AIPAC, Israel Losing to Progressive Democrats

Good News from Washington: AIPAC, Israel Losing to Progressive Democrats

The age of total dominance of Israel over the US Congress is likely over, and hopefully, this time, for good. 

by  Ramzy Baroud

July 16th, 2020

By  Ramzy Baroud  

While the US administration of President Donald Trump remains adamant in its support for Israel, the traditional democratic leadership continues to employ underhanded language, the kind of ‘strategic ambiguity’ that offers full support to Israel and nothing but lip service to Palestine and peace.

Trump’s policies on Israel and Palestine have been damaging, culminating in the outrageously unfair ‘Deal of the Century’, and his administration remains largely committed to the trend of growing affinity between the Republican establishment and the Israeli right-wing camp of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The views of the Democratic leadership, represented in the presumptive Democratic challenger in the upcoming November election, Joe Biden, are still those of a bygone era when the Democrats’ unconditional love for Israel equaled that of Republicans. It is safe to say that those days are drawing to an end, for successive opinion polls are reaffirming the changing political landscape in Washington.

Once upon a time, America’s political elite, whose politics diverged on many issues, wholeheartedly agreed on one single foreign policy matter: their country’s blind and unconditional love and support for Israel. In those days, the influential pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) ruled the roost, reigning supreme in the US Congress and, almost single-handedly, decided on the fate of Congressmen and women based on their support, or lack thereof, of Israel.

While it is too early to proclaim that ‘those days are over,’ judging by the vastly changing political discourse on Palestine and Israel, the many opinion polls, and the electoral successes of anti-Israeli occupation candidates in national and local elections, one is compelled to say that AIPAC’s tight grip on US foreign policy is finally loosening.

Such a statement may seem premature considering the current administration’s unparalleled bias towards Israel – the illegal US embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the dismissal of the ‘Right of Return’ for Palestinian Refugees, and the administration’s support of the Israeli plan to illegally annex parts of the West Bank, and so on.

However, a distinction must be made between support for Israel among the ruling, the increasingly isolated clique of politicians, and the general mood of a country that, despite numerous infringements on democracy in recent years, is still, somewhat democratic.

On June 25, a whopping number of nearly 200 Democratic House members, including some of the most staunch supporters of Israel, called, in a letter, on Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials to scrap their plan to illegally annex nearly 30 percent of the West Bank.

“We express our deep concern with the stated intention to move ahead with any unilateral annexation of West Bank territory, and we urge your government to reconsider plans to do so,” the letter said, in part.

While the wording of the letter was far from being dubbed ‘threatening’, the fact that it was signed by stalwart Israeli allies, such as Florida Congressman, Ted Deutch and Illinois Congressman, Brad Schneider, speaks volumes about the shifting discourse on Israel among the center and even conservative corners of the Democratic Party. Among the signers were also prominent figures in the Democratic establishment, like Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer.

Equally important, is that the influence of the younger and more progressive generation of Democratic politicians continues to push the boundaries of the party’s discourse on Israel, thanks to the tireless work of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her colleagues. Along with a dozen Democratic lawmakers, Ocasio-Cortez issued another letter on June 30, this time addressed to US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.

Unlike the first letter, the second one was assertive and markedly daring. “Should the Israeli government continue down this path (of annexation), we will work to ensure non-recognition of annexed territories as well as pursue legislation that conditions the $3.8 billion in US military funding to Israel to ensure US taxpayers are not supporting annexation in any way,” the letter read, in part.

Imagine if this exact wording was used by Democratic representatives in July 1980, when the Israeli Parliament unlawfully annexed East Jerusalem in an action that was – and remains – contrary to international law. The fate of these politicians would have been similar to the fate of others who dared to speak out at the risk of losing their seats in Congress; in fact, their political careers altogether.

But times have changed. It is quite unusual, and refreshing, to see AIPAC scrambling to put out the many fires ignited by the new radical voices among Democrats.

The reason that it is no longer easy for the pro-Israel lobby to maintain its decades-long hegemony over Congress is that the likes of Ocasio-Cortez are, themselves, a byproduct of the generational and, likely, irreversible change that has taken place among Democrats over the years.

