https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/04/zionist-lobby-group-aipac-puts-us-govt-in-chokehold-for-funding-genocide-in-gaza-ex-congressional-staffer-said/

https://israelpalestinenews.org/why-aipac-is-still-israels-foreign-agent/

Inside the anti-Syria lobby’s Capitol Hill push for more starvation sanctions Hekmat AboukhaterMarch 20, 2024 A week from the 13th anniversary of the US-backed Syrian dirty war, the American Coalition for Syria held its annual day of advocacy in Washington DC. I went undercover into meetings with Senate policy advisors and witnessed the lobby’s cynical campaign to starve Syria into submission. On the morning of March 7, as the US Capitol teemed with lobbyists securing earmarks ahead of appropriations week and activists decrying the Gaza genocide, one special interest group on the Hill stood out. In the corridors of the Rayburn building, a group of roughly 50 people prepared for a busy day of advocating for sanctions to be levied against their homeland. They were the Anti-Syria lobby — and had I infiltrated their influence campaign. Throughout the day, I watched as this group pushed US officials to accept their policy of starvation sanctions while cynically ignoring famished Palestinians in Gaza. Among the lobbyists was Raed Saleh, the head of the Syrian White Helmets, who were to propagandize for regime change from behind humanitarian cover. I attended a total of seven meetings with policy teams representing Senators Sherrod Brown, Maggie Hassan, Ben Cardin, Mark Kelly, Chris Van Hollen, John Fetterman, and Rick Scott. Throughout these sessions, I witnessed the anti-Syria Lobby attempt to bully and manipulate US officials into accepting their policy of starvation while cynically throwing starving Palestinians in Gaza under the bus. At one moment, Raed Saleh, head of the Syrian White Helmets, which was founded by British intelligence, and funded by NATO states, painted Israeli air strikes against Syria in a positive light. During a separate meeting, Wa’el Alzayat of the pro-Zionist Muslim outreach Emgage even demanded Senator Chris Van Hollen’s office support the approval of aid for Al Qaeda-linked militias in Syria. “Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he insisted, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, [and] the Qataris are doing it.” Purporting to be a voice for all Syrians, the anti-Syria lobby is spearheaded by the American Coalition for Syria (ACS), an umbrella organization representing opposition groups such as the Syrian American Council (SAC), the Syrian Forum, and a handful of others located in the US and Turkey. Emgage, meanwhile, has been credited with getting the diaspora vote out for then-candidate Joe Biden in November 2020. The group has since fallen under criticism for acting as a de facto extension of the Biden White House and Democratic Party within the Muslim community. Emgage board member Farooq Mitha formally went to work for the Biden Pentagon in March 2021. On March 7, Alzayat aimed to weaponize Emgage’s influence against Democratic Senators who seemed uncomfortable with an escalating sanctions policy. “I need a good story for my voters,” he explained to Senator Van Hollen’s team. Throughout their sanctions campaign on the Hill, Alzayat and his cohorts operated like a miniature version of their Israel lobby allies, supplying roughly 50 volunteers with folders outlining talking points and the biographies of congressional representatives. The bios included a comprehensive list of the Senator or Representative’s recorded stance on Syria, such as their votes on the extension of the AUMF, the US military withdrawal from Syria, and previous sanctions packages targeting the country. The handouts also laid out the lobby’s key legislative requests, which largely focused on securing development aid for militia-controlled territory in Syria — including that held by Al Qaeda’s local ally in the country — and ensuring passage of the ‘Assad Regime Anti Normalization Bill,’ which seeks to extend and expand sanctions targeting Damascus. The Anti-Syria Lobby’s resemblance to their Israeli counterparts was no mistake. As Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s chief of staff reassured us, “the Israelis want you guys in charge.” Syrian Civil War map|Syrian Civil War map (November 24, 2023) via Wikimedia Commons. Edited by author More Starvation Sanctions Ever since the US included Syria on its inaugural State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) list over Damascus’ support for the Palestinian resistance in 1979, Washington has gradually ratcheted up its financial war on the Syrian people. When decades of covert hybrid war erupted into an all-out proxy battle for the country’s territory—and survival—in 2011, the Anti-Syria Lobby officially began to take shape in Washington. Syria is the unrivaled champion of the SST having never been delisted since the list’s inception in 1979. In 2019, as Syria’s government emerged victorious from a multi-year battle with foreign-backed militias, Washington decided that while Damascus may have won the war, it would not win the peace. That January, New York Rep. Eliot Engel, a recipient of $1.8 million in AIPAC donations, introduced a sanctions package known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. Trump signed the bill as part of the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2020. The US has a 45-year long tradition of sanctioning and isolating Syria economically in response to the country’s support of Palestinian resistance The bill was unprecedented in both the way that it sanctioned broad sectors of the Syrian economy rather than only specific individuals, and in its deployment of so-called “secondary sanctions.” Secondary sanctions are imposed on parties that do business with a sanctioned entity even if those exchanges occur outside of the sanctioning entity’s jurisdiction. Syria’s economy has been in free fall ever since the Caesar sanctions came into effect. Today, over 12 million Syrians representing more than half of the total population face food insecurity — a 51% increase from 2019. Meanwhile, 90 percent of the population lives under the poverty line. In 2019, the US dollar exchanged for 500 Syrian Pounds. Today, that number is more like 14,100— figures that represent a 2,720 percent devaluation. The Syrian currency has devalued by 35,150% since the initial exchange rate of 40 SYP to 1 USD early 2011 Though H.R. 3202 appears to be focused on addressing UN aid divergence, and sanctioning previously unsanctioned entities like Asma Al Assad’s Syria Trust for Development and the Syrian Red Crescent, the real agenda of the bill is found deep within its 22-page text. With the Caesar Sanctions set to expire by the end of 2024, H.R. 3202 seeks to quietly extend the aggressive financial measures until 2032. The new bill’s main aim, which received very little attention, is the extension of the Caesar Act for 8 more years. Having passed the House with overwhelming enthusiasm, H.R. 3202’s sister bill in the Senate can only pass with Democratic support. It was introduced by Israeli lobby-funded Republican Idaho Sen. James Risch last September and has since been co-sponsored by arch-neoconservative Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Because S. 2935 can only pass with Democratic sponsorship, the Anti-Syria Lobby chose Sen. Ben Cardin, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and sponsor of the anti-Russia Magnitsky Act, as a crucial target for influence. After meeting with Sherrod Brown’s office, Cardin’s Research and Legislative Assistant, Christopher Barr, hosted us in the Senator’s office. There, Raed Saleh of the White Helmets complained to Barr that USAID had slashed funding for his organization from $12 million to $3 million in recent years. Next, it was time to discuss the true purpose of our visit: the passage of S. 2935. Barr appeared uneasy from the outset and even expressed displeasure about the bill, complaining, “What passed the House was kind of a lot… the list of targets is vast.” “Syria has already been so heavily sanctioned,” he added. In response, Ghanem revealed a critical piece of information about the forces driving the dirty war on Syria, explaining that the impetus to expand and extend Caesar did not come from the Anti-Syria Lobby itself, but someone on Capitol Hill. Ghanem explained that the Hill source actually contacted the American Coalition for Syria to alert them to the fact that Caesar was set to expire, lamenting the fact that its sunset would amount to a loss of “US leverage over the Syrian regime.” This line echoed the disturbing language of officials representing both the Biden and Trump administration alike. In 2019, neoconservative operative Dana Stroul declared that thanks to Caesar, Washington “holds a card on preventing reconstruction aid and technical expertise from going back,” to Syria. She lauded the fact that the U.S. could weaponize that “leverage” to keep Syria in “rubble.” Two years later, she would take up post as Deputy Secretary of Defense for the Middle East under Biden. Similarly, during an event at the neoconservative think tank, WINEP, the following year, the Special Envoy for Syria under Trump, Joel Rayburn, boasted that Caesar “lowers the bar” for evidence-based sanctions and allows for the broad targeting of any and all reconstruction projects in Syria. “We don’t have to prove, for example, that a company that’s going in to do a reconstruction project in the Damascus region is dealing directly with the Assad regime,” Rayburn explained. “We don’t have to have the evidence to prove that link,” he continued. “We just have to have the evidence that proves that a company or an individual is investing in […] the construction sector, the engineering sector, most of the aviation sector, the finance sector, energy sector, and so on.” These public confessions did not stop the Anti-Syria Lobby from lying to the faces of congressional staffers throughout their March 7 campaign. During a meeting with Sen. Mark Kelly’s office, Ghanem falsely stated that the Caesar Sanctions were “targeted,” “not sectoral,” and “not [an] embargo, nothing punishing to civilians.” Yet Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on Sanctions who visited Syria to document the effects of Washington’s unilateral sanctions regime on Syria, disagrees. In her 19-page report she clearly states that the sanctions are both illegal and inhumane in the way they affect the average Syrian. Stabilization for me but not for thee The second legislative ask came in the form of a well rehearsed speech by Ghanem, Zayat, and others, outlining what US tax dollars do and don’t fund in Syria. US aid packages are typically divided into two categories: “humanitarian funding” earmarked for goods such as food, water, and basic medical supplies or “stabilization” funding designed to secure a country as it transitions out of a period of turmoil. Unlike humanitarian assistance, stabilization funding may be used to support major investment and infrastructure projects such as roads, schools, healthcare facilities, and government services. The US is the primary funder of humanitarian aid in both North East (NE) and NW Syria. However, while the US spends abundantly on stabilization needs in NE Syria, it spends $0 on the NW. That is because while Washington has long dreamed of establishing a secessionist Kurdish state in Syria’s Northeast, it neglected to send stabilization funds to the Northwest in order to avoid providing direct support to HTS, the Al Qaeda offshoot that governs the territory. The Anti-Syria Lobby was in Washington to change that. Leading the push for US funds to Al Qaeda-affiliated elements in Northwest Syria was Wa’el Alzayat, a Syrian expat who proudly served in Iraq’s Green Zone under George Bush’s State Department and more recently published a shocking Washington Post oped begging US officials not to “lift sanctions to help Syria earthquake victims.” In the office of Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Alzayat voiced his frustration with US hesitation in the Northwest. “Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he demanded, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, the Qataris are doing it.” We’re missing out on a golden opportunity here to stabilize the region and leverage it for a political settlement,” he pleaded. In other words, Alzayat was openly lobbying US officials to strengthen Al Qaeda’s position in Syria in order to leverage the terrorist group against the country’s government. Alzayat then weaponized his six-figure salary as head of Emgage to bully Van Hollen’s office into bowing before the anti-Syria Lobby, falsely claiming that his AIPAC-linked organization was “behind” the “Uncommitted” vote campaigns that damaged Biden’s primary performance in Michigan and Minnesota. Towards the end of the meeting, the regime change lobbyist cynically invoked Israel’s slaughter of 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza to make the case for Al Qaeda in Syria one last time. He argued that although “his community” is up in arms about the Biden administration’s funding and arming of the Gaza genocide, they would gladly flock back to the Democratic Party if the US funded roads and schools in Al Qaeda-controlled Idlib. “I need a good story for my voters,” Alzayat explained, noting the Muslim community’s disapproval of the Biden Administration’s policy in Gaza and Yemen. “You’re upset about all these disappointments,” he continued, play-acting a scenario in which he convinced a Muslim constituent to vote for Biden, again. “Guess what? They’re pumping 50 million into the school sector in the North [of Syria]!” Overtures Towards Israel The Israel-Palestine crisis loomed large throughout the ACS lobbying trip. