The Front Page Cover
2016 The truth will set you free
Featuring:
AIPAC's moment of decision
by Caroline B. Glick
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Another Coffin-Top Lecture
It started off well enough. Barack nObama's speech at the memorial for the five slain Dallas police officers began with appropriate solemnity and sorrow, complete with Scripture references and gratitude for the work law enforcement officers do all over the country. He told personal stories about each of the five officers.
But then, as he always does, he got to himself (45 first-person mentions) and his political agenda. After proclaiming "we are not as divided as we seem," he proceeded to divide everyone by their tribal grievances. He again accused police departments of racism. And he ticked off a few of his agenda items:
"As a society, we choose to underinvest in decent schools." Actually, we spend more on education per capita than any other nation. But spending does not automatically equal success.
"We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment." Those are the cities run for decades by leftist policies that we call Democrat urban poverty plantations.
"We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book." What foolish nonsense. But at the same time, nObama said nothing about the thousands of people shot this year — mostly blacks by other blacks — on the aforementioned poverty planation in Chicago.
In any case, this was an inappropriate venue for a stump speech. As Charles C.W. Cooke observed, "This, remember, was a funeral — a funeral for one of the police officers who was murdered last Thursday. It wasn't a rally. It wasn't a White House press conference. It wasn't a public statement, hastily arranged on the airport tarmac. It was a funeral." Unfortunately, nObama has a repugnant habit of standing on coffins to give his moralizing lectures. -The Patriot Post
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U.S. Military Combat Readiness Crisis
China has been steadily developing and expanding its military capabilities. Its coast guard fleet is now bigger than those of Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines combined, and it has continued to expand, having increasing by over 25% since 2012. China's focus is not merely on protecting its own territorial waters, but on expanding the capacity of its navy to meet strategic objectives on a global scale. If China's aggressive naval expansion isn't concerning enough, its building of man-made islands in an attempt to claim exclusive territorial rights across much of the South China Sea should be. On Tuesday, an international court ruled that Chinese actions were in violation of established international maritime law; China's response? It considered the ruling "null and void" with no "binding force."
With the NATO summit this past week, one of the primary concerns being discussed was continued Russian aggression. Not since the end of the Cold War have European nations become this alarmed at the steadily growing threat Russia. It has been two years since Russia annexed Crimea and backed the separatist revolt in eastern Ukraine, with little done to counter Russia's actions.
At this time of growing threats from two of the world's most developed and potent militaries, the U.S. finds its own military combat readiness in a state of crisis — largely thanks to Barack nObama. Recently, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry stated that this lack of combat readiness is primarily the result of "budget cuts coupled with deployment, at a pace and a number that have not really declined very much." Thornberry mentioned several disconcerting statistics regarding the lack of combat readiness and one in particular that helped to puts this crisis into perspective. He stated, "Less than half of the Air Force combat forces are ready to face a peer competitor such as China and Russia." The other branches don't fare much better. Each one faces severe budget, personnel and equipment challenges to overall readiness. But at least the transgendered few can serve openly. -The Patriot Post
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State Dept. to release deleted
liar-Clinton emails uncovered by FBI
by Sarah Westwood
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{washingtonexaminer.com} ~ State Department officials plan to publish all work-related emails discovered on liar-Hillary Clinton's private servers by the FBI once agents turn over the records liar-Clinton withheld from the government... "Just as we processed the material turned over to the department by former Secretary liar-Clinton, we will appropriately and with due diligence process any additional material that we receive from the FBI to identify work-related records and make them available to the public," agency spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday. liar-Clinton had previously stated her legal team provided everything that could possibly considered related to her State Department work to the agency in late 2014... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/state-dept.-to-release-deleted-clinton-emails-uncovered-by-fbi/article/2596392
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liar-Hillary aides, allies took nearly $2 million
in 'blood money' from South Sudan
by Paul Bedard
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{washingtonexaminer.com} ~ South Sudan, accused of killing thousands in a civil war and starving more because it claims to be broke, doled out nearly $2 million to Washington, D.C. public relations and lobbying firms with ties to liar-Hillary Clinton to keep the spigot of taxpayer aid open at full blast, according to a new report... The Center for Public Integrity on Thursday said that some of the money went to a firm owned by the brother of liar-Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta and a former top State Department aid. Other money went to a firm tied to Senate Minority Leader Harry dinky-Reid that created the "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" campaign. And to cover its bases, the murderous government hired a Washington firm headed by a former top House GOP leadership official...
