum the same year before they dropped out of the race:
And Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann (and Herman Cain) before them:
Both John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin made the promise back in 2008:
Four years earlier, John Kerry did the same, while also touting his record of making similar demands during his tenure in the Senate:
Before that was Al Gore and George W. Bush in 2000. As reported by The New York Times in May 2000:
(Supporters of moving the embassy were subsequently disappointed in Bush’s failure to act on his promise.)
The year before, while beginning her campaign for New York’s Senatorial seat, the then-First Lady Hillary Clinton weighed in on the matter herself:
In the mid-1990s, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich similarly pandered like pros:
Before that, in 1992, the Clinton/Gore campaign hit the incumbent Bush administration for balking at the official recognition of “Israel’s sovereignty over a united Jerusalem.” Their campaign promised voters that “Bill Clinton and Al Gore will… support Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel.”
Even Mike Dukakis tacked to the right of both the outgoing Reagan administration and George H.W. Bush campaign in 1988:
Al Gore, who tried to win the Democratic nomination for president that year, reportedly said in September 1987 that “he would consider moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”
In April 1984, during a heated Democratic primary season, Walter Mondale and Gary Hart bent over backwards to assure voters in New York City that they too supported moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The New York Times reported at the time:
Walter F. Mondale said he had supported such a move for 20 years, and he asserted that Senator Gary Hart had changed his position on the issue five days ago. In the past two weeks, Mr. Hart has denied that he suddenly changed his position, but has said his position has ”evolved.” He has said firmly that if he became President, he would move the embassy to Jerusalem.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson is the only one of the three candidates who opposes moving the embassy. The Reagan Administration also opposes such a move because the status of Jerusalem has long been disputed and the United States does not support Israeli sovereignty over the city.
Despite efforts by New York Senator Daniel Moynihan and California Congressman Tom Lantos to introduce a bill mandating the move, Reagan was adamant about not moving the embassy, as such a divisive policy would, according to his Secretary of State George P. Shultz, “be very bad for the United States” and “damage our ability to be effective in the peace process.”
The pandering was so thick, however, that a month later the Reagan administration had to pretend to consider supporting the move in order to stave off losing votes in the upcoming election.
Though the bill eventually stalled, Los Angeles Times syndicated columnist Nick Thimmesch, who called the proposal “one of the dumbest ideas to be advanced in Congress this session,” lamented that “some of the election-year pandering in the Republic verges on the obscene” and credited the ill-conceived gambit to the lawmakers’ “blind obedience to the Israel lobby (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee).” That was October 3, 1984.
By 1986, another bill was introduced to move the embassy, this time brought to the Senate floor by Republican Jesse Helms.
But even in the mid-1980s, though, this was an old political ploy. The New York Times pointed out that the 1976 Democratic Party platform – on which Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale ran for office – declared:
We recognize and support the established status of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, with free access to all its holy places provided to all faiths. As a symbol of this stand, the U.S. Embassy should be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Before that, on March 17, 1972, Michigan Congressman Gerald Ford, then the Republican Minority Leader, told a Zionist Organization of America regional meeting in Cleveland that the Nixon Administration should transfer the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
Two years later, after first replacing Spiro Agnew as Vice President and then becoming President himself following Nixon’s resignation, Ford backtracked on his previous position. “Under the current circumstances and the importance of getting a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, that particular proposal ought to stand aside,” Ford said at his very first presidential press conference on August 9, 1974.
It’s been nearly 42 years since then and, sadly, while Palestine remains under brutal occupation, Israeli colonies continue to expand with impunity, and Palestinians are subject to ongoing oppression and violence, election-year pandering in the United States has become more obscene than ever.
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From the Archive
Zionism’s Violent Legacy
By Donald Neff | Washington Report On Middle East Affairs | January 1996
On January 4, 1948, Jewish terrorists drove a truck loaded with explosives into the center of the all Arab city of Jaffa and detonated it, killing 26 and wounding around 100 Palestinian men, women and children.[1] The attack was the work of the Irgun Zvai Leumi – the “National Military Organization,” also known by the Hebrew letters Etzel – the largest Jewish terrorist group in Palestine. The Irgun was headed by Revisionist Zionist Menachem Begin and had been killing and maiming Arabs, Britons and even Jews for the previous ten years in its efforts to establish a Jewish state.
This terror campaign meant that at the core of Revisionist Zionism there existed a philosophical embrace of violence. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Trita Parsi: Israel Set a Trap for Total War in the Region
- Trump’s Iran war is on an Israeli leash
- Saudi oil boss issues global supply warning
- Riyadh Says Its Oil System Is Intact. The Numbers Say Otherwise.
- Trump and Netanyahu Want to “Finish the Job” on Iran
- US ‘one-sided dictation’ not Iran’s beliefs makes rational talks impossible: Baghaei
- Iran’s Next Strike May Not Explode. It Could Shut You Down /Col Doug Macgregor
- Iran: US political targets legitimate if assassinations return
- Iraq shuts key border crossing with Iran under US pressure: Report
- Undersea Internet cables could be targeted in retaliation for attacks on Iran: IRGC deputy chief
- If Americans Knew
- The Israel Lobby’s Changing Fortunes
- AIPAC has become such a political liability that it’s shifting to a more “nimble” approach to buying politicians
- At least 160 Israeli settler attacks in 2 weeks
- Will Gaza’s Ancient Christian Community Disappear Forever?
- Israel’s vision of regional security rests on keeping Arab states weak
- Heidi Levine recounts how Palestinian youths helped save her in settler attack
- DAILY UPDATE: Latest essential news on Palestine, Israel, & region
- Trump’s Intensifying Sabotage of the ICC, for Israel’s Sake
- Israeli military detain US and UK volunteers in West Bank including Democratic NY politician Brad Lander
- Americans at National Conservatism Conference held in Israel this year criticize Israel
- No Tricks Zone
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