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s secretary happened to be a hijabi Muslim woman sporting a pendant outlining the map of Palestine around her neck. As she greeted us, Farouk Belal, the head of the Syrian American Council, grumbled to Ghanem and me: “I hope she’s not with the resistance.” When I asked him to clarify what he meant as we exited the office, he explained that people aligned with the Palestinian cause in Washington “don’t like us.” Meanwhile, in Sen. Cardin’s office, Raed Salah of the White Helmets painted Israeli strikes on Syria which have crippled Syrian infrastructure, regularly damaged the country’s International civilian airports, and killed hundreds of Syrian Soldiers and civilians alike in a positive light: “The situation in Syria is very complicated. Every day we hear of Israeli strikes on the dens, or the bases of the IRGC and its militias. Even we as Syrians did not know the extent to which the Iranians were entrenched in the country…” For Saleh, the Israeli strikes do nothing but highlight the presence of the Syrian government-invited Iranian military presence in Syria. Later that day, Ghanem attempted to capitalize on Sen. Fetterman’s fanatical pro-Israel antics by describing recent developments in Syria to a 20-something staffer. Referring to the Syrian government’s successful campaign to retake southern territory, he explained that the South is “where they lob missiles on Israel, by the way.” The aide dutifully transcribed this seemingly random piece of information in her notepad. Towards the end of the meeting, Fetterman was discussed as a potential Democratic sponsor of S. 2935 in the Senate. In Senator Rick Scott’s office, a Cuban American Government Relations Associate for ACS, Alberto Hernandez, accidentally said the quiet part out loud. When Senator Scott’s ultra-Zionist National Security Advisor, Paul Bonicelli, asked if our group had connected with our “counterparts” in the Israeli lobby so that they could “vet” our proposals — revealing that Scott has apparently outsourced his brain to Zionists — Hernandez remarked: “Formally? No. Informally.” He then turned to the rest of the ACS team in the meeting room and said: “You didn’t hear me say that.” That admission prompted Bonicelli to suggest that ACS directly coordinate with groups such as the Aramaic Church in Israel, which has supported regime change efforts in Damascus despite overwhelming Christian support of the government within Syria itself. As the meeting wound to a close, Bonicelli informed us that he agreed with ACS on the necessity to oppose Iran and Russia. “If Obama had done the right thing in 2012, we wouldn’t be here,” he lamented, adding: “the Israelis want you guys in charge.” At one point during the meeting in Rick Scott’s Office, Alberto Hernandez, and Sarah Salas, a Cuban American legislative aide, expressed full agreement with US use of unilateral sanctions as means to “push” governments that “we don’t like.” Starving Syrians Without A Mandate Though several ACS volunteers shared painful personal encounters with the Syrian government throughout the day, many were simply too far removed from Syria to truly represent the voice of Syrian people, especially the 12 million plus civilians currently living in Syrian government-controlled territory. One 24-year-old woman who did not speak Arabic and has not been to Syria since 2003 described the Syrian Army’s 2016 liberation of Aleppo from Al Qaeda-linked militants as “the fall of Aleppo.” Other Syrians like myself experienced the terror of the West’s proxy war in Syria firsthand. In 2012, my aunt and cousins watched in horror as the Turkish-backed Liwa’ Al Tawhid, an umbrella group of takfiri jihadist militias, arrived on their street in the Seryan El Jdideh neighborhood of Aleppo. The militants proceeded to execute a local pick-up truck driver and steal his vehicle, leaving his bleeding corpse on the street. Shahba, where my family lived up until 2015, was located just a stone’s throw away from these sectarian death squads during our final months there. The Syrian dirty war was bloody and gruesome, yet the picture that ACS paints is entirely one-sided. Unfortunately, while organizations like ACS have flocked to the Beltway swamp throughout the last 13 years, there are no Syrians present in Washington DC to counter them. While these groups claim to speak on behalf of the Syrian people, those of us who have lived and still live in areas controlled by Syrian government — regardless of our political affiliations—are rendered voiceless in the very center of power where our perspective should matter most. Even Syria’s embassy has been shuttered since 2014, while Syrian diplomats at the UN in New York are heavily monitored and restricted from traveling beyond the NYC metro area. As I witnessed on Capitol Hill, there are few obstacles to the anti-Syria lobby’s ruthless push to prevent the majority of Syrians from emerging from the ruins of war. https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/20/anti-syria-lobbys-capitol-hill-sanctions/

https://theintercept.com/2024/02/23/biden-uncommitted-israel-gaza-aipac-michigan-primary/

America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review UPDATE: On the morning of September 21st Phil Giraldi was fired over the phone by The American Conservative, where he had been a regular contributor for fourteen years. He was told that “America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars” was unacceptable. The TAC management and board appear to have forgotten that the magazine was launched with an article by founder Pat Buchanan entitled “Whose War?” which largely made the same claims that Giraldi made about the Jewish push for another war, in that case with Iraq. Buchanan was vilified and denounced as an anti-Semite by many of the same people who are now similarly attacking Giraldi. I spoke recently at a conference on America’s war party where afterwards an elderly gentleman came up to me and asked, “Why doesn’t anyone ever speak honestly about the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the room? Nobody has mentioned Israel in this conference and we all know it’s American Jews with all their money and power who are supporting every war in the Middle East for Netanyahu? Shouldn’t we start calling them out and not letting them get away with it?” It was a question combined with a comment that I have heard many times before and my answer is always the same: any organization that aspires to be heard on foreign policy knows that to touch the live wire of Israel and American Jews guarantees a quick trip to obscurity. Jewish groups and deep pocket individual donors not only control the politicians, they own and run the media and entertainment industries, meaning that no one will hear about or from the offending party ever again. They are particularly sensitive on the issue of so-called “dual loyalty,” particularly as the expression itself is a bit of a sham since it is pretty clear that some of them only have real loyalty to Israel. Most recently, some pundits, including myself, have been warning of an impending war with Iran. 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. And while they are doing it, the issue that nearly all the Iran haters are Jewish has somehow fallen out of sight, as if it does not matter. But it should matter. A recent article in the New Yorker on stopping the impending war with Iran strangely suggests that the current generation “Iran hawks” might be a force of moderation regarding policy options given the lessons learned from Iraq. The article cites as hardliners on Iran David Frum, Max Boot, Bill Kristol and Bret Stephens. Daniel Larison over at The American Conservative has a good review of the New Yorker piece entitled “Yes, Iran Hawks Want Conflict with Iran,” which identifies the four above cited hawks by name before describing them as “…a Who’s Who of consistently lousy foreign policy thinking. If they have been right about any major foreign policy issue in the last twenty years, it would be news to the entire world. Every single one of them hates the nuclear deal with Iran with a passion, and they have argued in favor of military action against Iran at one point or another. There is zero evidence that any of them would oppose attacking Iran.” And I would add a few more names, Mark Dubowitz, Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum; John Podhoretz of Commentary magazine; Elliot Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations; Meyrav Wurmser of the Middle East Media Research Institute; Kimberly Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War; and Frederick Kagan, Danielle Pletka and David Wurmser of the American Enterprise Institute. And you can also throw into the hopper entire organizations like The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the Hudson Institute. And yep, they’re all Jewish, plus most of them would self-describe as neo-conservatives. And I might add that only one of the named individuals has ever served in any branch of the American military – David Wurmser was once in the Navy reserve. These individuals largely constitute a cabal of sanctimonious chairborne warriors who prefer to do the heavy thinking while they let others do the fighting and dying. So it is safe to say that much of the agitation to do something about Iran comes from Israel and from American Jews. Indeed, I would opine that most of the fury from Congress re Iran comes from the same source, with AIPAC showering our Solons on the Potomac with “fact sheets” explaining how Iran is worthy of annihilation because it has pledged to “destroy Israel,” which is both a lie and an impossibility as Tehran does not have the resources to carry out such a task. The AIPAC lies are then picked up and replayed by an obliging media, where nearly every “expert” who speaks about the Middle East on television and radio or who is interviewed for newspaper stories is Jewish. One might also add that neocons as a group were founded by Jews and are largely Jewish, hence their universal attachment to the state of Israel. They first 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. Recall for a moment Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Scooter Libby. Yes, 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. Philip Zelikow, also Jewish, in a moment of candor, admitted that the Iraq War, in his opinion, was fought for Israel. Add to the folly a Jewish U.S. Ambassador to Israel who identifies with the most right-wing Israeli settler elements, a White House appointed chief negotiator who is Jewish and a Jewish son-in-law who is also involved in formulating Middle East policy. Is anyone providing an alternative viewpoint to eternal and uncritical support for Benjamin Netanyahu and his kleptocratic regime of racist thugs? I think not. There are a couple of simple fixes for the dominant involvement of American Jews in foreign policy issues where they have a personal interest due to their ethnicity or family ties. First of all, don’t put them into national security positions involving the Middle East, where they will potentially be conflicted. Let them worry instead about North Korea, which does not have a Jewish minority and which was not involved in the holocaust. This type of solution was, in fact, somewhat of a policy regarding the U.S. Ambassador position in Israel. No Jew was appointed to avoid any conflict of interest prior to 1995, an understanding that was violated by Bill Clinton (wouldn’t you know it!) who named Martin Indyk to the post. Indyk was not even an American citizen at the time and had to be naturalized quickly prior to being approved by congress. Those American Jews who are strongly attached to Israel and somehow find themselves in senior policy making positions involving the Middle East and who actually possess any integrity on the issue should recuse themselves, just as any judge would do if he were presiding over a case in which he had a personal interest. Any American should be free to exercise first amendment rights to debate possible options regarding policy, up to and including embracing positions that damage the United States and benefit a foreign nation. But if he or she is in a position to actually create those policies, he or she should butt out and leave the policy generation to those who have no personal baggage. For those American Jews who lack any shred of integrity, the media should be required to label them at the bottom of the television screen whenever they pop up, e.g. Bill Kristol is “Jewish and an outspoken supporter of the state of Israel.” That would be kind-of-like a warning label on a bottle of rat poison – translating roughly as “ingest even the tiniest little dosage of the nonsense spewed by Bill Kristol at your own peril.” As none of the above is likely to happen, the only alternative is for American citizens who are tired of having their country’s national security interests hijacked by a group that is in thrall to a foreign government to become more assertive about what is happening. Shine a little light into the darkness and recognize who is being diddled and by whom. Call it like it is. And if someone’s feelings are hurt, too bad. We don’t need a war with Iran because Israel wants one and some rich and powerful American Jews are happy to deliver. Seriously, we don’t need it. https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/americas-jews-are-driving-americas-wars/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/americas-jews-are-driving-americas-wars.html