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Lynch Got Nailed – Refuses To Rule Out
Job As liar-Clinton AG
by Rick Wells
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{rickwells.us} ~ The House members from Texas haven’t been shy about challenging Attorney General Lynch to answer questions or expressing their displeasure at the evasiveness of her responses... Rep John Ratcliffe (R-TX) does whittle the restrictive non-testimony of the Attorney General down to expose her obvious attempts to cover up her own wrongdoing as well as shielding liar-Clinton from prosecution. Rep Ratcliffe prefaces his opening question by reminding the Attorney General that she acknowledge the appearance of impropriety in her meeting with Bill liar-Clinton at the Phoenix airport. He then notes how the regime mouthpiece, the New York Times, published information that liar-Clinton had stated her willingness to retain Lynch as Attorney General if she were to win reelection.” He asks if the timing prompted her to give any consideration to recusal, her response was that she felt she could explain it away and retain her position of control. Ratcliffe says he doesn’t want to impugn her integrity by asking the obvious question of whether or not she was bought off by a job offer in a future liar-Clinton administration, but now that the decision has been made, asks if she’s willing to rule out working for the woman she just set free. Lynch once again babbles on, talking about her current focus rather than answering the question. Ratcliffe takes that as a “no.”... http://rickwells.us/lynch-refuses-rule-job-clinton-ag/
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A final footnote on Gadhafi
by Pete Hoekstra
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{aim.org} ~ The report from the House Benghazi Committee discloses a previously unknown but incredibly instructive footnote to the story of the nObama administration’s disastrous foreign policy toward Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi... It was Gadhafi loyalists who rescued the Americans who bravely fought for their lives through the night of Sept. 11, 2012 against the Islamist onslaught on the Benghazi Mission compound. The Salafi-jihadist Muslim Brotherhood-inspired groups – whom the U.S. trained, equipped and supported in overthrowing and assassinating Gadhafi – actively participated in the assault and murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans...
{aim.org} ~ The report from the House Benghazi Committee discloses a previously unknown but incredibly instructive footnote to the story of the nObama administration’s disastrous foreign policy toward Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi... It was Gadhafi loyalists who rescued the Americans who bravely fought for their lives through the night of Sept. 11, 2012 against the Islamist onslaught on the Benghazi Mission compound. The Salafi-jihadist Muslim Brotherhood-inspired groups – whom the U.S. trained, equipped and supported in overthrowing and assassinating Gadhafi – actively participated in the assault and murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans...
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The Power of Lawlessness
by Robert Knight
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{theacru.org} ~ Moral anarchy takes many forms. It can percolate upward, when petty crimes are ignored by the authorities... This used to happen routinely under progressive leadership in New York City, where litter, graffiti and boorish public behavior signaled the real and present danger of more serious crimes like muggings, murders and rapes. Beginning with policing minor violations, crime-busting U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani restored order while serving as New York’s mayor from 1994 to 2001. Ask any resident or New York visitor about the city’s atmosphere pre- and post-Giuliani... http://www.theacru.org/the-power-of-lawlessness/
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Director Comey’s Disgraceful Punt
by Col. Kenneth Allard US Army ret.
