The AIPAC Israel Lobby has truly arrived Down Under.
Right-wing astroturfers infiltrate local councils, fire up Labor v Greens unrest over Israel
Tag: Israel lobby
Inquiry into anti-semitism a Trojan Horse for the Israel lobby
Aug 29, 2024
In June this year, Liberal MP Julian Leeser introduced a bill in Federal Parliament for a Commission of Inquiry into Ant…
The Biden administration has instead supported Israel at every turn, while at the same time haplessly protesting what Israel is doing or not doing.
To make matters worse, neither Congress, nor Republican leaders, nor the mainstream media, has pushed the Biden administration to pressure Israel to change its behavior in any meaningful way.
This disturbing situation raises the obvious question: why?
The answer: the awesome power of the Israel lobby.
Israel lobby groups have increased efforts to silence those accusing the nation of genocide in Gaza.
The United States makes much of the role of the Iranian Council of Guardians selecting acceptable candidates for political office but ignores the role of its own Council of Guardians, AIPAC, which decides on suitable candidates for office.
U.S. Congressman Jamaal Bowman, once a recipient of lobby largesse, after seeing reality in Palestine on a J Street-funded excursion, called Gaza a genocide and said boycotts were legitimate.
Israeli lobby groups spent $9.9 million in a Democrat primary to get rid of him in favour of a supporter of Israel.
The scare campaign around rising anti-Semitism, which conflates criticism of Israel’s mass atrocities with prejudice against Jews, is a feature of most of the old colonial countries.
Mary Kostakidis, one of Australia’s most respected journalists, who speaks truth to power, has written regarding the Israeli genocide in Gaza:
‘In an effort to silence me, the Zionist Federation have filed a complaint with the [Australian Human Rights Commission] for racial vilification, aided by a reporter who can’t do his own research.’
The lobby levelled another case of harassment and suspicious accusations against a Palestinian Australian engaged in anti-genocide activity
Hash Tayeh, who had to present himself to the police over alleged anti-Semitic comments, was not charged and his matter has been referred to the Office of Public Prosecutions.
His Caulfield Burgertory outlet was set on fire, allegedly by two men, on 10 November, an attack he claimed was linked to his involvement in a pro-Palestine rally and thus a hate crime.
Then we witnessed the arrest of a Palestinian activist in the Prime Minister’s electoral office.
Sarah Shaweesh, who was asking about the delay in visas for her family in Gaza, was arrested.
The office refused to help her.
She is a key organiser of the 24/7 Gaza sit-in protest in front of the PM’s office.
Israel lobby ramps up scare campaigns in fear of truth
ISRAEL |
Recipients include the prime minister and his deputy, the new foreign secretary and home secretary, reports John McEvoy. The attorney general appointment, however, was surprising.
Pro-Israel lobbyists have donated to 13 out of Labour’s 25 cabinet members since they were first elected to parliament, Declassified can reveal.
The list of recipients includes Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his deputy Angela Rayner, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Jonathan Reynolds, who will oversee arms exports to Israel as U.K. trade secretary, is another beneficiary, alongside Labour’s election mastermind Pat McFadden, whose responsibilities now include national security.
Some of the donations were provided by Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), a lobby group which takes MPs on “fact-finding” missions to the region.
‘The Israel Lobby’ in 2007, superior public relations has served as the main explanation for the outsized influence that the nation of Israel holds over American politicians. In that telling, AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) and other supporters of Israel built a sophisticated and far-reaching public relations machine that promotes US politicians who support Israel and punishes those who don’t.
Conceived this way, rich supporters of Israel finance public relations campaigns whereby American politicians are (legally) bribed and coerced into giving US foreign aid to Israel. This aid is then delivered to the nation of Israel, with a preponderance of the money being spent on weapons produced by American weapons producers. To the extent that the goal of ‘the Israel lobby’ is to maximize US foreign aid to Israel, it is also maximizing funding for the American MIC (military-industrial complex).
Source: The ‘Israel Lobby’ Works for the US Military Industrial Complex – CounterPunch.org
Also listed as an attendee is Adam Goldstein, managing director at Harvard Management Company, which helps oversee Harvard University’s over $50 billion endowment — the largest on Earth. The endowment investment fund has been accused in the past of investing nearly $200 million in companies that profit off Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. (The Harvard Management Company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Source: Investors, Business Execs on “Tech Mission” Solidarity Trip to Israel
The combination of the blood line related requirements to be considered Jewish by the Orthodox Rabbinical Court and the restriction of marriage requiring religious ceremonies shows an intent to maintain race purity. At its core, this is no different than the desire for pure blooded Aryans in Nazi Germany or pure blooded whites in the Jim Crow Southern United States.