Jewish Pornographer Donates To AIPAC: Only Fans Owners Funds American Israel Lobby. Keith Woods is here to talk about pornography and the disastrous effects it has had on the American family. https://rumble.com/v4b0are-jewish-pornographer-donates-to-aipac-only-fans-owners-funds-american-israel.html

The Four Horsemen of Gaza’s Apocalypse. Chris Hedges Joe Biden relies on advisors who view the world through the prism of the West’s civilizing mission to the “lesser breeds” of the earth to formulate his policies towards Israel and the Middle East. All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth” *** Joe Biden’s inner circle of strategists for the Middle East — Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk — have little understanding of the Muslim world and a deep animus towards Islamic resistance movements. They see Europe, the United States and Israel as involved in a clash of civilizations between the enlightened West and a barbaric Middle East. They believe that violence can bend Palestinians and other Arabs to their will. They champion the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. and Israeli military as the key to regional stability — an illusion that fuels the flames of regional war and perpetuates the genocide in Gaza. In short, these four men are grossly incompetent. They join the club of other clueless leaders, such as those who waltzed into the suicidal slaughter of World War One, waded into the quagmire of Vietnam or who orchestrated the series of recent military debacles in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine. They are endowed with the presumptive power vested in the Executive Branch to bypass Congress, to provide weapons to Israel and carry out military strikes in Yemen and Iraq. This inner circle of true believers dismiss the more nuanced and informed counsels in the State Department and the intelligence communities, who view the refusal of the Biden administration to pressure Israel to halt the ongoing genocide as ill-advised and dangerous. Biden has always been an ardent militarist — he was calling for war with Iraq five years before the U.S. invaded. He built his political career by catering to the distaste of the white middle class for the popular movements, including the anti-war and civil rights movements, that convulsed the country in the 1960s and 1970s. He is a Republican masquerading as a Democrat. He joined Southern segregationists to oppose bringing Black students into Whites-only schools. He opposed federal funding for abortions and supported a constitutional amendment allowing states to restrict abortions. He attacked President George H. W. Bush in 1989 for being too soft in the “war on drugs.” He was one of the architects of the 1994 crime bill and a raft of other draconian laws that more than doubled the U.S. prison population, militarized the police and pushed through drug laws that saw people incarcerated for life without parole. He supported the North American Free Trade Agreement, the greatest betrayal of the working class since the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. He has always been a strident defender of Israel, bragging that he did more fundraisers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) than any other Senator. “As many of you heard me say before, were there no Israel, America would have to invent one. We’d have to invent one because… you protect our interests like we protect yours,” Biden said in 2015, to an audience that included the Israeli ambassador, at the 67th Annual Israeli Independence Day Celebration in Washington D.C. During the same speech he said, “The truth of the matter is we need you. The world needs you. Imagine what it would say about humanity and the future of the 21st century if Israel were not sustained, vibrant and free.” The year before Biden gave a gushing eulogy for Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister and general who was implicated in massacres of Palestinians, Lebanese and others in Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon — as well as Egyptian prisoners of war — going back to the 1950s. He described Sharon as “part of one of the most remarkable founding generations in the history not of this nation, but of any nation.” While repudiating Donald Trump and his administration, Biden has not reversed Trump’s abrogation of the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by Barack Obama, or Trump’s sanctions against Iran. He has embraced Trump’s close ties with Saudi Arabia, including the rehabilitation of Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, following the assassination of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2017 in the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul. He has not intervened to curb Israeli attacks on Palestinians and settlement expansion in the West Bank. He did not reverse Trump’s moving of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, although the embassy includes land Israel illegally colonized after invading the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. As a seven-term senator of Delaware, Biden received more financial support from pro-Israel donors than any other senator, since 1990. Biden retains this record despite the fact that his senatorial career ended in 2009, when he became Obama’s vice president. Biden explains his commitment to Israel as “personal” and “political.” He has parroted back Israeli propaganda — including fabrications about beheaded babies and widespread rape of Israeli women by Hamas fighters — and asked Congress to provide $14 billion in additional aid to Israel since the Oct. 7 attack. He has twice bypassed Congress to supply Israel with thousands of bombs and munitions, including at least 100 2,000-pound bombs, used in the scorched earth campaign in Gaza. Israel has killed or seriously wounded close to 90,000 Palestinians in Gaza, almost one in every 20 inhabitants. It has destroyed or damaged over 60 percent of the housing. The “safe areas,” to which some 2 million Gazans were instructed to flee in southern Gaza, have been bombed, with thousands of casualties. Palestinians in Gaza now make up 80 percent of all the people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, according to the U.N. Every person in Gaza is hungry. A quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water. Famine is imminent. The 335,000 children under the age of five are at high risk of malnutrition. Some 50,000 pregnant women lack healthcare and adequate nutrition. And it could all end if the U.S. chose to intervene. “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S.,” retired Israeli Major General Yitzhak Brick told the Jewish News Syndicate. “The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability… Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.” Blinken was Biden’s principal foreign policy adviser when Biden was the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. He, along with Biden, lobbied for the invasion of Iraq. When he was Obama’s deputy national security advisor, he advocated the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. He opposed withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria. He worked on the disastrous Biden Plan to partition Iraq along ethnic lines. “Within the Obama White House, Blinken played an influential role in the imposition of sanctions against Russia over the 2014 invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and subsequently led ultimately unsuccessful calls for the U.S. to arm Ukraine,” according to the Atlantic Council, NATO’s unofficial think tank. Image: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Oct. 12, 2023. – Secretary Antony Blinken on X When Blinken landed in Israel following the attacks by Hamas and other resistance groups on Oct. 7, he announced at a press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “I come before you not only as the United States Secretary of State, but also as a Jew.” He attempted, on Israel’s behalf, to lobby Arab leaders to accept the 2.3 million Palestinian refugees Israel intends to ethnically cleanse from Gaza, a request that evoked outrage among Arab leaders. Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, and McGurk, are consummate opportunists, Machiavellian bureaucrats who cater to the reigning centers of power, including the Israel lobby. Sullivan was the chief architect of Hillary Clinton’s Asia pivot. He backed the corporate and investor rights Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which was sold as helping the U.S. contain China. Trump ultimately killed the trade agreement in the face of mass opposition from the U.S. public. His focus is thwarting a rising China, including through the expansion of the U.S. military. While not focused on the Middle East, Sullivan is a foreign policy hawk who has a knee jerk embrace of force to shape the world to U.S. demands. He embraces military Keynesianism, arguing that massive government spending on the weapons industry benefits the domestic economy. In a 7,000-word essay for Foreign Affairs magazine published five days before the Oct. 7 attacks, which left some 1,200 Israelis dead, Sullivan exposed his lack of understanding of the dynamics of the Middle East. Screenshot from The New York Times “Although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges,” he writes in the original version of the essay, “the region is quieter than it has been for decades,” adding that in the face of “serious” frictions, “we have de-escalated crises in Gaza.” Sullivan ignores Palestinian aspirations and Washington’s rhetorical backing for a two-state solution in the article, hastily rewritten in the online version after the Oct. 7 attacks. He writes in his original piece: At a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last year, the president set forth his policy for the Middle East in an address to the leaders of members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan. His approach returns discipline to US policy. It emphasizes deterring aggression, de-escalating conflicts, and integrating the region through joint infrastructure projects and new partnerships, including between Israel and its Arab neighbors. McGurk, the deputy assistant to President Biden and the coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa at the White House National Security Council, was a chief architect of Bush’s “surge” in Iraq, which accelerated the bloodletting. He worked as a legal advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority and the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad. He then became Trump’s anti-ISIS czar. He does not speak Arabic — none of the four men does — and came to Iraq with no knowledge of its history, peoples or culture. Nevertheless, he helped draft Iraq’s interim constitution and oversaw the legal transition from the Coalition Provisional Authority to an Interim Iraqi Government led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. McGurk was an early backer of Nouri al-Maliki, who was Iraq’s prime minister between 2006 and 2014. Al-Maliki built a Shi’ite-controlled sectarian state that deeply alienated Sunni Arabs and Kurds. In 2005, McGurk transferred to the National Security Council (NSC), where he served as director for Iraq, and later as special assistant to the president and senior director for Iraq and Afghanistan. He served on the NSC staff from 2005 to 2009. In 2015, he was appointed as Obama’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL. He was retained by Trump until his resignation in Dec. 2018. An article in April 2021 titled “Brett McGurk: A Hero of Our Times,” in New Lines Magazine by former BBC foreign correspondent Paul Wood, paints a scathing portrait of McGurk. Wood writes: A senior Western diplomat who served in Baghdad told me that McGurk had been an absolute disaster for Iraq. “He is a consummate operator in Washington, but I saw no sign that he was interested in Iraqis or Iraq as a place full of real people. It was simply a bureaucratic and political challenge for him.” One critic who was in Baghdad with McGurk called him Machiavelli reincarnated. “It’s intellect plus ambition plus the utter ruthlessness to rise no matter the cost.” [….] A U.S. diplomat who was in the embassy when McGurk arrived found his steady