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{aim.org} ~ My July Fourth optimism about America’s future lasted less than twelve hours, from colorful fireworks splashed across a South Texas sky to Tuesday morning’s whitewash of liar-Hillary Clinton... But maybe that’s just me because, for the best part of a 25-year military career, I was a special agent in the Army equivalent of the FBI. Most of my experience took place during the Cold War but even today, it is impossible to read the espionage laws without recalling that Congress remains deadly serious about protecting our secrets. Just look at Title 18, Section 793 (f): “Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book … or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust … Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.” Bottom Line: If you are in government, protecting our secrets is what you do... http://www.aim.org/guest-column/director-comeys-disgraceful-punt/?utm_source=AIM+-+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=email070816&utm_medium=email
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The Department of Political Justice
by Judge Andrew Napolitano
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{townhall.com} ~ Is it worth impairing the reputation of the FBI and the Department of Justice to save liar-Hillary Clinton from a deserved criminal prosecution by playing word games?... What has become of the rule of law -- no one is beneath its protections or above its requirements -- when the American public can witness a game of political musical chairs orchestrated by Bill liar-Clinton at an airport in a bizarre ruse to remove the criminal investigation of his wife from those legally responsible for making decisions about it? How hairsplitting can the FBI be in acknowledging "extreme recklessness" while denying "gross negligence" about the same events, at the same time, and in the same respect?... http://townhall.com/columnists/judgeandrewnapolitano/2016/07/08/the-department-of-political-justice-n2188815?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
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nObama’s Biggest Failure
by Steven Malanga
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{city-journal.org} ~ When the country elected Barack nObama president in 2008, those of us who disagreed with many of his policy ideas were nonetheless consoled by the fact that his victory illustrated that America had moved well beyond institutional racism... Certainly the fact that nObama had succeeded in both a hard-fought Democratic primary and a general election meant that the country was ready to move past the intense focus on race in our national politics. Boy, were we wrong! Rather than seeing his own victory as a significant advance in American social life, nObama and those he appointed to his administration vigorously put forward the idea that America remains a deeply racist country, and they have redefined racism in the broadest terms possible. It’s not a coincidence, then, that more than seven years into the administration of the nation’s first black president, Americans are more deeply divided on race then they have been in decades. Their own president has fostered the divide. Several nObama administration initiatives have distorted the national conversation on race. In 2010, for instance, the administration’s education and justice departments launched investigations against school districts around the country for disciplining black students more often, proportionately, than students of other races. A Department of Education study observed that black students were three and a half times more likely to be disciplined. The study alleged that, “everyday educational experience for many students of color violates the principle of equity.” In making its charges, the department ignored compelling data showing that black students were more likely to misbehave in and around school—including crime statistics revealing that blacks were 25 times more likely than their white counterparts to be arrested at schools for serious offenses like battery... http://www.city-journal.org/html/obamas-biggest-failure-14638.html
{city-journal.org} ~ When the country elected Barack nObama president in 2008, those of us who disagreed with many of his policy ideas were nonetheless consoled by the fact that his victory illustrated that America had moved well beyond institutional racism... Certainly the fact that nObama had succeeded in both a hard-fought Democratic primary and a general election meant that the country was ready to move past the intense focus on race in our national politics. Boy, were we wrong! Rather than seeing his own victory as a significant advance in American social life, nObama and those he appointed to his administration vigorously put forward the idea that America remains a deeply racist country, and they have redefined racism in the broadest terms possible. It’s not a coincidence, then, that more than seven years into the administration of the nation’s first black president, Americans are more deeply divided on race then they have been in decades. Their own president has fostered the divide. Several nObama administration initiatives have distorted the national conversation on race. In 2010, for instance, the administration’s education and justice departments launched investigations against school districts around the country for disciplining black students more often, proportionately, than students of other races. A Department of Education study observed that black students were three and a half times more likely to be disciplined. The study alleged that, “everyday educational experience for many students of color violates the principle of equity.” In making its charges, the department ignored compelling data showing that black students were more likely to misbehave in and around school—including crime statistics revealing that blacks were 25 times more likely than their white counterparts to be arrested at schools for serious offenses like battery... http://www.city-journal.org/html/obamas-biggest-failure-14638.html
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nObama's Divisive Double Standards
by David Limbaugh
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{townhall.com} ~ President nObama's knee-jerk reaction to the Dallas shootings brings into clear relief his biases and double standards on racially or religiously motivated violence... Have we ever had a president as blinded by his ideology and as oblivious or dismissive about his own biases and the double standards he invokes? If blacks or Muslims commit acts of violence, nObama calls for unity and demands we not rush to judgment. He bends over backward to deny the racial or religious motives of the actors. In countless acts of Islamic terrorism, before he has even expressed outrage or sorrow over the victims' deaths, nObama lectures us on the immorality of blaming actors of a single religion, tells us how wonderful and peaceful the religion is, and admonishes us against drawing inferences based on indisputable facts. If, on the other hand, blacks or Muslims are even arguably the victims of racial or religious violence, he immediately rushes to judgment and attributes racial or religious motives to the actors...
