The Intercept
Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
Hillary Clinton, With Little Notice, Vows to Embrace an Extremist Agenda on
Israel
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald
Feb. 18 2016, 7:53 a.m.
Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
Former President Bill Clinton on Monday met in secret (no press allowed) with
roughly 100 leaders of South Florida’s Jewish community and, as The Times of
Israel reports, “he vowed that, if elected, Hillary Clinton would make it one
of her top priorities to strengthen the US-Israel alliance.” He also “stressed
the close bond that he and his wife have with the State of Israel.”
It may be tempting to dismiss this as standard, vapid Clintonian politicking:
adeptly telling everyone what they want to hear and making them believe it.
After all, is it even physically possible to “strengthen the US-Israel
alliance” beyond what it already entails: billions of dollars in American
taxpayer money transferred every year, sophisticated weapons fed to them as
they bomb their defenseless neighbors, blindly loyal diplomatic support and
protection for everything they do?
But Bill Clinton’s vow of even greater support for Israel is completely
consistent with what Hillary Clinton herself has been telling American-Jewish
audiences for months. In November, she published an Op-Ed in The Forward in
which she vowed to strengthen relations not only with Israel but also with its
extremist Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I have stood with Israel my entire career,” she proclaimed. Indeed, “as
secretary of state, [she] requested more assistance for Israel every year.”
Moreover, she added, “I defended Israel from isolation and attacks at the
United Nations and other international settings, including opposing the biased
Goldstone report [which documented widespread Israeli war crimes in Gaza].”
Clinton media operatives such as Jonathan Alter have tried to undermine the
Sanders campaign by claiming that only Sanders, but not Clinton, has committed
the sin of criticizing Obama: “Hillary stopped criticizing Obama in 2008, when
[Obama] was nominee; Sanders stopped in 2015, so he could run as Dem.” Aside
from being creepy – it’s actually healthy to criticize a President and
pathological to refuse to do so – this framework is also blatantly false.
Clinton, in her book and in interviews, has often criticized Obama for being
insufficiently hawkish: making clear that she wanted to be more militaristic
than the Democratic President who has literally bombed 7 predominantly Muslim
countries (thus far).
Her comments on Israel have similarly contained implicit criticisms of Obama’s
foreign policy: namely, that he has created or at least allowed too much
animosity with Netanyahu. In her Forward Op-Ed, she wrote that the Israeli
Prime Minister’s “upcoming visit to Washington is an opportunity to reaffirm
the unbreakable bonds of friendship and unity between the people and
governments of the United States and Israel.” She pointedly added: “The
alliance between our two nations transcends politics. It is and should always
be a commitment that unites us, not a wedge that divides us.” And in case her
message is unclear, she added this campaign promise: “I would also invite the
Israeli prime minister to the White House in my first month in office.”
Last month, Clinton wrote an even more extreme Op-Ed in the Jewish Journal, one
that made even clearer that she intends to change Obama’s policy to make it
even more “pro-Israel.” It begins: “In this time of terrorism and turmoil, the
alliance between the United States and Israel is more important than ever. To
meet the many challenges we face, we have to take our relationship to the next
level.”
“With every passing year, we must tie the bonds tighter,” she wrote. Tie those
bonds tighter. Thus:
As part of this effort, we need to ensure that Israel continues to maintain its
qualitative military edge. The United States should further bolster Israeli
air defenses and help develop better tunnel detection technology to prevent
arms smuggling and kidnapping. We should also expand high level U.S.-Israel
strategic consultations.
As always, there is not a word about the oppression and brutality imposed on
Palestinians as part of Israel’s decades-long occupation. She does not even
acknowledge, let alone express opposition to, Israel’s repeated,
civilian-slaughtering bombing of the open-air prison in Gaza. That’s because
for Clinton – like the progressive establishment which supports her – the
suffering and violence imposed on Palestinians literally do not exist. None of
this is mentioned, even in passing, in the endless parade of pro-Clinton
articles pouring forth from progressive media outlets.