advance astonishing. “Brett only meets people who speak English. … There are like four people in the government who speak English. And somehow he’s now the person who should decide the fate of Iraq? How did this happen?” Even those who didn’t like McGurk had to admit that he had a formidable intellect — and was a hard worker. He was also a gifted writer, no surprise as he had clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. His rise mirrored that of an Iraqi politician named Nouri al-Maliki, one careerist helping the other. That is McGurk’s tragedy — and Iraq’s. [….] McGurk’s critics say his lack of Arabic meant he missed the vicious, sectarian undertones of what al-Maliki was saying in meetings right from the start. Translators censored or failed to keep up. Like many Americans in Iraq, McGurk was deaf to what was happening around him. Al-Maliki was the consequence of two mistakes by the U.S. How much McGurk had to do with them remains in dispute. The first mistake was the “80 Percent Solution” for ruling Iraq. The Sunni Arabs were mounting a bloody insurgency, but they were just 20% of the population. The theory was that you could run Iraq with the Kurds and the Shiites. The second error was to identify the Shiites with hardline, religious parties backed by Iran. Al-Maliki, a member of the religious Da’wa Party, was the beneficiary of this. In a piece in HuffPost in May 2022 by Akbar Shahid Ahmed, titled “Biden’s Top Middle East Advisor ‘Torched the House and Showed Up With a Firehose,’” McGurk is described by a colleague, who asked not to be named, as “the most talented bureaucrat they’ve ever seen, with the worst foreign policy judgment they’ve ever seen.” McGurk, like others in the Biden administration, is bizarrely focused on what comes after Israel’s genocidal campaign, rather than trying to halt it. McGurk proposed denying humanitarian aid and refusing to implement a pause in the fighting in Gaza until all the Israeli hostages were freed. Biden and his three closest policy advisors have called for the Palestinian Authority — an Israeli puppet regime that is reviled by most Palestinians — to take control of Gaza once Israel finishes leveling it. They have called on Israel — since Oct. 7 — to take steps towards a two-state solution, a plan rejected in an humiliating public rebuke to the the Biden White House by Netanyahu. The Biden White House spends more time talking to the Israelis and Saudis, who are being lobbied to normalize relations with Israel and help rebuild Gaza, than the Palestinians, who are at best, an afterthought. It believes the key to ending Palestinian resistance is found in Riyadh, summed up in a top-secret document peddled by McGurk called the “Jerusalem-Jeddah Pact,” the HuffPost reported. It is unable or unwilling to curb Israel’s bloodlust, which included missile strikes in a residential neighborhood in Damascus, Syria, on Saturday that killed five military advisors from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and a drone attack in South Lebanon on Sunday, which killed two senior members of Hezbollah. These Israeli provocations will not go unanswered, evidenced by the ballistic missiles and rockets launched on Sunday by militants in western Iraq that targeted U.S. personnel stationed at the al-Assad Airbase. The Alice-in-Wonderland idea that once the slaughter in Gaza ends a diplomatic pact between Israel and Saudi Arabia will be the key to regional stability is stupefying. Israel’s genocide, and Washington’s complicity, is shredding U.S. credibility and influence, especially in the Global South and the Muslim world. It ensures another generation of enraged Palestinians — whose families have been obliterated and whose homes have been destroyed — seeking vengeance. The policies embraced by the Biden administration not only blithely ignore the realities in the Arab world, but the realities of an extremist Israeli state that, with Congress bought and paid for by the Israel lobby, couldn’t care less what the Biden White House dreams up. Israel has no intention of creating a viable Palestinian state. Its goal is the ethnic cleansing of the 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza and the annexation of Gaza by Israel. And when Israel is done with Gaza, it will turn on the West Bank, where Israeli raids now occur on an almost nightly basis and where thousands have been arrested and detained without charge since Oct. 7. Those running the show in the Biden White House are chasing after rainbows. The march of folly led by these four blind mice perpetuates the cataclysmic suffering of the Palestinians, stokes a regional war and presages another tragic and self-defeating chapter in the two decades of U.S. military fiascos in the Middle East. * Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. Featured image: Blood Brothers – by Mr. Fish via Chris Hedges https://www.globalresearch.ca/four-horsemen-gaza-apocalypse/5847199

Mark Dankof to Kevin McCarthy and the Republican Jewish Coalition: Jesus is Coming Soon, and Boy, is He Pissed Mark DankofDecember 24, 2023 VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State. I received confirmation today that the Republican Jewish Coalition and Kevin McCarthy received my cordial response to their email solicitation to join up with them and donate some Benjamins. (🇮🇱🚽🤬🖕🤠) The laughs begin below. 😎😎😎🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺 Mark — Thank you for your message. Republican Jewish Coalition https://www.rjchq.org/ My message: November 29, 2023 To: Republican Jewish Coalition 50 F St NW Suite 100 Washington, DC 20001 United States of America Dear “Friends”: I received Kevin McCarthy’s email solicitation to join the Republican Jewish Coalition and to get the terrific bumper sticker for a minimum donation of only $15. As for “America’s Greatest Ally,” I’m personally not a fan of the Lavon Affair, the David Ben Gurion-Meyer Lansky link to the Kennedy Assassination, Israel’s deliberate attack on the USS Liberty on June 8th, 1967 in Operation Cyanide, the NUMEC nuclear materials thefts in Apollo, Pennsylvania, the Pollard-Ben Ami-NSC/AIPAC spy cases among many others, the PROMIS Affair, Israel’s real role in 9-11, the Zionist/Neo-Conservative warmongering foreign policy of the United States, the Mossad’s Epstein-Maxwell Sex Trafficking and Blackmail ring, or wholesale Palestinian genocide. On the domestic side, I have no use for the wholesale assault on the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights being conducted by the Israeli Lobby and its assets in both of the major political parties, the mainstream news media, Zionist-dominated American social media, and the American National Security apparatus. As for me, as one who supports nation-state sovereignty for the United States, the European countries, Palestine, Iran, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, China, and everyone else, “My Greatest Ally” is Vladimir Putin. Nuland’s Zio-Coup in Kiev in February of 2014 is about to completely backfire. It is terrific to watch Zelensky, and the entire Zionist quest for GloboHomo go down the proverbial tube, along with everyone who has been bought off by it. And in conclusion, I have no use for the Republican Jewish Coalition, Kevin McCarthy, Mitt Romney, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, or a cast of thousands supporting wars for Israel and wars for World Government and GloboHomo that would have been unequivocally condemned by the Founding Fathers of this country. Photo Credit: Michael Patrick Walsh on Vkontakte and the Fan Page The latter would have described this lamentable state of affairs in two words: The first is Treason with a Capital T. The second is Disaster with a Capital D. Putin is mopping up the floor with Zelensky, and the Russian-Chinese-Iranian alliance will put GloboHomo out of business both militarily and through De-Dollarization of the global economy. The Zio-American Empire will be finished. What remains to be seen in the midst of the rubble is whether or not the Old American Republic can ever be recovered. The Counterfeit Cabal’s Flip Side of the Coin to Kevin McCarthy and the Republican Jewish Coalition. And the American public may finally figure out who the real culprits are in the subsequent destruction of their lives, their families, and their communities. And when Jesus returns, both He and they will really be Pissed. Mark Dankof San Antonio, Texas P.S. My copy of the New York Times today says Mr. McCarthy has until December 8th to decide if he will run for re-election. (Maybe Lindsey Graham can drum up some poll numbers for him.) Was the former 36th District Chairman of the Republican Party in King County/Seattle. He was an elected delegate to Texas State Republican Conventions in 1994 and 1996 and entered the United States Senate race in Delaware in 2000 as the nominated candidate of the Constitution Party against Democratic candidate Thomas Carper and Republican incumbent William Roth. Mark is the host of The Dankof Report for the Republic Broadcasting Network and the London version of The Dankof Report heard on the first Tuesday of each month for ACH and broadcast by RBN, Rense Radio, Free Speech Radio, and EuroFolkRadio. ATTENTION READERS We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully Informed In fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion. About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy Due to the nature of uncensored content posted by VT's fully independent international writers, VT cannot guarantee absolute validity. All content is owned by the author exclusively. Expressed opinions are NOT necessarily the views of VT, other authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, or technicians. Some content may be satirical in nature. All images are the full responsibility of the article author and NOT VT. https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2023/12/mark-dankof-to-kevin-mccarthy-and-the-republican-jewish-coalition-jesus-is-coming-soon-and-boy-is-he-pissed/

Biden became ‘Genocide Joe’ thanks to the Israel lobby Philip WeissNovember 29, 2023 Netanyahu and Biden meet, July 14, 2022. Photo by Israeli government press office. Netanyahu and Biden meet, July 14, 2022. Photo by Israeli government press office. At Thanksgiving, a friend took me aside and said, “How does Israel get away with this? They are wiping these people out, you can see it before your eyes. But people here are losing their jobs if they say anything against it on social media. Health care workers have lost their jobs at hospitals.” My friend is not alone. The upside of our government’s greenlight to Israel’s unending massacre and destruction in Gaza, with disease and famine looming, is that many are asking the same questions. Why is Joe Biden incapable of doing what any decent person would do, and any leader—of saying, Stop this madness now! An overwhelming majority of countries in the region and world have condemned the brutal military offensive– what BBC describes as “apocalyptic,” and one high UN official says is “the worst” destruction he’s ever seen. (“They stopped counting the number of women and children killed.. . It’s complete and utter carnage.”) And the progressive Democratic base is appalled. And there have been resignations at the State Department and at mainstream media. Even as Israelis regularly appear on our broadcasts, thanking Biden for his unwavering support. The answer to this puzzle is that Biden fears the domestic political cost: the loss of the Israel lobby inside the Democratic Party. Biden fears the disaffection of the Jewish establishment that has for over 50 years dedicated itself to the principle that there must be no daylight between the U.S. and Israeli governments, even as war crimes are blasted over the airwaves. This dynamic is rarely discussed in our media because it is thought to foster antisemitic theories of Jewish control. Even addressing the Israel lobby is labeled a conspiracy theory with lawless consequences — such as the reported vandalism of the Los Angeles home of the head of the Israel lobby group AIPAC, with red paint flung on his property as protesters shouted, Baby killer. There is plenty of evidence for the idea that the lobby’s support is what weighs on Biden’s mind. Jews are an important part of Biden’s Democratic base. 70 percent of Jews say they are Democrats. And the Jewish community appears to be overwhelmingly supportive of Israel, just as it was during other historical crises– with notable and honorable exceptions. We are “working around the clock to bring urgent relief to the people of Israel,” the Jewish Federations announces in its regular ad on WNYC, the NPR station I listen to. The dissent of liberal Zionists is over – J Street is back with the rightwing pro-Israel groups in backing Israel’s “right to defend itself” and in opposing a ceasefire. Zionists are flexing their political muscle in plain sight. AIPAC is said to be planning a multi-million-dollar offensive to pick off Squad members in Congress who have been critical of Israel. A progressive senatorial candidate in Michigan has reportedly been offered $20 million in campaign contributions from a former AIPAC donor to drop his bid and