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The War on Cops
by Thomas Sowell
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{townhall.com} ~ There was never a more appropriately named book than "The War on Cops" by Heather Mac Donald, published a few weeks ago, on the eve of the greatest escalation of that war by the ambush murders of five policemen in Dallas... Nor is this war against the police confined to Dallas. It is occurring across the country. Who is to blame? There is a ton of blame, more than enough to go around to the wide range of people and institutions that have contributed to these disasters. In addition to the murderers who have killed people they don't even know, there are those who created the atmosphere of blind hatred in which such killers flourish. Chief among those who generate this poisonous atmosphere are career race hustlers like Al Sharpton and racist institutions like the "Black Lives Matter" movement. All such demagogues need is a situation where there has been a confrontation where someone was white and someone else was black. The facts don't matter to them... http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2016/07/12/the-war-on-cops-n2191290?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
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AIPAC's moment of decision
by Caroline B. Glick
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{jewishworldreview.com} ~ Later this month the Republicans and Democrats will hold their respective conventions. Donald Trump and liar-Hillary Clinton will officially become the presidential nominees.
Ahead of the conventions, both parties selected delegates to draft their platforms. The Democratic platform committee convened late last month.
As soon as the delegates to the Democratic platform committee were named, it was clear that the party’s support for Israel would come under assault.
After liar-Clinton clinched the Democratic nomination with her primary victories, she decided to allow her defeated opponent, socialist senator Bernie Sanders, to appoint a third of the committee’s membership.
Three of Sanders’s representatives are outspoken opponents of the US alliance with Israel. Rep. Keith Ellison, Prof. Cornell West and James Zogby have all distinguished themselves as rabid critics of Israel and apologists for Palestinian terrorism.
Although commentators downplayed the significance of their appointments, noting that liar-Clinton’s representatives were, by and large, supportive of Israel, the fact is that liar-Clinton was under no obligation to give Sanders’s supporters a seat at the table. That she did so shows that she wanted to showcase growing Democratic opposition to Israel and tip her hat to the growing power of anti-Israel forces in the party.
As expected, Sanders’s representatives submitted a draft platform that called for an “end to the occupation and the illegal settlements.”
In the end, the committee reached a compromise.
While the Zogby/West/Ellison wording was rejected, the draft platform makes explicit mention of Palestinian grievances for the first time calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state that will ensure “the independence, sovereignty and dignity” of the Palestinians.
Watching the drama unfold, the Republicans, reasonably, sought to play up the growing disparity between the GOP’s support for Israel and the Democrats’ growing hostility. After Ellison, West and Zogby were appointed – again, with liar-Clinton’s consent – the Republican Party released an ad attacking the Democrats for abandoning their traditional support for the Jewish state.
The numbers speak for themselves. According to a Pew Research Center survey released in May, since 2014, support for Palestinians among liberal Democrats – that is, hard-line nObama supporters – has skyrocketed from 21 percent to 40%. Support for Israel among the group during the same period decreased from 39% to 33%.
The result marks the first time that support for Palestinians exceeded support for Israel among any major US political demographic. On the other hand, among conservative Republicans, support for Israel stands at 79% while support for Palestinians is almost negligible – 4%. The situation among moderate to liberal Republicans is not much different.