Beyond progressive indifference, Clinton has been able to spout such extremist
rhetoric with little notice because Bernie Sanders’ views on Israel/Palestine
(like his foreign policy views generally) are, at best, unclear. Like many
American Jews, particularly of his generation, he has long viewed Israel
favorably, as a crucial protective refuge after the Holocaust. But while he is
far from radical on these matters, he at least has been more willing than the
standard Democrat, and certainly more willing than Clinton, to express
criticisms of Israel. Still, his demonstrated preference for focusing on
domestic issues at the expense of foreign policy has unfortunately enabled
Clinton to get away with all sorts of extremism and pandering in this area.
Clinton partisans – being Clinton partisans – would, if they ever did deign to
address Israel/Palestine, undoubtedly justify Clinton’s hawkishness on the
ground of political necessity: that she could never win if she did not
demonstrate steadfast devotion to the Israeli government. But for all his
foreign policy excesses, including on Israel, Obama has proven that a national
politician can be at least mildly more adversarial to Israeli leaders and still
retain support. And notably, there is at least one politician who rejects the
view that one must cling to standard pro-Israel orthodoxy in order to win; just
yesterday, Donald Trump vowed “neutrality” on Israel/Palestine.
As I noted a couple of weeks ago, Clinton advocates are understandably
desperate to manufacture the most trivial controversies because the alternative
is to defend her candidacy based on her prior actions and current beliefs (that
tactic was actually pioneered by then-Clinton operative Dick Morris, who had
his client turn the 1996 election into a discussion of profound topics such as
school uniforms). If you were a pro-Clinton progressive, would you want to
defend her continuous vows to “strengthen” U.S. support for the Netanyahu
government and ensure that every year “we must tie the bonds tighter”?
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43
Hillary Clinton, With Little Notice, Vows to Embrace an Extremist Agenda on
Israel
/staff/glenn-greenwald/ /staff/glenn-greenwald/
/staff/glenn-greenwald/ /staff/glenn-greenwald/
Glenn Greenwald
Feb. 18 2016, 7:53 a.m.
Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
Former President Bill Clinton on Monday met in secret (no press allowed) with
roughly 100 leaders of South Florida’s Jewish community and, as The Times of
Israel reports, “he vowed that, if elected, Hillary Clinton would make it one
of her top priorities to strengthen the US-Israel alliance.” He also “stressed
the close bond that he and his wife have with the State of Israel.”
It may be tempting to dismiss this as standard, vapid Clintonian politicking:
adeptly telling everyone what they want to hear and making them believe it.
After all, is it even physically possible to “strengthen the US-Israel
alliance” beyond what it already entails: billions of dollars in American
taxpayer money transferred every year, sophisticated weapons fed to them as
they bomb their defenseless neighbors, blindly loyal diplomatic support and
protection for everything they do?
But Bill Clinton’s vow of even greater support for Israel is completely
consistent with what Hillary Clinton herself has been telling American-Jewish
audiences for months. In November, she published an Op-Ed in The Forward in
which she vowed to strengthen relations not only with Israel but also with its
extremist Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I have stood with Israel my entire career,” she proclaimed. Indeed, “as
secretary of state, [she] requested more assistance for Israel every year.”
Moreover, she added, “I defended Israel from isolation and attacks at the
United Nations and other international settings, including opposing the biased
Goldstone report [which documented widespread Israeli war crimes in Gaza].”
Clinton media operatives such as Jonathan Alter have tried to undermine the
Sanders campaign by claiming that only Sanders, but not Clinton, has committed
the sin of criticizing Obama: “Hillary stopped criticizing Obama in 2008, when
[Obama] was nominee; Sanders stopped in 2015, so he could run as Dem.” Aside
from being creepy – it’s actually healthy to criticize a President and
pathological to refuse to do so – this framework is also blatantly false.
