- Introduction
-
- There are two views of Obama's speech
to the General Assembly on September 21, 2011, and his opposition to the
recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state and its admission to the
UN. The common opinion of foreign policy experts was that Obama led the
US to an ignominious diplomatic defeat, deepening US isolation in the international
system.
-
- The White House's blatant parroting of
Israel's position to continue bilateral negotiations, while Tel Aviv continued
to colonize Palestinian land and forcibly evict its residents, alienated
the 1.5 billion Muslims throughout the world. Obama's refusal to even
mention the return to the 1967 borders as a basis for a "peace settlement",
totally undermined any pretext that the US could act as an "honest
broker" in Mid-East peace negotiations, even in the eyes of its most
slavish supporters in the PLO.
-
- His one-sided reference to Israel's
minimal casualties in maintaining the Occupation, while omitting any mention
of the 12,000 Palestinian political prisoners, thousands of assassinations,
everyday humiliation, routine torture of suspects and frequent defacement
of Palestinian religious centers (mosques and churches, cemeteries and
shrines), undermined any US effort to win favor among the millions of people
involved in the pro-democracy social movements sweeping the Arab world
from Tunisia, Egypt to the Gulf states.
-
- Washington's insistence that its NATO
allies line-up with it in supporting continued "bilateral" negotiations,
has led to the German government's public humiliation when it followed
Obama's line of pressuring Abbas back to 'negotiations' only to have the
Israeli Prime MInister Netanyahu announce the construction of 1,100 illegal
Jews-only housing units in occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem.
-
- Obama's blatant and overt pandering to
Israel before the representative of 193 independent nations, which had
followed the standing ovation for Abbas' call for Palestinian recognition,
highlights one of the greatest US diplomatic defeats since the founding
of the UN over 60 years ago.
-
- But was Obama's groveling before Israeli
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu really a 'failure' in the eyes of the
White House? Or was his speech really a carefully crafted appeal to a
domestic audience in order to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from
pro-Israel billionaires to finance his re-election campaign?
-
- There is a wealth of documentary evidence
showing that Obama deliberately and forcefully sacrificed US international
standing, in order to satisfy the major American Jewish organizations who
were demanding nothing less than total and unconditional backing for Netanyahu's
phony position of "peace negotiations" and colonization from
Obama.
-
- From the angle of satisfying the US Zionist
power configuration (ZPC) and securing a massive flow of re-election financing,
Obama's UN speech was a smashing success.
-
- Obama's Rejection of World Opinion and the Zionist Payoff
-
- Obama's re-election campaign from April
to the end of September has received tens of millions of dollars from wealthy
pro-Israeli Jewish fund raisers and contributors, as well as endorsements
from rightwing US Jewish and Israeli politicians.
-
- In the run-up to Obama's UN speech, Zionist
lobbyists adopted "good cop bad cop" tactics. Liberal Zionist
Democratic Party advisers emphasized that he was "losing the Jewish
vote and funding", highlighting the recent resignation of a disgraced
Democratic Congressman from a district of Orthodox Jews because of his
internet porno-exhibitionism as a sign of Obama's growing unpopularity
among Jews. Some campaign strategists emphasized the "crucial Jewish
vote in swing states" like Ohio and Pennsylvania (where non-Jews,
who represent well over 80% of the voters, are not "crucial"
in the eyes of these election experts!).
-
- The 52 Presidents of the Major
American Jewish Organizations took turns accusing Obama of "slandering
Israel", for disobeying Netanyahu and "backing the Arabs"
for protesting Israeli land grabs, even as Obama raised US government aid
to Israel to an un-paralleled $3 billion per annum, in the midst of a US
economic recession with 18% of American workers unemployed or underemployed.
-
- Obana's pro-Israel critics overlooked
his $205 million gift to Tel Aviv to build the Iron Dome rocket defense
system together with the US military's latest fighter jets. The Zionist
power configuration demanded total surrender even as they extracted more
political and economic concessions. They ignored the enormous military
imbalances in the Middle East in Israel's favor and the degradation of
US standing in the region.