take on Rep. Rashida Tlaib instead. Big donors have withdrawn gifts from universities or threatened to do so in anger over anti-Zionist demonstrations and faculty statements. One Forbes headline said a “Jewish billionaire” was pulling his money from Columbia; and craven remarks equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism from Harvard’s president and Columbia’s too appear to be responses to donor pressure. Columbia’s banning of pro-Palestinian groups has the backing of the president and former president and has sent chills through the academic community. The media are under similar top-down pressure from Israel supporters. “We are horrified and deeply saddened by the brutal attack on Israel,” the chairman of Comcast/MSNBC (who once participated in the Israeli Maccabee games) said last month, even as Israel was already pounding the Gaza Strip. The CEO of Warner/CNN, David Zaslav, also issued a statement of support for Israel after it experienced “one of the deadliest [days] in Jewish history since the Holocaust.” Later Zaslav was reported to be considering taking part in a $50 million publicity campaign to “define Hamas to the American people as a terrorist organization.” CNN’s coverage has been distinctly pro-Israel, as has MSNBC’s. While both networks have aired reports that portray the Palestinian nightmare of the last seven weeks, generally the coverage has been from the Israeli point of view, often with a propaganda-like tone. Israeli government spokespeople are frequent guests, and the Zionist ideology is happily ensconced throughout liberal media. Wolf Blitzer once worked for AIPAC; the Atlantic’s editor once was an Israeli prison guard; and Tom Friedman told a Jewish audience in 2021 that “Israel had me at hello,” and “Don’t worry. In times of crisis, I know where I will be. When the Jewish state is under threat.” Joe Scarborough regularly equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Our official political culture is Zionist. Joe Biden calls himself a Zionist. Last summer House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries took 22 first-year Democratic congresspeople on a tour of Israel and stood at Netanyahu’s side, alongside the head of AIPAC (whose house is the target of demonstrations). Biden and Jeffries are surely concerned about Democratic fundraising. Israel supporters use campaign contributions to make sure that the policy debate in the U.S. “remains extremely narrow,” as Nathan Thrall wrote in the New York Times in 2019. “Despite pointed critiques of American support for Israel by representatives like Betty McCollum of Minnesota, [Rashida] Tlaib and [Ilhan] Omar, there is little willingness among Democrats to argue publicly for substantially changing longstanding policy toward Israel,” Thrall said. “In part, some Hill staff members and former White House officials say, this is because of the influence of megadonors: Of the dozens of personal checks greater than $500,000 made out to the largest PAC for Democrats in 2018, the Senate Majority PAC, around three-fourths were written by Jewish donors. This provides fodder for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and for some, it is the elephant in the room. Though the number of Jewish donors known to prioritize pro-Israel policies above all other issues is small, there are few if any pushing in the opposite direction.” Yes, it’s about “Jewish donors.” At J Street in 2016 political experts described the “gigantic” and “shocking” magnitude of Jewish donors in Democratic Party campaigns– who are perceived to be pro-Israel. A former finance director for many Democratic congressional campaigns said she had always gone to AIPAC for a position paper on Israel before undertaking to raise money from the Jewish community. To understand what Joe Biden is thinking, it is worth reviewing presidential history, to remind ourselves how significant the Israel lobby is as a force. A few key moments: –Truman overrode his own State Department and his own opposition to the idea of a religious state to back Israel’s establishment and then turn a blind eye to its expansions. John Judis wrote in his history, “Genesis,” that Truman did so because he needed $100,000 from political donors Abe Feinberg and Ed Kaufmann – a huge sum in 1948–for a whistlestop campaign trip through the midwest when his campaign was broke and Thomas Dewey was threatening to make him a one-termer. –Both Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush lost their bids for a second term in the White House, and it is said that both politicians saw the Israel lobby as a factor in those losses. Carter repeatedly challenged Israel over its settlements and believed that taking on Israel and its American lobby cost him his job. “From the New York primary [in March 1980] onward, I believe Carter was left with the view that New York Jews had not only defeated him in the primary but were also a factor in his loss in November,” Carter aide Stuart Eizenstat writes. Bush also hammered Israel over settlements, “because I think this is what the American people want,” he said. But Bill Clinton ran to Bush’s right in 1992 with the support of the Israel lobby and defeated him. Tom Friedman summarized the lesson: “President Bush the first stood outside the White House one day and said I’m one lonely man standing up against the Israel lobby. What happened as a result of that… is that Republicans post Bush I, and manifested most in his son Bush 2, took a strategic decision, they will never be out pro-Israel’d again. That they believe cost them electorally a lot.” –Obama made the same calculation. His need for the endorsement of Haim Saban and other “major Jewish donors” caused him to give in on Israel’s unending landgrabs, Judis writes. And Obama aide Ben Rhodes confirms that view. When Obama and Netanyahu clashed the year before Obama’s reelection campaign, Rhodes had to call “a list of leading Jewish donors . . . to reassure them of Obama’s pro-Israel bona fides.” Obama waited for his second term to take Israel on over the Iran deal in 2015. In a major speech, he said that Israel was the only country in the world that opposed the deal. And while Benjamin Netanyahu is completely “sincere” in his opposition, Obama said, “As president of the United States, it would be an abrogation of my constitutional duty” to defer to Israel’s wishes on this matter. –Trump of course abrogated his duty. He did whatever Israel wanted including trashing the Iran deal and moving the embassy and seeking to legalize illegal settlements – all to maintain the support of his largest donor Sheldon Adelson, who gave 100s of millions to Republicans. This is the history that counts for Joe Biden. He is going to go by the playbook that has evolved over his lifetime — regardless of the growing sympathy for Palestinians in the Democratic base that is evident in poll after poll. The good thing about today’s crisis is that the lobby’s influence is naked. “Sleepy Joe has a new nickname– Genocide Joe,” cracked another friend at Thanksgiving. It is impossible to imagine Biden ignoring the world’s calls for ceasefire or his own base’s outrage over the images of slaughtered Palestinian families and children – impossible to imagine that without the influence of the organized Jewish community, which patently does not care about these victims, or when it does mention them says that Hamas is to blame. Another good effect of this crisis is that it has provided a different picture of the Jewish community from blind support for Israel: the vigorous opposition to Israel’s militarism among young and progressive Jews. Witness the incredible cease-fire demonstrations organized by IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace. The growth of anti-Zionism will transform (and redeem) the Jewish community. And be a major factor in transforming U.S. policy, as well. Before you go – we need your support At Mondoweiss, we understand the power of telling Palestinian stories. For 17 years, we have pushed back when the mainstream media published lies or echoed politicians’ hateful rhetoric. Now, Palestinian voices are more important than ever. Our traffic has increased ten times since October 7, and we need your help to cover our increased expenses. Support our journalists with a donation today. https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/biden-became-genocide-joe-thanks-to-the-israel-lobby/

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Biden’s Legacy Should Be Forever Haunted by the Names of Gaza’s Dead Children Biden’s support for the terror bombing of Gaza continues his long history as a steadfast supporter of Israel’s greatest crimes. Jeremy Scahill November 14 2023, 12:24 p.m. KHAN YUNIS, GAZA - NOVEMBER 13: Palestinians including children are brought to Nasser Hospital for treatment aftermath of Israeli attack in Khan Yunis, Gaza on November 13, 2023. (Photo by Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu via Getty Images) As Israel intensified its attacks on Gaza last week, including strikes against multiple hospitals, and presided over a forced exodus of hundreds of thousands of civilians from their homes, President Joe Biden was asked about the chances of a Gaza ceasefire. “None,” Biden shot back. “No possibility.” With a death toll that has now surpassed 11,000 Palestinians, including nearly 5,000 children, the extent of Biden’s public divergence from his “great, great friend” Benjamin Netanyahu’s scorched-earth war of annihilation amounts to meekly worded suggestions of “humanitarian pauses.” On Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken remarked, “far too many Palestinians have been killed; far too many have suffered these past weeks, and we want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximize the assistance that gets to them.” These disingenuous platitudes melt into a puddle of blood when juxtaposed with the administration’s actions. The Biden administration has funneled weapons, intelligence support, and unwavering political backing for Israel’s public campaign to erase from the earth Gaza’s existence as a Palestinian territory. As Israeli settlers wage campaigns of terror against the Palestinians in the West Bank, the U.S. remained entrenched in its global isolation, voting last week against a U.N. resolution demanding an end to the illegal settlements. The resolution condemned illegal Israeli settlements, calling them “illegal and an obstacle to peace.” The resolution, which passed 145-7, called for “the immediate and complete cessation of all Israeli settlement activities in all of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Only five countries joined the U.S. and Israel in voting “no”: Canada, Hungary, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Nauru. As the capitals of major world cities have seen massive protests on a scale not registered since the 2003 Iraq invasion, Netanyahu has been on a U.S. media blitz, appearing on Sunday talk shows to cast the stakes of his war “to destroy Hamas” as akin to World War II. “Without it none of us have a future. And it’s not only our war, it’s your war too. It’s the battle of civilization against barbarism,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And if we don’t win here, this scourge will pass. The Middle East will pass to other places. The Middle East will fall. Europe is next. You will be next.” Netanyahu has brazenly exploited the grief of Israeli citizens whose lives were torn apart on October 7 when Hamas launched a series of coordinated attacks inside Israel. Those raids resulted in the deaths of 846 civilians, 278 Israeli soldiers, and 44 police officers, according to the latest figures provided by Israel. Some family members of the victims, as well as relatives of the 240 hostages taken by Hamas and other militant groups — among them infants and the elderly — have emerged as some of the most vocal critics of Netanyahu’s government. A small number have spoken out against his attacks on Gaza, though their voices are largely drowned out by pro-war voices in Western media coverage. “I beg you, I beg also my government, and the pilots and soldiers, who may be called to go into Gaza. Don’t agree. Protect the area around the Gaza Strip, but don’t agree to go in and kill innocent people,” said Noy Katsman, whose older brother Hayim was killed on October 7 at the kibbutz he had lived on for a decade. Maoz Inon’s parents were also killed that day. “Today, Israel is repeating an old mistake it made many times in the last century. We must stop it,” Inon wrote. “Revenge is not going to bring my parents back to life. It is not going to bring back other Israelis and Palestinians killed either. It is going to do the opposite. It is going to cause more casualties. It is going to bring more death.” Over the past month, Biden has cast doubt on the extent of Palestinian civilian deaths, defended Netanyahu’s violent extremist agendas, and made clear that the U.S. position amounts to this: collectively punishing Palestinians for the actions of Hamas falls under the doctrine of “self-defense.” Biden has stood by Israel as government officials have openly described an agenda of ethnically cleansing Palestinians, proclaiming a “Gaza Nakba,” threatening