Sixty-five percent support Israel, 13% support the Palestinians. On the other hand, support for Israel versus Palestinians among moderate Democrats stands at 53% to 19%.
To date, the Republicans’ efforts to capitalize on their support for Israel have been stymied by the American Jewish leadership. The desire of Jewish leaders to sweep the growing partisan distinctions under the rug is understandable. They fear that noting the disparity will anger the anti-Israel forces in the Democratic Party, who are led by the president.
Such an event, they fear, will further diminish their capacity to influence nObama’s policy on Israel.
Moreover, it could endanger their support among American Jews.
Since most American Jews are Democrats – and indeed, most American Jewish leaders are Democrats – there is little appetite for a fight with the Democratic Party. Admitting that Republican support for Israel is far stronger than Democratic support would require them to act. Either they will have to switch parties, or they will have to wage an ugly fight with the increasingly powerful – and White House-backed – anti-Israel voices in the party. Not only would such a fight risk losing the party, it would risk losing the Jews who, if forced to choose between their Jewish and liberal sympathies, would, without hesitation, opt to remain in the liberal camp.
The desire to pretend away the problem was on full display late last month. Following the Democrats’ platform meeting, the Anti-Defamation League released a statement calling for the Republicans to effectively replicate the Democrats’ Israel section in the GOP’s platform. ADL’s national chairman Marvin Nathan said, “The platform committee rightfully affirmed the Democrats’ and America’s longstanding commitment to Israel’s security and to Israel’s fundamental rights and enshrined key principles of its quest for peace with the Palestinians through a directly negotiated two-state solution.”
The ADL called on the GOP to approve “similarly strong and unifying language” in its platform “so that both platforms reflect America’s strong bipartisan support for Israel.”
J Street was a central force in the Democratic committee’s deliberation. The far-left Jewish group, which claims to be pro-Israel and pro-peace but has not supported any pro-Israel initiative since it was founded in 2008, supported all the members of Congress who were delegates on the committee.
The rise of J Street as a major force among Democrats is emblematic of the nObama administration’s hostility to Israel and its Jewish American supporters.
The main casualty of J Street’s rise has been AIPAC. J Street was founded to challenge AIPAC’s claim to represent the Jewish community as a whole by claiming that it doesn’t speak for Jews on the Left.
In so has served as a means for enabling Democrats from far-left districts to effectively abandon Israel while using J Street to hide the fact that they have done so. In this way, J Street’s very presence on the political scene has diminished AIPA C’s influence over the party.
J Street supports all manner of anti-Israel measures in the interests of “peace” with the Palestinians.
Indeed, it supported the Sanders delegates’ platform proposal. And throughout nObama’s long courtship of Iran at Israel’s expense, J Street has been an ardent opponent of anti-Iran sanctions and an advocate for whatever deal nObama came up with.
nObama’s use of J Street is just one of the ways has worked to emasculate AIPAC. He has also deliberately hung AIPAC out to dry, repeatedly, in order to humiliate it and weaken its influence over lawmakers.
The most glaring example of that practice was nObama’s insistence that AIPAC lobby Congress in favor of his plan to bomb regime targets in Syria in 2013. Israel had no particular stake in the issue, so AIPAC had no particular reason to get involved.
Moreover, nObama’s plan was unpopular among Democrats and Republicans alike. Democrats opposed his proposed missile strikes because they oppose all US involvement in Middle Eastern wars.
Republicans opposed it, because his plan made no strategic sense. And yet, in the hopes of winning sympathy, and through it, perhaps, influence over its Israel policies, AIPAC dutifully sent its lobbyists to the Hill to push nObama’s plan.
In the end, of course, AIPAC was humiliated, when at the last moment, nObama decided to scrap the strikes.