The trend of polarization of American public opinion regarding Israel goes back nearly twenty years, when Americans began viewing their support for Israel based on party lines. More recent polls suggest that this polarization is growing. A Pew opinion poll published in 2016 showed that sympathy for Israel among Republicans morphed to an unprecedented 74% while falling among Democrats to 33%.

Then, for the first time in history, support for Israel and Palestinians was almost equally split among Democrats; 33% and 31% respectively. This was a period in which we began seeing such unusual mainstream news headlines as, “Why Democrats are abandoning Israel?”

This ‘abandonment’ continued unabated, as more recent polls have indicated. In January 2018, another Pew survey showed that the Democrats’ support for Israel dwindled to reach 27%.

Not only are the rank-and-file of Democrats walking away from Israel as a result of the growing awareness of Israel’s relentless crimes and violent occupation in Palestine, young Jews are also doing the same.

The changing views on Israel among young American Jews are finally paying dividends, to the extent that, in April 2019, Pew data concluded that Jewish Americans, as a whole, are now far more likely (42%) than Christians to say that President Trump was “favoring the Israelis too much.”

While many Democrats in Congress are increasingly in touch with the views of their constituencies, those at the helm, such as Biden, remain stubbornly committed to agendas that are championed by AIPAC and the rest of the old guard.

The good news from Washington is that, despite Trump’s current support for Israel, an incremental, but lasting structural change continues to take place among Democratic Party supporters everywhere and throughout the country. More sobering news is that Israel’s traditional stronghold over the country’s Jewish communities is faltering – and quickly so.

While AIPAC is likely to continue using and improvising on old tactics to protect Israel’s interests at the US Congress, the long-dubbed ‘powerful lobby’ will unlikely be able to turn back time. Indeed, the age of total dominance of Israel over the US Congress is likely over, and hopefully, this time, for good.

Feature photo | Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. speaks at the 2019 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference, at Washington Convention Center, in Washington, March 26, 2019. Jose Luis Magana | AP

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

https://www.mintpressnews.com/aipac-israel-losing-to-progressive-democrats/269500/

Something Really Fishy

Colin Powell Still A Con Man

Colin Powell Still Wants Answers

Published July 16, 2020

• 
  
  
• Early one morning in August 2002, Jack Straw, the British foreign minister at the time, drove with a small entourage to a beach house in East Hampton on Long Island. The house belonged to the billionaire Ronald Lauder, who for most of August was hosting his good friend and Straw’s American counterpart, Colin Powell.

The foreign minister and the secretary of state had become extraordinarily close over the previous year. Powell’s customary 11 p.m. calls to the Straw household had prompted Straw’s wife to refer to him as “the other man in my life.” The August meeting at the Lauder residence, Powell would later say, was an attempt to answer a question: “Could we both stop a war?”

For nearly a year — since just a few days after the Sept. 11 attacks — Powell had watched as the idea of invading Iraq, once the preoccupation of a handful of die-hards in other corners of the Bush administration, took on increasingly undeniable momentum. Powell thought such an invasion would be disastrous — and yet the prospect had for months seemed so preposterous to Powell and his deputies at the State Department that he assumed it would burn out of its own accord.

Further Reading: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/magazine/colin-powell-iraq-war.html

Boeren Vergiftigen Nederland

'Slechte lucht in Brabant is roofmoordenaar', artsen starten landelijke campagne

Vandaag om 13:30 • Aangepast vandaag om 15:29

Een aantal artsen start in september een landelijke campagne om aandacht te vragen voor de enorme vervuiling van de lucht en de gevolgen hiervan voor onze gezondheid. Dit bijvoorbeeld in gebieden met intensieve veehouderij, zoals Oost-Brabant. Oncologisch chirurg Ignas van Bebber van het Jeroen Bosch Ziekenhuis in Den Bosch lichtte de campagne zondag in de Omroep Brabant-talkshow KRAAK. toe. "We accepteren met ons beleid van ontkennen en negeren dat mensen eerder dood gaan."

Geschreven door

Redactie

De nu aangekondigde campagne is een initiatief van het Artsenforum Gezondheid Natuur en milieu, opgericht door Van Bebber. Het gaat volgens hem om een landelijke campagne op onder meer radio en televisie. Want het verband tussen de slechte luchtkwaliteit en het eerder overlijden van mensen kan volgens hem niet langer worden ontkend. 