to do to Beirut what Israel has done to Gaza, labeling hospitals and ambulances “legitimate military targets,” and accusing U.N. workers of being Hamas and journalists of being “accomplices in crimes against humanity.” More than 100 U.N. workers and at least 40 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7. Approximately one in 200 Palestinians have died in Gaza since the start of Israel’s attacks. National security adviser Jake Sullivan, when asked Sunday on CNN if Israel is abiding by the rules of war, replied, “I’m not going to sit here and play judge or jury on that question. What I’m going to do is state the principle of the United States on this issue, which is straight forward: Israel has a right, indeed a responsibility, to defend itself against a terrorist group.” The U.S. is simultaneously increasing the flow of weapons to Israel — and Biden proposed $14.5 billion in additional military assistance — while its senior national security official cannot state whether Israel is conducting operations in contravention of international law. Keenly aware of the growing opposition to Israel’s war at home and abroad, and even within his own administration, Biden and his advisers have sought to push a narrative that they are seeking to moderate Israel’s tactics. They make sure the U.S. press know that Biden had urged against a full-scale ground invasion, proposed limited pauses to the bombing, and expressed concerns about the humanitarian crisis for Palestinian civilians. On Monday, after days of relentless Israeli attacks on Gazan hospitals and desperate pleas from international doctors and health and aid organizations, Biden finally addressed the issue, but only after being directly asked. “Hospitals must be protected,” he said in response to a question from the press. “My hope and expectation is that there will be less intrusive action relative to hospitals.” The White House’s mounting effort to spin itself as being concerned about civilian deaths and doing all it can to urge Israel to avoid massacring civilians on an industrial scale is an effort to obfuscate the U.S. role as Israel’s central ally enabling this slaughter. It is a grotesque parlor game that only works if facts and history don’t matter. And in Biden’s case, that history is extensive. NEW YORK, UNITED STATES - 2023/11/09: Students, teachers, and pro-Palestinian allies march through Midtown Manhattan during a Student Walkout protest calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Since October 7, the Israeli army's bombardment of the Palestinian enclave, in retaliation for the Hamas attack on Israel that killed over 1,400 people, has seen thousands of buildings razed to the ground, more than 10,000 people killed and 1.4 million displaced whilst Gaza remains besieged. (Photo by Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images) Students, teachers, and Palestine solidarity allies call for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel during a student walkout in Manhattan on Nov. 9, 2023. Photo: Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images Support for Israel’s Wars For 50 years, Biden has been consistent in his support for Israel’s wars against the Palestinians. Time and again he has backed and facilitated campaigns of terror waged by a nuclear power against a people who have no state, no army, no air force, no navy, and an almost nonexistent civilian infrastructure. As Gaza burns in a smoldering pyre of death and destruction, 80-year-old Biden may be overseeing the final act in his devotion to Israel’s most extreme agenda. His legacy should be forever haunted by the names of the dead children of Gaza, thousands of whom have died in a matter of weeks under the hellfire of U.S.-manufactured weapons and support. Biden has been in public office longer than almost any U.S. politician in history. His career in the U.S. Senate began on the eve of the 1973 Arab–Israeli war when he traveled to meet Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. “I sat across the desk for an hour as she flipped those maps up and down, chain smoking, telling me about the [1967] Six Day War,” Biden said. He called it “one of the most consequential meetings I’ve ever had in my life.” But, as has been in the case with more than a few of Biden’s vignettes about his central role in historical events, in his numerous and varied retelling of that story, he seems to have exaggerated how important that meeting was to Meir and the Israelis. Related Joe Biden: Career Defender of Israel’s Crimes and Impunity Over the ensuing decades and up to the current horrors being inflicted on the people of Gaza, Biden has operated as one of the staunchest promoters of Israel’s colonialist agenda, often defending Israel’s disproportionate use of force, collective punishment, and at times outright massacres. “Were there not an Israel, the United States would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region,” Biden said on the Senate floor in 1986. He repeated that same line earlier this year during a July visit by Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Washington. During Biden’s trip to Israel last month, as Israel intensified its attacks on Gaza and the civilian death toll skyrocketed, he told Netanyahu and his war cabinet, “I don’t believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist.” Building support for Israel’s military might and funneling money and political support to Israel has been a central component of Biden’s career-long foreign policy agenda. He is fond of calling himself “Israel’s best Catholic friend.” In 2016, during a visit to Israel, Netanyahu heaped praise on Biden, then vice president. “The people of Israel consider the Biden family part of our family,” he said. “I want to thank you personally for your, for our personal friendship of over 30 years. We’ve known each other a long time. We’ve gone through many trials and tribulations. And we have an enduring bond that represents the enduring bond between our people.” Most Read There is one story from these decades of Biden’s dedication to Israel that seems eerily prescient given the bloodbath playing out in Gaza right now. It took place early in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. In public, Biden was neither a cheerleader for the invasion nor an opponent. But in a private meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with Prime Minister Menachem Begin in June 1982, Biden’s support for the brutality of the invasion appeared to outstrip even that of the Israeli government. As the Israeli prime minister was grilled in the Senate over Israel’s disproportionate use of force, including the targeting of civilians with cluster bomb munitions, Biden, in Begin’s words, “rose and delivered a very impassioned speech” defending the invasion. Upon his return to Israel, Begin told Israeli reporters he was shocked when Biden “said he would go even further than Israel, adding that he’d forcefully fend off anyone who sought to invade his country, even if that meant killing women or children.” Begin said, “I disassociated myself from these remarks,” adding, “I said to him: No, sir; attention must be paid. According to our values, it is forbidden to hurt women and children, even in war. Sometimes there are casualties among the civilian population as well. But it is forbidden to aspire to this. This is a yardstick of human civilization, not to hurt civilians.” Coming from Begin, the comments were striking, because he had been notorious as a leader of the Irgun, a militant group that carried out some of the worst acts of ethnic cleansing accompanying the creation of the state of Israel, including the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre. The details of his exchange with Biden about Lebanon did not receive attention in the U.S. press. Instead, the New York Times focused on what it termed the “bitterest exchange” between Biden and Begin over the issue of Israeli settlements, which Biden opposed because, he said, it was hurting Israel’s reputation in the U.S. “He hinted — more than hinted — that if we continue with this policy, it is possible that he will propose cutting our financial aid,” Begin alleged. Over the years, Biden has referenced this confrontation when explaining his opposition to the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank as a disagreement among very good friends. Biden has long argued that these expansions undermine prospects for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, though his rhetoric has often been contradicted by his actions, as was the case with his opposition to last week’s U.N. vote labeling the settlements illegal. US Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee?s (AIPAC) annual policy conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, May 5, 2009. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images) U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference in Washington, D.C., on May 5, 2009. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images “Innocents Got Killed” In the 1990s, as Biden solidified his reputation as a top foreign policy senator, he often helped shepherd legislation and funding packages to Israel that human rights groups and international aid organizations said would hinder efforts at brokering lasting peace and further entrench the state of apartheid imposed on millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Biden was an early proponent of moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a move that finally took place in 2018 under the Trump administration. In 1995, Biden helped pass a Senate resolution demanding that the embassy be moved by May of that year. Despite objections that it would harm ongoing Israeli–Palestinian peace talks by deciding a key issue by fiat, Biden said the move would send a positive signal to the region. “To do less would play into the hands of those who would do their hardest to deny Israel the full attributes of statehood,” Biden said. In 2001, following rare public criticism from the Bush administration directed at Israel’s policy of assassinating suspected Palestinian militants, Biden defended Israel’s right to carry out such killings and even rebuked President George W. Bush for criticizing them. “My view has always been that disagreements between Israel and the United States, those differences should be aired privately, not publicly,” Biden said. He also defended the legality of targeted killings, which at the time were considered highly questionable by legal experts for occurring outside a declared conflict. “I don’t believe this is a policy of assassinations,” Biden said, referring to the targeting of suspected Hamas members. “There is in effect a declared war, a declaration by an organization that has said its goal is to do as much as it can to kill Israeli civilians.” In July 2006, Israel was bombing both Gaza and southern Lebanon, with Biden cheering it on. The Israelis, Biden said on MSNBC, “have in both cases, both in Gaza and in southern Lebanon, done the right thing.” In the face of international condemnations of Israel’s brutality in its attacks, Biden defended Israel. “I find it fascinating — people talk about, ‘Has Israel gone too far?’ No one talks about whether Israel’s justified in the first place,” he said on “Meet the Press.” Unless critics of Israel recognize that it was a victim of terrorism, he said, “I think it’s awful — I think it’s a secondary question whether Israel’s gone too far.” Biden said his “only criticism of the Israelis is they’re not that great at public relations.” He compared Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Lebanon to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. “It’s a little bit like the same thing we had when we went into Afghanistan,” Biden said at a press conference in July 2006. “We went into Afghanistan, remember, we took out a wedding party by accident? Remember, we took out — with these very sophisticated missiles we had, we accidentally killed some citizens? Was ever a war more justified than us going into Afghanistan? I can’t think of any war since World War II more justified. Yet innocents got killed in us trying to protect America’s interests.” By August 2006, more than 1,000 people were killed in Israel’s war against Lebanon, and UNICEF estimated that 30 percent of the casualties were children. During his time as vice president, Biden often played the role of placating his friend Netanyahu who famously loathed President Barack Obama. During those eight years, Obama largely maintained long-standing U.S. posture of showering Israel with weapons and other aid despite repeated political spats with Netanyahu, most prominently over Iran and Israeli settlements. During numerous episodes when Israel unleashed gratuitous violence, drawing international condemnation, Biden served as Israel’s most prominent American defender. In the early summer of 2010, a group of mostly Turkish activists attempted to deliver a flotilla of humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip. The attempt was interdicted by the Israeli military, which launched a raid on one ship that resulted in the deaths of nine people, including one American citizen. The raid triggered