Then of course, there was nObama’s extraordinary assault of AIPAC over its opposition to his nuclear appeasement of Iran. Throughout the years leading up to his nuclear capitulation to the mullahs last summer, Republicans and pro-Israel Democrats worked together to pass Iran sanctions laws. To appease the administration, AIPAC went out of its way to water down the bills. But the administration was unimpressed.
Last summer, during the fight over Senate Democratic support for the deal, the administration painted AIPAC as a treacherous organization that was working against the US interest for Israel’s benefit.
Anti-Semitic language was deftly deployed by administration surrogates against AIPAC to rally support.
While AIPAC had no choice but to oppose nObama’s embrace of Iran, it has given the administration no fight over its support for the Palestinians against Israel. Indeed, not only has it gone along with the administration’s hostile positions against Israel on the Palestinian issue, it works out that AIPAC has lobbied Republicans to support the Palestinians.
Last week, Republican activists sent me a video recording of the 2012 Republican platform committee’s deliberations regarding the party’s position on Israel. In 2008, the Republican platform included an unequivocal endorsement of unified Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In its words, “We support Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel and moving the American embassy to that undivided capital of Israel.”
In the video recordings, Sue Lynch, a delegate from Wisconsin, is seen introducing an amendment calling for the GOP to strike mention of “unified Jerusalem” from its platform. According to the activists, Lynch was acting as a surrogate for AIPAC in submitting the amendment. And in the event, the 2012 Republican platform sufficed with a mention of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Later in the same recording, a committee member submitted an amendment that would have deleted all mention of a Palestinian state from the platform.
She argued that there was no reason for the US to take a position on the matter, since it has to be determined by Israel. From the response the amendment received, it was difficult to discern any controversy over the effort.
That is, until Brad Gordon, AIPAC director of policy and government relations, took the floor. Gordon repeatedly argued that by not committing the GOP to supporting a Palestinian state, the Republicans risked harming Israel.
“We do not want to do anything that would embarrass the Israeli government,” he said.
And since nObama coerced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into endorsing a Palestinian state, Gordon argued that it would be embarrass Netanyahu to leave it out of the platform. In testament to its power, AIPAC got what it wanted. The amendment deleting mention of the Palestinians was defeated.
In other words, acting through a surrogate and directly, AIPAC weakened Republican support for Israel.
Next week, Republican delegates will convene to write their platform, ahead of their convention, which will begin on July 18. Donald Trump has already expressed reservations about supporting Palestinians statehood and supports moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Moreover, the Israeli government’s guidelines make no mention of Palestinians statehood.
As understandable as the US Jewish leadership’s attempts to hide the growing disparity between Republican and Democratic support have been, the fact is they have failed to bring any positive result.
Now, as the anti-Israel voices among the Democrats have grown so powerful that liar-Clinton has enabled them to influence the party’s position on Israel, AIPAC’s moment of decision has arrived.
Does AIPAC intend to remain a pro-Israel organization? Or will it opt to become a softer version of J Street and work to hollow out Republican support for Israel just as J Street has hollowed out Democratic support for the Jewish state?
Ahead of the conventions, both parties selected delegates to draft their platforms. The Democratic platform committee convened late last month.
As soon as the delegates to the Democratic platform committee were named, it was clear that the party’s support for Israel would come under assault.
After liar-Clinton clinched the Democratic nomination with her primary victories, she decided to allow her defeated opponent, socialist senator Bernie Sanders, to appoint a third of the committee’s membership.
Three of Sanders’s representatives are outspoken opponents of the US alliance with Israel. Rep. Keith Ellison, Prof. Cornell West and James Zogby have all distinguished themselves as rabid critics of Israel and apologists for Palestinian terrorism.
Although commentators downplayed the significance of their appointments, noting that liar-Clinton’s representatives were, by and large, supportive of Israel, the fact is that liar-Clinton was under no obligation to give Sanders’s supporters a seat at the table. That she did so shows that she wanted to showcase growing Democratic opposition to Israel and tip her hat to the growing power of anti-Israel forces in the party.