'Het maakt ons ziek'
Minder dieren is volgens Van Bebber de enige manier waarop het leefmilieu in gebieden met intensieve veehouderij geleidelijk weer kan herstellen. "We moeten met z'n allen anders gaan eten. En nu écht stoppen met de intensieve veehouderij", is de boodschap van de oncologisch chirurg. "In de gebieden met intensieve veehouderij is de luchtkwaliteit zó slecht, dat dat rechtstreeks gevolgen heeft voor onze longen. Het maakt ons ziek", lichtte hij in een uitgebreider gesprek met Omroep Brabant toe.

"We plegen op dit moment roofmoord op ons milieu en daarmee op onszelf. Ik zie het in de praktijk, aan de achteruitgang van de longen van mensen die in het ziekenhuis komen. De slechte luchtkwaliteit is echt een roofmoordenaar in Brabant, maar ook daarbuiten." 

'Ik heb maar één belang' 
De arts geeft aan te snappen dat boeren het momenteel moeilijk hebben. En hij begrijpt dat ze actievoeren. "Ze vechten voor hun belangen. Maar ik heb maar één belang: de gezondheid van iedereen. Ook die van boeren." Dat het RIVM nu heeft aangekondigd het verband tussen corona en luchtvervuiling te gaan onderzoeken, noemt Van Bebber zondag onnodig. Het zorgt wat hem betreft voor nog meer vertraging. 

"Het ziekmakend effect van een slechte luchtkwaliteit is duidelijk. Onderzoeken hebben het al aangetoond", geeft hij aan. Waarbij hij onder meer verwijst naar een recent Brits onderzoek waarin een verband wordt gelegd tussen luchtverontreiniging en het aantal coronapatiënten. 

Bekijk hier heel het gesprek met oncologisch chirurg Ignas van Bebber in KRAAK.

https://www.omroepbrabant.nl/nieuws/3234452/slechte-lucht-in-brabant-is-roofmoordenaar-artsen-starten-landelijke-campagne?fbclid=IwAR09MPLC9R_PCjOlaSoEobWiQVY22GOprzFOSFZCRd04ewqR6txy7Fqvm5Q

https://www.omroepbrabant.nl/nieuws/3234452/slechte-lucht-in-brabant-is-roofmoordenaar-artsen-starten-landelijke-campagne?fbclid=IwAR09MPLC9R_PCjOlaSoEobWiQVY22GOprzFOSFZCRd04ewqR6txy7Fqvm5Q

   

1080p geselecteerd als afspeelkwaliteit

00:00

PETER HITCHENS: 'Face masks turn us into voiceless submissives'

PETER HITCHENS: :  - and it’s not science forcing us to wear them, it’s politics

By PETER HITCHENS FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

PUBLISHED: 00:09 BST, 19 July 2020 | UPDATED: 00:13 BST, 19 July 2020 

In the name of Covid, the State has already thrust itself into every corner of our existence.

It has come between husbands and wives at the ends of their lives. It has forbidden the old to embrace their grandchildren. 

It has denied us funerals and weddings, locked the churches, silenced the ancient monastic music of cathedral choirs and prevented the free worship of God for the first time in 800 years, and banned us (unless we are Left-wing) from holding or attending public meetings.

It has ordered us to stay at home, scolded or fined us for sunbathing, going on country rambles or even entering our front gardens. 

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The Government began its wild, disproportionate shutdown of the country by spreading fear of a devastating plague that would destroy the NHS and kill untold thousands. Now, as many people find that Covid-19 is, in fact, nothing of the kind, new ways have to be found to keep up the alarm levels. Commuters are pictured above on the London Underground

It has forced millions of us to stop working, sabotaged the educations – at school and university – of untold numbers of young people and has become our boss and paymaster in the biggest state takeover of life and work ever attempted by non-Communists.

Soon we will discover that it has also wrecked an already wobbly economy and separated untold numbers of us from jobs and businesses we thought were safe. Soon, too, it will also separate us from our savings, through punishing tax and savage inflation, to pay for the disaster it has caused.

Now it presumes to tell us what to wear. And what it wants us to wear is a soggy cloth muzzle, a face-nappy that turns its wearer from a normal human into a mumbling, mouthless submissive.