-
- Hardball threats to end Jewish financial
support by the rightwing Zionists was "complemented" by fund
raising by liberal Zionists and promises of more to come if Obama ended
his "public feuding" with Israel and vetoed Palestinian admission
to the UN. Obama performed his well-rehearsed shuffle and song routine
of the "absolute defender", now and forever, of every Israeli
violation of Palestinian human rights.
-
- Obama's Rush for the Gold
-
- On June 20, 2011, months prior to Obama's
speech opposing Palestinian admission to the UN, a pro-Israel Washington
fund raising event for his re-election campaign raised over $1.5 million,
assuring Obama that "Jewish donors" were not wavering, as long
as he followed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's line of peace negotiations
and land grabs (Forward, June 29 2011). During the fund raiser Obama reiterated
his unconditional support for Israel's policies, including the settlements
in the Palestinian West Bank. Following the dinner he met behind closed
doors to elaborate on how far he was willing to go in opposing the Palestinian
initiative at the UN, (Forward, June 29, 2011). A month earlier on May
22, 2011, Obama spoke at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC), directly appealing for funds in exchange for
the United States' total submission to the AIPAC agenda.
-
- Obama's dependence on Zionist funding
was evident between April to June 2011: Of the $68 million raised for
his campaign, $37 million was raised by 244 "big cash bundlers"
individuals who round up multi-millionaire contributors. According
to one count of the 244 bundlers approximately 120 were identified as pro-Israel
Jews. Among the Zionist "bundlers" are Penny Pritzker bagging
contributions between $100,000 - $200,000, Jeffrey Katzenberg putting the
touch on contributors for $500,000 plus; Mark Gilbert $500,000 plus, and
Mark Stanley $100,000 to $200,000.
-
- Obama's fund raising and organizational
success among Israeli right wingers and US Zionists multiplied following
his UN speech opposing the recognition of Palestine. As the New York Times
(September 30, 2011) noted ". . . Democratic officials maintain that
they do not think that Mr. Obama is in danger of losing the Jewish vote
particularly given the President's muscular defense of Israel at
the United Nations General Assembly last week".
-
- Following his UN speech Obama raised
several million from wealthy Zionists in Manhattan and Hollywood at dinners
ranging up to $35,800 a plate. The extremist right wing Israeli Foreign
Minister, Avigdor Lieberman (influential among billionaire US Zionists),
signaled his enthusiastic support for Obama, as did Abe Foxman, the
notorious Israeli Firster and head of the Anti-Defamation League, and former-New
York City Mayor Ed Koch, another fanatical-Zionist (NY Times, Sept. 30,
2011). Thanks to pro-Israel bundlers and hustlers, Obama had out-fund
raised the leading Republican candidate, former Massachusetts Governor
Mitt Romney, by more than a 4 to 1 margin by September 2011, (Reuters,
Sept. 27, 2011).
-
-
-
-
-
- The Consequences of Obama's Embrace of Netanyahu and
Rejection of World Opinion
-
- Immediately following Obama's UN speech,
Netanyahu announced that Israel would build 1,100 new 'Jews-only' housing
units in occupied Arab East Jerusalem with additional plans to displace
tens of thousands of Bedouins from their villages to make way for new Jewish
settlements. With firm assurances that American Zionist Jews have the
American Presidency and Congress in their pocket, Netanyahu feels free
to advance his long-stated policy of ethnic cleansing.
-
- Violent extremist Jewish colonial settlers, funded
by millionaire US donors to Obama, feel free to continue their practice
of defacing and burning mosques and subjecting Palestinians to daily humiliations.
The US Congress and AIPAC wrote legislations eliminating S200 million
dollars in funding to the Palestinian Authority because of its 'crime'
of seeking admission for the Palestinian people to the United Nations.
Obama's "muscular" knee bends for Israel at the UN have opened
the door to more intense and brutal Israeli aggression against the Palestinians,
new military threats toward Iran and increased pressure on Egypt's military
rulers.