As expected, Sanders’s representatives submitted a draft platform that called for an “end to the occupation and the illegal settlements.”
In the end, the committee reached a compromise.
While the Zogby/West/Ellison wording was rejected, the draft platform makes explicit mention of Palestinian grievances for the first time calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state that will ensure “the independence, sovereignty and dignity” of the Palestinians.
Watching the drama unfold, the Republicans, reasonably, sought to play up the growing disparity between the GOP’s support for Israel and the Democrats’ growing hostility. After Ellison, West and Zogby were appointed – again, with liar-Clinton’s consent – the Republican Party released an ad attacking the Democrats for abandoning their traditional support for the Jewish state.
The numbers speak for themselves. According to a Pew Research Center survey released in May, since 2014, support for Palestinians among liberal Democrats – that is, hard-line nObama supporters – has skyrocketed from 21 percent to 40%. Support for Israel among the group during the same period decreased from 39% to 33%.
The result marks the first time that support for Palestinians exceeded support for Israel among any major US political demographic. On the other hand, among conservative Republicans, support for Israel stands at 79% while support for Palestinians is almost negligible – 4%. The situation among moderate to liberal Republicans is not much different.
Sixty-five percent support Israel, 13% support the Palestinians. On the other hand, support for Israel versus Palestinians among moderate Democrats stands at 53% to 19%.
To date, the Republicans’ efforts to capitalize on their support for Israel have been stymied by the American Jewish leadership. The desire of Jewish leaders to sweep the growing partisan distinctions under the rug is understandable. They fear that noting the disparity will anger the anti-Israel forces in the Democratic Party, who are led by the president.
Such an event, they fear, will further diminish their capacity to influence nObama’s policy on Israel.
Moreover, it could endanger their support among American Jews.
Since most American Jews are Democrats – and indeed, most American Jewish leaders are Democrats – there is little appetite for a fight with the Democratic Party. Admitting that Republican support for Israel is far stronger than Democratic support would require them to act. Either they will have to switch parties, or they will have to wage an ugly fight with the increasingly powerful – and White House-backed – anti-Israel voices in the party. Not only would such a fight risk losing the party, it would risk losing the Jews who, if forced to choose between their Jewish and liberal sympathies, would, without hesitation, opt to remain in the liberal camp.
The desire to pretend away the problem was on full display late last month. Following the Democrats’ platform meeting, the Anti-Defamation League released a statement calling for the Republicans to effectively replicate the Democrats’ Israel section in the GOP’s platform. ADL’s national chairman Marvin Nathan said, “The platform committee rightfully affirmed the Democrats’ and America’s longstanding commitment to Israel’s security and to Israel’s fundamental rights and enshrined key principles of its quest for peace with the Palestinians through a directly negotiated two-state solution.”
The ADL called on the GOP to approve “similarly strong and unifying language” in its platform “so that both platforms reflect America’s strong bipartisan support for Israel.”
J Street was a central force in the Democratic committee’s deliberation. The far-left Jewish group, which claims to be pro-Israel and pro-peace but has not supported any pro-Israel initiative since it was founded in 2008, supported all the members of Congress who were delegates on the committee.
The rise of J Street as a major force among Democrats is emblematic of the nObama administration’s hostility to Israel and its Jewish American supporters.
The main casualty of J Street’s rise has been AIPAC. J Street was founded to challenge AIPAC’s claim to represent the Jewish community as a whole by claiming that it doesn’t speak for Jews on the Left.
In so has served as a means for enabling Democrats from far-left districts to effectively abandon Israel while using J Street to hide the fact that they have done so. In this way, J Street’s very presence on the political scene has diminished AIPA C’s influence over the party.
J Street supports all manner of anti-Israel measures in the interests of “peace” with the Palestinians.
Indeed, it supported the Sanders delegates’ platform proposal. And throughout nObama’s long courtship of Iran at Israel’s expense, J Street has been an ardent opponent of anti-Iran sanctions and an advocate for whatever deal nObama came up with.
nObama’s use of J Street is just one of the ways has worked to emasculate AIPAC. He has also deliberately hung AIPAC out to dry, repeatedly, in order to humiliate it and weaken its influence over lawmakers.