an international outcry and led to a diplomatic crisis between Israel and Turkey, while drawing further attention to the civilian impact of the ongoing Israeli siege of Gaza. Biden took the lead in defending the raid to the U.S. public. In an interview with PBS, he described the raid as “legitimate” and argued that the flotilla organizers could have disembarked elsewhere before transferring the aid to Gaza. “So what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza?” Biden asked about the humanitarian mission. “Well, it’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping eight — 3,000 rockets on my people.’” No weapons were ever found on the ship, only humanitarian supplies. Amid the fury that the raid generated and the muted response from Obama, Biden’s remarks were welcomed by AIPAC spokesperson Josh Block, who said at the time, “We appreciate the many strong statements of support for Israel from members of Congress and the vice president today.” After the 2014 Gaza war — a seven-week Israeli ground invasion that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians (two-thirds of them civilians) and caused widespread displacement and destruction of civilian infrastructure — Biden boasted of how the Obama administration had “steadfastly stood before the world and defended Israel’s right to defend itself,” declaring, “We have an obligation to match the steel and the spine of the people of Israel with an ironclad, nonnegotiable commitment to Israel’s physical security.” In May 2021, a few months into Biden’s presidency, Israel intensified its ethnic-cleansing campaign against Palestinians in East Jerusalem, forcibly evicting people from their homes to hand them over to Israeli settlers. The incendiary situation was then exacerbated during a Ramadan siege by Israeli forces at one of the holiest sites in Islam, Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. In response, Hamas began launching rockets into Israel. Netanyahu retaliated by ordering a massive 11-day bombing campaign against Gaza, striking residential buildings, media outlets, hospitals, and a refugee camp. As the civilian death toll among Palestinians began to rise, Ned Price, the State Department spokesperson, characterized the operation as Israel exercising its right to self-defense. When he was then asked whether the principle of self-defense also applied to Palestinians, he struggled to answer before saying, “Broadly speaking, we believe in the concept of self-defense. We believe it applies to any state.” When Matt Lee of The Associated Press pointed out that Palestinians do not have a state, Price said, “I’m not in a position to debate the legalities from up here.” More than 250 Palestinians died during Israel’s siege, including dozens of children. More than 70,000 Palestinians were displaced. Throughout the bombing, the U.S. staunchly defended Israel’s disproportionate attacks, with Biden declaring on May 16, “there has not been a significant overreaction” from Israel before pivoting to condemn Hamas’s firing of rockets into civilian areas of Israel. GAZA CITY, GAZA - NOVEMBER 8: Palestinians who left their houses and live at the Nassr hospital, are trying to feed their children during food shortages as the Israeli attacks continue in Gaza City, Gaza on November 8, 2023. (Photo by Abed Zagout/Anadolu via Getty Images) Displaced Palestinians at Nassr hospital try to feed their children during food shortages on Nov. 8, 2023. Photo: Abed Zagout/Anadolu via Getty Images Evidence of Genocidal Intent Following Hamas’s horrifying attacks on October 7, Biden and his administration have defended Israel’s mass bombardment of Gaza, and U.S. weapons shipments have been accelerated. Biden called his proposal for additional military support an “unprecedented commitment to Israel’s security that will sharpen Israel’s qualitative military edge,” saying, “We’re going to make sure other hostile actors in the region know that Israel is stronger than ever.” This crisis has undoubtedly solidified Biden’s legacy as one of the premiere American defenders of Israel’s crimes, including disproportionate attacks against an overwhelmingly defenseless civilian population, in the history of U.S. politics. In an alternate reality — one where the rule of law is applied equally to all states — Israeli leaders would likely face war crimes charges for the razing of Gaza. Leading genocide scholars and international law experts have cited the statements of Israeli officials about the aims of their operations in Gaza as potential evidence of “genocidal intent.” A coalition of international lawyers representing Palestinian rights groups has already petitioned the International Criminal Court to open a criminal inquiry and issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and other officials. Such attempts at accountability should not focus solely on Israeli leaders, according to some U.S. constitutional law organizations. The U.S. is Israel’s premiere bankroller and arms dealer, not to mention its political defender. There are several U.S. laws and treaties that prohibit support for, and failure to prevent, genocidal activities. Among these is the Genocide Convention Implementation Act, signed into law in 1988. Its sponsor? A senator named Joe Biden. Related Palestinians Sue Biden for Failing to Prevent Genocide in Gaza On Monday, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza seeking to block the Biden administration from providing further military aid to Israel. The suit names Biden, Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “They have continued to provide both military and political support for Israel’s unfolding genocidal campaign while imposing no red lines,” said Katherine Gallagher, one of the lawyers who filed the case. “The United States has a clear and binding obligation to prevent, not further, genocide. They have failed in meeting their legal and moral duty to use their considerable power to end this horror. They must do so.” It is unfathomable, given the current world order, that any meaningful legal accountability will be served on U.S. or Israeli leaders. But on a moral level, it is important to remember these legal efforts to confront the slaughter and the complicity of Biden and other Western leaders. The U.S.-enabled horrors of the past five weeks should remain a bloody, permanent stain on the fabric of Biden’s political career and legacy. Among the U.S. political elite, it will simply be noted as Biden doing his job. https://theintercept.com/2023/11/14/gaza-israel-genocide-biden-legacy/

Genocide 101: How US/Israeli Axis of Evil Funds Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine Meet the American Zombies Being Fleeced for The Terrorist Colony of Israel Johnny PunishNovember 11, 2023 VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State. Remember when USA used to be Super Heroes? Now, look at them. It’s beyond grotesque! by Johnny Punish Most of you know about the public funding of the genocide taking place to expand the US/Euro Colony of Israel. But for those who don’t, in summary, each year the US Congress sends the tiny nation of 9 million people billions of US Taxpayer dollars in the form of aid; since 1948, its’ been $ 280 Billion. This is primarily secured by the bribery of US Congress by foreign agents posting as legit lobbies with the leader being AIPAC; American Israel Public Affairs Committee. To give you context, I have a fine Jewish friend who just said to me; “I attended an AIPAC event many years ago and vowed never to go again as I didn’t care for their radicalism and obstinance. But you may want to look at the Evangelical Christian community as the ones who have consistently exerted the most pressure on American politicians regarding Israel. They take the “end times” very seriously and are no fans of the Palestinian cause. Their organizations and lobbyists far exceed AIPAC in influence not only regarding Israel but more domestic issues as well.” And he is spot on! This phony Christian cabal is now the most dangerous enemy of freedom around the world. They are putting the lives of Israelis and Palestinians on the line with their crazy extremist ideologies. Calling them the Taliban is selling them short. 2023: In 30 days of US/Israeli Massacre of Gaza, they murdered over 11,000 human beings including over 5000 children and injured over 25,000 people while displacing over 1,000,000 human beings from their homes; a war crime of the century that is being cover by the UN which is held hostage by the US/Israeli Empire This dangerous American Christian Evangelical Zionist Operation or Nationalists, a group whose leaders open lie and indoctrinate their flock into believing complete non-sense about the end of days and why they should support Israel 100% without question no matter what is literally destroying the very fabric of the USA, and putting the lives of everyday Israeli’s and Palestinians on the line; killing them with their grotesque funding of Occupation and Ethnic Cleansing. It’s the most incredible Zombie indoctrination of a mass of people since NAZI Josef Goebbels did it about 90 years ago. Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German Nazi politician who was the Gauleiter of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945. They’ve turned the average down-home “folk” into Zombies for Israel. It’s truly incredible and scary for real. In fact, this one is much more impressive than the Nazis because it’s now gone public and America has normalized its insanity to the point where most don’t even question its complete fabrication. The elites wield this mind control without mercy fleecing their zombies at will while they sheepishly nod “Oh Israel, oh Israel”. It’s grotesque! Since its founding in 1948, the United States has provided Israel with over $125 billion in bilateral assistance focused on addressing new and complex security threats, bridging Israel’s capability gaps through security assistance and cooperation, increasing interoperability through joint exercises, and helping Israel … Source: International Trade Administration Oh, I forgot to mention that the US Congress delivers “offense” contracts, or what they like to call “defense” contracts that amount to billions more per year which props up its economy and continues to turn the US/Euro Colony Terror State into a serious global force for evil against its indigenous populations serving to destabilize Middle Eastern unity to ensure control of the regions’ resources securing it’s dominate empire worldwide. So there’s that… But what world power you ask? Well, it’s an elite transactional confederation of psychotic predators whose ambition is to maintain control of the world and its resources by any means necessary. Some call it “The West”, and some call it “The Zionists”. It’s actually both and more. This cabal is made of up Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Pagans. But mostly none of them are actually religious. They just play religious figures for public consumption. For example… Let’s take the lovely Saudi Royal Family who are in charge of the holiest sites in Islam. They are famous for being the leaders of the Wahabi sect of Islam. But in reality, underneath those $ 50,000 golden-laced robes are old greedy men in Machiavellian suits whose only loyalty is oil and their place at the Zionist table. They are degenerates like the rest of them. But for their public face, they act as if they are holy men. It’s just an act. And as long as their public buys it, then they can stay in power without any hiccups. So they play the game. The Religion of Oil and Power NOT Islam are these phony baloneys trade du jour But What About US Presidents? Don’t They Have a Say? The short answer is NO! They don’t! They are figureheads. They are NOT the leaders in this elite group. They are mere hostages, stooges for the major elite powers to push around at will. This is why Netanyahu meets with all of them and he’s treated like a KING. They all hate him and yet they bow to him. Each year, people point at US Presidents as if they have a say in the matter. They complain he’s this and that when, in reality, they are puppets in a humongous global game of chess. These figureheads are threatened with political failure and even their lives if they don’t comply. We are dealing with a very dangerous cabal folks. They are NOT choir boys but real-life gangsters with massive power backing them up and I’m not talking about Joe Pesci’s Nicky Santoro, I’m talking about the best military arms in the world and hitmen that would make James Bond shiver! Nicky Santoro, played by actor Joe Pesci, was a “made man” in the Mafia that ruled the streets of Las Vegas in the 1995 movie “Casino“. He was a nasty piece of meat with two eyes killing everything that walked; a psychopath in a cheap suit! But we’re talking funding right? So let’s see what else the US “unbreakable relationship” with its’ 51st state gets from the US Taxpayer. Oh wait, there’s direct financing; bonds, lots of bonds… In fact, it is so disgraceful that it will make you sick to your stomach. Yep, over $ 1 Billion in Israeli Bonds have been sold and purchased in the U.S. since Oct 7th — much of it with Taxpayers’ money. US States, cities, and