Those who support these discriminatory laws and embrace Israeli apartheid are blinded by willful ignorance, racism or cynicism. Their goal is to dehumanize Palestinians, champion an intolerant Jewish chauvinism and entice the naïve and the gullible into justifying the unjustifiable. Kennedy, bereft of a moral compass and a belief system rooted in verifiable fact, has not only failed the Palestinians, he has failed us.
Source: Chris Hedges: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – The Israel Lobby’s Useful Idiot – scheerpost.com
In New York State, nonprofits complicit in Israel’s illegal settlements rake in tens of millions of dollars in tax-exempt donations per year. Socialist lawmakers are fighting to change that — and loosen the Israel lobby’s stranglehold on US politics.
Source: New York Socialists Are Showing How to Stand Up to the Israel Lobby
Israel Lobby demands any criticism be shut down in the US. How is it that we don’t hear of the lobby’s activity here in Australia? Other than Andrew Bolt monotonously saying “I’m a friend of the Jews”when his family origins are Alsmeer the Dutch most notorious hotbed of Nazi support in WW2. On that topic Bolt is his own lobbyist and never mentions it other than it’s a place he made a pilgrimage to annually before Covid.
Civil rights experts and Palestine solidarity activists are commending the US Department of Education for not caving into demands by Israel lobby groups and lawmakers to redefine anti-Jewish bigotry to include criticism of Israel.
Source: US Dept of Education rebuffs Israel lobby demands | The Electronic Intifada
Israel is hardly Jewish
AIPAC and Jewish Republicans are a puzzlement. They are financially supporting over 100 racists, climate deniers and election deniers running for Congress, because they express unqualified support for Israel’s occupation, expansionist settlements and denial of Palestinian human rights. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), one of the more powerful lobbies in the country, has targeted progressive Jewish candidates such as California’s Sara Jacobs for unseating. How can such smart people become so deeply invested in causes and candidates destructive to our interests as Jews and Americans? As Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) has pointed out, AIPAC itself is a sort of “hate group,” which uses charges of anti-Semitism as a campaign tool, while fueling anti-Semitism by its ugly tactics at the same time.
Bigotry is bad and no one form of bigotry is any worse or more justified than another. This attitude should taken by all levels of government. To treat one form of bigotry as more important than another is, in itself, a form of bigotry.
Bigotry, racism and the power of the Israel lobby
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – CNN has fired contributor Marc Lamont Hill for a speech he gave on Palestinian rights at the UN. The speech can be found here.
You can protest this outrageous firing at this petition site.
And here is a link to his book, Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond, which everyone should buy and read.
CNN would have been under special pressure to fire Hill because he is a prominent African-American intellectual with a following in his own community, and the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs (the propaganda arm of the Likud government) is worried about the boycott and sanctions movement spreading among American minorities who might sympathize with the oppressed Palestinians.
1 The Bottomless Dishonesty of CNN on Palestine and Marc Lamont Hill Firing
2 Israeli Court Grants Palestinian Lands near Bethlehem to Israeli Squatters
3 MESA Slams new Version of Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S. 720) for Criminalizing Criticism of Israel
However, the explosive contents of the leaked clip almost pale in comparison to the shocking success of the Israel lobby in stopping the release of the documentary.
“There’s an enormous amount of irony around the fact that the Israel lobby has managed to suppress the release of a documentary about the Israel lobby. It really does demonstrate its power and in an unlikely way. Because we know that Qatar has a relationship with Hamas – the governing authority of the Gaza strip – that Qatar maintains diplomatic relations with Iran. It’s not the kind of country you would think that the Israel lobby could influence,” Blumenthal noted.
He explained how Alan Dershowitz and Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, traveled to Doha and pressed the Qatari government to stop the documentary in exchange for their support against the Saudi and UAE embargo.
![The Jewish Leadership Council during their annual meeting at 10 Downing Street in London on January 13, 2015 [Getty]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2015/3/22/959447dc464441f8bd5178d672a5dd60_18.jpg "Israel lobby's attack on academic freedom")
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