And this, it seems, is popular. Is there nothing the modern British people will not put up with? Britain’s muzzle consumption is now so high that six months from now there will be reports of dolphins and whales floundering about in an ocean made sticky by millions of gallons of hand-sanitiser, as they choke on congealed clumps of used muzzles. These items are set to become the new plastic bags.

Why is this frenzy taking place?

Here is a clue. On July 12, Deborah Cohen, the medical correspondent of BBC2’s Newsnight, revealed an astonishing thing. The World Health Organisation (WHO) had reversed its advice on face masks, from ‘don’t wear them’ to ‘do wear them’.

But the key fact was that it had not done so because of scientific information – the evidence had not backed the wearing of face coverings – but because of political lobbying.

She revealed on Twitter that: ‘We had been told by various sources [that the] WHO committee reviewing the evidence had not backed masks but they recommended them due to political lobbying.’ She said the BBC had then put this to the WHO, which did not deny it.

In March, the WHO had said: ‘There is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can protect them from infection with respiratory viruses, including Covid-19.’

The American TV news channel CNN reported on March 31 that Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies programme, had said at a briefing in Geneva: ‘There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit.

‘In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly.’

A few weeks ago, the WHO changed its advice to say it ‘advises that governments should encourage the general public to wear masks where there is widespread transmission and physical distancing is difficult, such as on public transport, in shops or in other confined or crowded environments.’

Earlier that same month, England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, had said that wearing face masks would do little to combat the outbreak.

While noting that if someone was infected, they might reduce the danger of spreading the disease by covering their faces, Prof Whitty said wearing a face mask had almost no effect on reducing the risk of contracting the illness.

He stated: ‘In terms of wearing a mask, our advice is clear: that wearing a mask if you don’t have an infection reduces the risk almost not at all. So we do not advise that.’

+3

People are seen walking down London's Oxford Street. There is plenty of research showing that the case for muzzles is poor, especially a survey done for the dental profession four years ago, which quietly vanished from the internet after mask opponents began to cite it

Also in March, the Advertising Standards Authority banned two firms’ advertisements for masks, saying that the adverts were ‘misleading, irresponsible and likely to cause fear without justifiable reason’.

At about the same time, Dr Jenny Harries, a Deputy Chief Medical Officer, warned that people could be putting themselves more at risk from contracting Covid by wearing muzzles. She said masks could ‘actually trap the virus’, and cause the person wearing it to breathe it in. She explained: ‘For the average member of the public walking down a street, it is not a good idea.’

On April 3, the other Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, said he did not believe healthy people wearing them would reduce the spread of the disease in the UK.

The British Government has also zig-zagged. As recently as June 24, in a series of official pamphlets for reopening shops and services, the Department for Business and Enterprise said repeatedly: ‘The evidence of the benefit of using a face covering to protect others is weak and the effect is likely to be small.’

This was true at the time and it is still true. The evidence is indeed weak. There is plenty of research showing that the case for muzzles is poor, especially a survey done for the dental profession four years ago, which quietly vanished from the internet after mask opponents began to cite it.

The scientific papers in favour of muzzling are full of weak, hesitant words such as ‘probably, ‘could’ and ‘may’ – which can equally well be expressed as ‘probably not’, ‘could not’ or ‘may not’.

There has not been any great discovery in the past few days.

Generally, the main way of discovering if something works is the Randomised Control Trial (RCT), in which the proposed treatment or method is tested directly and thoroughly.

This hasn’t been done with muzzles, probably because it would be a bit difficult and possibly because muzzle zealots fear the results would not help their case.

Amazingly, the chief spokesman for science in this country, who should surely support proper rigour, has dismissed such RCTs.

Venki Ramakrishnan, president of the Royal Society, sneered at ‘inappropriate’ RCTs as ‘methodological fetishism’. He did this while advocating more compulsory muzzle-wearing when he appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme on July 7 – as the political lobbying for muzzles intensified. All that has changed is the politics.

Why are they changing?

Interestingly, Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s muzzle edict was the first action by the London Government which actually copied a move made by Nicola Sturgeon’s extremely Left-wing Edinburgh administration.

There are many signs that it has not been thought through, at least by scientists.