Clinton, in her book and in interviews, has often criticized Obama for being
insufficiently hawkish: making clear that she wanted to be more militaristic
than the Democratic President who has literally bombed 7 predominantly Muslim
countries (thus far).
https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/02/clintonobama.png
https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/02/clintonobama.png
Her comments on Israel have similarly contained implicit criticisms of Obama’s
foreign policy: namely, that he has created or at least allowed too much
animosity with Netanyahu. In her Forward Op-Ed, she wrote that the Israeli
Prime Minister’s “upcoming visit to Washington is an opportunity to reaffirm
the unbreakable bonds of friendship and unity between the people and
governments of the United States and Israel.” She pointedly added: “The
alliance between our two nations transcends politics. It is and should always
be a commitment that unites us, not a wedge that divides us.” And in case her
message is unclear, she added this campaign promise: “I would also invite the
Israeli prime minister to the White House in my first month in office.”
Last month, Clinton wrote an even more extreme Op-Ed in the Jewish Journal, one
that made even clearer that she intends to change Obama’s policy to make it
even more “pro-Israel.” It begins: “In this time of terrorism and turmoil, the
alliance between the United States and Israel is more important than ever. To
meet the many challenges we face, we have to take our relationship to the next
level.”
https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/02/clintonjj.png ;
https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/02/clintonjj.png
“With every passing year, we must tie the bonds tighter,” she wrote. Tie those
bonds tighter. Thus:
As part of this effort, we need to ensure that Israel continues to maintain its
qualitative military edge. The United States should further bolster Israeli air
defenses and help develop better tunnel detection technology to prevent arms
smuggling and kidnapping. We should also expand high level U.S.-Israel
strategic consultations.
As always, there is not a word about the oppression and brutality imposed on
Palestinians as part of Israel’s decades-long occupation. She does not even
acknowledge, let alone express opposition to, Israel’s repeated,
civilian-slaughtering bombing of the open-air prison in Gaza. That’s because
for Clinton – like the progressive establishment which supports her – the
suffering and violence imposed on Palestinians literally do not exist. None of
this is mentioned, even in passing, in the endless parade of pro-Clinton
articles pouring forth from progressive media outlets.
Beyond progressive indifference, Clinton has been able to spout such extremist
rhetoric with little notice because Bernie Sanders’ views on Israel/Palestine
(like his foreign policy views generally) are, at best, unclear. Like many
American Jews, particularly of his generation, he has long viewed Israel
favorably, as a crucial protective refuge after the Holocaust. But while he is
far from radical on these matters, he at least has been more willing than the
standard Democrat, and certainly more willing than Clinton, to express
criticisms of Israel. Still, his demonstrated preference for focusing on
domestic issues at the expense of foreign policy has unfortunately enabled
Clinton to get away with all sorts of extremism and pandering in this area.
Clinton partisans – being Clinton partisans – would, if they ever did deign to
address Israel/Palestine, undoubtedly justify Clinton’s hawkishness on the
ground of political necessity: that she could never win if she did not
demonstrate steadfast devotion to the Israeli government. But for all his
foreign policy excesses, including on Israel, Obama has proven that a national
politician can be at least mildly more adversarial to Israeli leaders and still
retain support. And notably, there is at least one politician who rejects the
view that one must cling to standard pro-Israel orthodoxy in order to win; just
yesterday, Donald Trump vowed “neutrality” on Israel/Palestine.
As I noted a couple of weeks ago, Clinton advocates are understandably
desperate to manufacture the most trivial controversies because the alternative
is to defend her candidacy based on her prior actions and current beliefs (that
tactic was actually pioneered by then-Clinton operative Dick Morris, who had
his client turn the 1996 election into a discussion of profound topics such as
school uniforms). If you were a pro-Clinton progressive, would you want to
defend her continuous vows to “strengthen” U.S. support for the Netanyahu
government and ensure that every year “we must tie the bonds tighter”?