The most glaring example of that practice was nObama’s insistence that AIPAC lobby Congress in favor of his plan to bomb regime targets in Syria in 2013. Israel had no particular stake in the issue, so AIPAC had no particular reason to get involved.
Moreover, nObama’s plan was unpopular among Democrats and Republicans alike. Democrats opposed his proposed missile strikes because they oppose all US involvement in Middle Eastern wars.
Republicans opposed it, because his plan made no strategic sense. And yet, in the hopes of winning sympathy, and through it, perhaps, influence over its Israel policies, AIPAC dutifully sent its lobbyists to the Hill to push nObama’s plan.
In the end, of course, AIPAC was humiliated, when at the last moment, nObama decided to scrap the strikes.
Then of course, there was nObama’s extraordinary assault of AIPAC over its opposition to his nuclear appeasement of Iran. Throughout the years leading up to his nuclear capitulation to the mullahs last summer, Republicans and pro-Israel Democrats worked together to pass Iran sanctions laws. To appease the administration, AIPAC went out of its way to water down the bills. But the administration was unimpressed.
Last summer, during the fight over Senate Democratic support for the deal, the administration painted AIPAC as a treacherous organization that was working against the US interest for Israel’s benefit.
Anti-Semitic language was deftly deployed by administration surrogates against AIPAC to rally support.
While AIPAC had no choice but to oppose nObama’s embrace of Iran, it has given the administration no fight over its support for the Palestinians against Israel. Indeed, not only has it gone along with the administration’s hostile positions against Israel on the Palestinian issue, it works out that AIPAC has lobbied Republicans to support the Palestinians.
Last week, Republican activists sent me a video recording of the 2012 Republican platform committee’s deliberations regarding the party’s position on Israel. In 2008, the Republican platform included an unequivocal endorsement of unified Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In its words, “We support Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel and moving the American embassy to that undivided capital of Israel.”
In the video recordings, Sue Lynch, a delegate from Wisconsin, is seen introducing an amendment calling for the GOP to strike mention of “unified Jerusalem” from its platform. According to the activists, Lynch was acting as a surrogate for AIPAC in submitting the amendment. And in the event, the 2012 Republican platform sufficed with a mention of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Later in the same recording, a committee member submitted an amendment that would have deleted all mention of a Palestinian state from the platform.
She argued that there was no reason for the US to take a position on the matter, since it has to be determined by Israel. From the response the amendment received, it was difficult to discern any controversy over the effort.
That is, until Brad Gordon, AIPAC director of policy and government relations, took the floor. Gordon repeatedly argued that by not committing the GOP to supporting a Palestinian state, the Republicans risked harming Israel.
“We do not want to do anything that would embarrass the Israeli government,” he said.
And since nObama coerced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into endorsing a Palestinian state, Gordon argued that it would be embarrass Netanyahu to leave it out of the platform. In testament to its power, AIPAC got what it wanted. The amendment deleting mention of the Palestinians was defeated.
In other words, acting through a surrogate and directly, AIPAC weakened Republican support for Israel.
Next week, Republican delegates will convene to write their platform, ahead of their convention, which will begin on July 18. Donald Trump has already expressed reservations about supporting Palestinians statehood and supports moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Moreover, the Israeli government’s guidelines make no mention of Palestinians statehood.
As understandable as the US Jewish leadership’s attempts to hide the growing disparity between Republican and Democratic support have been, the fact is they have failed to bring any positive result.
Now, as the anti-Israel voices among the Democrats have grown so powerful that liar-Clinton has enabled them to influence the party’s position on Israel, AIPAC’s moment of decision has arrived.
Does AIPAC intend to remain a pro-Israel organization? Or will it opt to become a softer version of J Street and work to hollow out Republican support for Israel just as J Street has hollowed out Democratic support for the Jewish state?
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