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Why are we more likely to spread Covid in a shop than we are to do so in a pub or restaurant? The question cannot be answered.

What evidence there is certainly suggests that the risk of transmission is greater if we linger longer, but the Government does not dare close down the catering trade again, because it would be wildly unpopular and because these businesses are on the point of bankruptcy – and such an action would shut them.

The truth is that the muzzle policy is all about power and fear.

The Government began its wild, disproportionate shutdown of the country by spreading fear of a devastating plague that would destroy the NHS and kill untold thousands.

Now, as many people find that Covid-19 is, in fact, nothing of the kind, new ways have to be found to keep up the alarm levels.

One was exposed on Friday by the superb scientists of the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine. Puzzled by the way that Covid death figures in England continued to pour in, while they had all but ceased in Scotland, they looked at the figures from Public Health England (PHE).

And they found, in their own devastating words ‘It seems that PHE regularly looks for people on the NHS database who have ever tested positive, and simply checks to see if they are still alive or not.

‘PHE does not appear to consider how long ago the Covid test result was, nor whether the person has been successfully treated in hospital and discharged to the community. Anyone who has tested Covid positive but subsequently died at a later date of any cause will be included on the PHE Covid death figures.

‘By this PHE definition, no one with Covid in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness. A patient who has tested positive, but been successfully treated and discharged from hospital, will still be counted as a Covid death even if they had a heart attack or were run over by a bus three months later.’

This problem would be avoided by having a simple cut-off, where those who tested positive more than 28 days ago were no longer counted as Covid deaths. Scotland does this. That is why its figures are lower.

Findings are now also pouring in which suggest that a horribly high number of the excess deaths during the last few months were not caused by Covid, but by people failing to seek treatment for heart attacks, strokes and cancer.

Despite the propagandists of the BBC, which has tried as hard as it can never to mention the legions of dissenting scientists who dispute the Government’s policy, people are beginning to wonder, in increasing numbers, if they might have been taken for a ride.

This Government has no great authority. It is a Cabinet of undistinguished, inexperienced unknowns, headed by an exhausted and empty Prime Minister whose sparkle, such as it was, is fast fading.

In a few weeks’ time, the Government faces the onset of what may be the worst economic crisis since 1929. It needs to keep the fear levels up to maintain its authority.

One way of doing this is the ceaseless promotion of an alleged ‘second wave’ of Covid, for which there is no evidence.

Another is to undertake a ferocious testing policy. This is now happening in Leicester where testers go from door to door to discover people who are ‘infected’ with Covid, even if they have no symptoms (which is usually the case) and are perfectly healthy. Then they can raise the alarm and close down the city.

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In a few weeks’ time, the Government faces the onset of what may be the worst economic crisis since 1929. It needs to keep the fear levels up to maintain its authority. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is pictured wearing a mask

But muzzling the populace is even better. People such as me, who think Ministers’ response to the virus is wildly out of proportion, have until now been able to live amid the propaganda, trying to stay sane.

But the muzzle is a badge of subservience and submission. Anyone who dons it publicly is agreeing to the Government’s crazy assessment of the level of danger.

Societies in which citizens are discouraged from speaking out against the regime, as this has become, are pretty disgraceful. But countries where the citizens are compelled to endorse the opinion of the state are a serious step further down the path to totalitarianism.

It is even worse than that.

Look at the muzzled multitudes, their wide eyes peering out anxiously from above the hideous gag which obscures half their faces and turns them from normal human beings into mouthless, obedient submissives. The psychological effect of these garments, on those who wear them, is huge.

And it also has another nasty result for society as a whole.

Dissenters, who prefer not to muzzle themselves, are made to stand out from the surrendered majority, who then become quite keen on pressuring the non- conformists to do as they are told, and on informing against them.

I predicted the same outcome during the House Arrest period in April, and was mocked for it, but it came true.

When all this began, I felt fear. But it was not fear of the disease, which was clearly overstated from the start.

It was fear of exactly what is happening to us, the final closing down of centuries of human liberty and the transformation of one of the freest countries on Earth into a regimented, conformist society, under perpetual surveillance, in which a subservient people scurries about beneath the stern gaze of authority.

It is my view that, if you don that muzzle, you are giving your assent to that change.

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