-
- The White House's goal is to raise a
billion dollars for the re-election campaign. This involves keeping the
spigot open for big bucks from Zionist millionaires in Hollywood and Silicon
Valley, as well as from smaller contributors among lawyers, dentists, doctors,
professors and local business people in Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and
elsewhere. Obama's strategy at the UN is designed to maximize Zionist
loyalty and fund raising for his re-election. The White House has organized
a campaign to delay any Security Council decision, removing the Palestinian
issue from the limelight and putting it behind closed doors via procedural
haggling. At the same time, Washington is pressuring Security Council
members, especially Bosnia and Colombia, to block a three-fifths majority
vote, which would then force the US to use its veto. If the White House
does not secure the votes, Obama has promised Zionist fundraisers he will
use the US veto to exclude Palestine from admission to the UN.
-
- Obama will focus on his power to use
the UN veto in order to increase fund raising among wealthy Zionists and
to activate the Presidents of the 52 Major American Jewish Organizations
to "get out the vote" among the electorate at large. The re-election
campaign will remind Zionist mass media pundits (CNN, FOX, CBS, NBC) of
how Obama "courageously stood up to" world public opinion
including that of leaders representing 90% of the world's population
in order to "defend Israel".
-
- If foreign policy is an extension of
domestic policy, as is clearly illustrated by Obama's truckling to Zionist
fund-raisers by acting on behalf of Israel in the United Nations, so too
is domestic policy an extension of foreign policy. US overseas businesses
cannot expect any "favored treatment" in Muslim countries. Increased
political hostility to the US and Israel will result in greater military
spending leading to more fiscal deficits and more painful cuts in domestic
social programs for the American people. This will increase domestic social
and political polarization. In the short-run, Obama's sell-out to the
Zionist power configuration has succeeded in filling the coffers of his
re-election campaign. But in the near future it has raised insurmountable
difficulties in dealing with overseas political conflicts and domestic
economic crises.
-
- Above all, Obama's game of mutual manipulation
with the Zionist Lobby has further degraded US democratic political institutions
and our international standing as a free and independent country.
-
- The Freeing of Jonathan Pollard and Obama's Re-election:
The Dirtiest Quid Pro Quo
-
- In his gross servility to Israel and
the American Zionist Lobby, President Barak Obama has surpassed all four
of his predecessors with regard to the most egregious episode in Israel's
many violations of US security. According to recent news reports, Vice-President
Joe Biden announced that "President Obama was considering clemency
for Jonathan Pollard" (New York Times, Sept 30, 2011; Jerusalem Post,
Oct. 2, 2011). While Biden originally claimed to have initially opposed
this move, a week later, under intense pressure from Obama, he agreed to
meet and discuss Pollard's release with American Jewish leaders, including
the executive vice chairman of the Presidents of the Major American Jewish
Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein (Globe, Oct. 8, 2011 a major Israeli
business publication.)
-
- Reagan, Bush-Senior and Junior and Clinton,
all refused to re-open the Pollard case because the confessed American
spy for Israel (who was awarded Israeli citizenship and a high military
rank while in US Federal prison) did more damage to US national security
than any spy in our history. At his trial, the FBI and Naval
Intelligence revealed the Pollard, then a High Security Naval Intelligence
analyst, had turned over tens of thousands of classified documents to his
Israeli handler. Many were 'sold' to the Soviet Union. For his 'service
to the Jewish State of Israel', a building, illegally built in occupied
Arab East Jerusalem, is named Beit Yonatan.
-
- All Israeli leaders, from Rabin to Netanyahu,
have pressed US Presidents to free their spy. But threats of mass protests
and resignation from the US intelligence community prevented any serious
discussion of releasing the traitor. Now, the entire spectrum of Zionist
opinion from 'left to right' from 'liberal' Congressman Barney
Frank to extremist Israel Firster, Alan Dershowitz of Harvard, and including
hundreds of Rabbis are pressuring Obama to free their 'hero'. Only
a few prominent American Jews, like former US Navy Admiral Shapiro are
outraged and chagrined by the 'Jewish Community's defense of a traitor".
-
- In a tight presidential election this
2012 we can expect Obama to trade on Pollard's release, in exchange for
a big cash injection by Zionist contributors to fund his last-minute media
blitz. After all, if Obama can sell out US integrity in front of the 193
nations of the UN, what is to stop him from freeing a master Israeli spy,
who imperiled US security, in order to gain a few thousand sound bites
and TV slots in the run-up to the November 2012 elections?
|