small investors are behind the spike in sales. “Our security and economy will come out stronger,” said Israel Bond CEO Dan Naveh The Development Corporation for Israel has raised $1 billion from bond sales in the United States since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that killed at least 1,400 Israelis and took another 240 as hostages. Dan Naveh served as a member of the Knesset for Likud between 1999 and 2007 and as a government minister from 2001 until 2006. He is the founder and the managing general partner of Agate Medical Investments, served for seven years as the chairman of Clal Insurance, and is currently president and CEO of Israel Bonds. The Ministry of Finance issued new bonds in the days immediately following the attack selling them as if they were liberating Europe from the Nazis. And Americans are eating them up! The $1 billion raised in the last four weeks is the largest amount of Israeli Bonds ever purchased in a short period, according to the Development Corporation, the agency behind Israel Bond sales. It also makes 2023 a record year for Israel Bonds. According to a statement from the organization, most of the money came from 15 state and municipal bond funds, as well as a few banks. The main buyers were state governments in Florida, New York, Alabama, Arizona, Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Nevada, Louisiana, South Carolina, Indiana and Pennsylvania. Two counties in Florida, Broward and Palm Beach, also bought Israel Bonds in the last four weeks, as did Ohio’s Franklin County. Two banks made notable buys, New Jersey-based Cross River Bank and Cleveland-based Key Bank, which made a $15 million dollar bond purchase. A spokesperson for the bank called the sales part of “a more than 35-year relationship with Israel Bonds.” Executives at Israel Bonds said about $250 million of the total raised in the last month came from individual investors, large and small, throughout the United States, who purchased the bonds directly. American Zombies for Israel are being fleeced like never before and are ready to die for a cabal of elites who laugh in front of their zombie faces And so there you have it! The US/Israeli Axis of Evil is proudly financing Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing like never before. It’s committing war crimes in public view with support from its propaganda media with impunity. Worse, it is protected by a UN created when the USA once stood for something of principle giving it power to keep the world in balance. But now, it uses that power to ensure that no other country can stand up to them when they are the ones openly and publicly committing crimes that have NOT been seen since the days of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. Johnny Punish (During the COVID ERA 2021) at the Strasbourg Cathedral or the Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg (French: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, or Cathédrale de Strasbourg, German: Liebfrauenmünster zu Straßburg or Straßburger Münster), also known as Strasbourg Minster, is a Catholic cathedral in Strasbourg, Alsace, France. Postscript: I was in Strasbourg France in 2021. In the local main church, there hangs a plaque saying “In Memory of The American Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and Soldiers Who Gave Their Life to Free Alsace”. I was so proud of that plague because that’s when America did something good. Yeah, I know, it was never perfect but at least it stood for pushing back the wild expansionism of the Nazis and helped the occupied people of France get back their dignity and freedom. It was good. And it launched a better world moving forward. But now, who is this version of America? Remember when the USA used to be the Super Heroes? Now, look at them. It’s beyond grotesque! Johnny Punish founded VT in 2004. After 20 years at the helm, he “retired” from the daily operations in late 2023 passing the ball over to the new owner of VT, Chief Justin Time. He now writes for VT as “Writer Emeritus”. He is also a global citizen eco-activist, visionary, musician, artist, entertainer, businessman, investor, life coach, podcast host, and syndicated columnist. Punish is an ethnically cleansed Palestinian-American whose maternal family was evicted from their home in Haifa, Palestine in 1948 by Irgun; a Euro-Zionist Settler Terrorist Group. The family became part of the over 1,000,000 Palestinians who are Al-Nakba refugees (The Catastrophe). The family fled to Beirut Lebanon for 13 years eventually emigrating to the USA in 1961 via a Brasilian passport obtained by his Palestinian Brasilian-born grandmother (In the early 1900s, the family was sent to Sao Paolo Brasil as guest workers in the mining industry. Punish’s father is Italian-American from New York City. Punish’s paternal great-grandparents emigrated to the USA from Naples Italy and Marineo in Sicily in the 1890s. Punish was born in the Bronx, New York in 1963. Punish was educated at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (1980-81) and California State University Fullerton (1981-1984) with studies in accounting and business. Before the “internets” had been invented, he owned and ran (5) national newspapers in the United States of America from 1987-1998. From 2004 to 2023, he owned and managed VT Foreign Policy retiring at the end of 2023. Punish is also a recording artist. He has over 100 original songs written. He records and produces music. A member of ASCAP, Punish has several songs placed in feature films. His music is promoted worldwide and played on all digital networks and net radio. He is also the founder and owner of Global Thinkers, a freedom media that helps free thinkers create real wealth. Resources: Facebook – YouTube – Apple Music – SoundCloud – Spotify – X (Twitter) Read Johnny’s Full Bio at JohnnyPunish.com >>> www.johnnypunish.com ATTENTION READERS We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully Informed In fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion. About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy Due to the nature of uncensored content posted by VT's fully independent international writers, VT cannot guarantee absolute validity. All content is owned by the author exclusively. Expressed opinions are NOT necessarily the views of VT, other authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, or technicians. Some content may be satirical in nature. All images are the full responsibility of the article author and NOT VT. https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2023/11/genocide-101-how-us-israeli-axis-of-evil-funds-ethnic-cleansing-in-palestine/

U.S. Weapons Transfers to Israel Shrouded in Secrecy — but Not Ukraine Ken KlippensteinNovember 7 2023, 4:22 p.m. One month since Hamas’s surprise attack, little is known about the weapons the U.S. has provided to Israel. Whereas the Biden administration released a three-page itemized list of weapons provided to Ukraine, down to the exact number of rounds, the information released about weapons sent to Israel could fit in a single sentence. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby acknowledged the secrecy in an October 23 press briefing, saying that while U.S. security assistance “on a near-daily basis,” he continued, “We’re being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what they’re getting — for their own operational security purposes, of course.” “The notion that it would in any way harm the Israeli military’s operational security to provide more information is a cover story.” The argument that transparency would imperil Israel’s operational security — somehow not a concern with Ukraine — is misleading, experts told The Intercept. “The notion that it would in any way harm the Israeli military’s operational security to provide more information is a cover story for efforts to reduce information on the types of weapons being supplied to Israel and how they are being used,” William Hartung, a fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and expert on weapons sales, told The Intercept. “I think the purposeful lack of transparency over what weapons the U.S. is supplying to Israel ‘on a daily basis’ is tied to the larger administration policy of downplaying the extent to which Israel will use those weapons to commit war crimes and kill civilians in Gaza.” Most Read  A retired Marine general who worked in the region, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized by his former employer to speak publicly, attributed the secrecy to the political sensitivity of the conflict. In particular, the retired officer said, weapons used in door-to-door urban warfare, which are likely to result in civilian casualties, are not going to be something the administration wants to publicize. (The National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment.) In recent years, flare-ups of violence between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip have often entailed Israeli air wars with limited numbers of Israeli troops entering the besieged costal enclave. The last time there was a large-scale ground incursion by the Israel Defense Forces into Gaza was during the Israelis’ 2014 Operation Protective Edge. While the 2014 invasion saw Israeli troops in Gaza for less than a month, Israel’s defense minister recently told reporters the war would take at least several months. The goal of removing Hamas completely from power is widely expected to take a significant commitment to a long-term ground presence and heavy urban fighting. According to the New Yorker, Israeli officials told their American counterparts that the war could last 10 years. The Biden administration is reportedly worried that Israel’s military objectives are not achievable. On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC News, “Israel will, for an indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it.” “Delicate Matter Politically” Hamas’s attack on Israel, which took place on October 7, resulted in a cascade of arms assistance from the U.S. Though the Biden administration at first declined to identify any specific weapons systems, as details trickled out in the press, it has gradually acknowledged some. These include “precision guided munitions, small diameter bombs, artillery, ammunition, Iron Dome interceptors and other critical equipment,” as Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder has said. Related  Rep. Mike Johnson’s Largest Donor Was AIPAC. He’s Trying to Cut Free Tax Filing to Send Weapons to Israel. What “other critical equipment” entails remains a mystery, as do specifics about the quantity of arms being supplied, which the administration has refused to disclose. When a reporter asked for a “ballpark” figure for the security assistance during a background press briefing on October 12, the Pentagon demurred. “I’m not going to do that today and would defer you to the government of Israel,” a senior defense official told the reporter. “To date, U.S. government reporting on arms transfers to Israel has been sporadic and without any meaningful detail,” Stimson Center research analyst Elias Yousif recently concluded. “Updates should be compiled on a single factsheet page, as is the case for Ukraine, and include details on the authorities invoked for the provision of assistance as well as the type and quantity of arms provided with enough specificity to enable public research and assessments.” Hartung, the Quincy fellow, noted the contrast with the administration’s openness on military aid to Ukraine. “Transparency on arms transfers to Ukraine came in large part due to the administration’s feeling that they were engaged in a noble venture,” Hartung said. “Although Israel certainly has the right to defend itself against the kind of horrific attack carried out by Hamas, its response — bombing and blockading a whole territory of 2 million people, killing thousands of innocent people in the process — has been described by independent experts as committing war crimes.” “Transparency on arms transfers to Ukraine came in large part due to the administration’s feeling that they were engaged in a noble venture.” “So even as the Biden administration backs Israel with weapons and rhetoric,” Hartung said, “it is a delicate matter politically to give all the details on U.S. weapons supplied to the Israeli military, some of which will certainly be used in illegal attacks on civilians if the war continues to grind on.” Beyond just the quantities, there are specific weapons the Pentagon is providing Israel which have not been publicly disclosed, the Marine general told The Intercept. As the arms continue to flow, dozens of C-17 military transport planes likely carrying munitions have criss-crossed the Atlantic traveling between the United States and Israel, open-source flight tracking data show, with most landing at Nevatim Air Base, an IDF base in Israel’s southern Negev desert. President Joe Biden has requested $14.3 billion in aid for Israel in addition to the over $3 billion in military assistance it already provides. Most recently, the Biden administration is planning to send $320 million in precision Spice bombs to Israel, as multiple outlets informed by Congress reported on Monday.