Pro-Israel Plutocrats Lauder, Adelson Funding Israel Lobby Assault on Hagel

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1. RE: “Which brings me to Sen. Hagel. I think it is time to acknowledge, bluntly, that certain major Jewish organizations, indeed, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations—also, the ADL, AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee, political groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition, along with their various columnists, pundits, and list-serves—are among the most consistent purveyors of McCarthyite-style outrages in America today. Are there greater serial defamers of public officials in fake campaigns against defamation?” ~ by Bernard Avishai (from above)

   SEE: “The Washington witch trial of Chuck Hagel”, By Larry Derfner, +972 Magazine, 2/01/13
   Under pressure over the issues of Iran and Israel at his Senate confirmation hearing, Obama’s nominee for defense secretary caves in completely.

   [EXCERPTS] Thursday’s Senate confirmation hearing of Chuck Hagel was something out of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” or the 1950s House Un-American Activities Committee sessions. “Senator Hagel, are you now or have you ever been a realist?” “Your soul is in peril, Senator – recant!”
   And Hagel recanted, over and over again. Under pressure on Iran and Israel (among other taboo subjects), he apologized to his inquisitors for referring to the “Jewish lobby” (“I should have said ‘pro-Israel lobby’”), apologized for saying it “intimidated” people (“I should have said ‘influenced’”), caved in over saying the lobby had gotten Congress to do “dumb” things (couldn’t think of a dumb thing it had ever gotten Congress to do). . .
   . . . Hagel needs five Republican votes to get confirmed as secretary of defense; reports are that it’s touch and go. At this point, I don’t think it matters; he’s been so compromised, so smacked around by Israel’s enforcers, that he’d probably be afraid to say anything but “yes” to Netanyahu once he got to the Pentagon.
   This was a spectacle of America and Israel at their worst. It was the worst of the Obama administration, too, a reminder of why this president’s second term is unlikely to be any better than his first as far as the Middle East is concerned. . .

   ENTIRE COMMENTARY – link to 972mag.com

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2. RE: “Pro-Israel Plutocrats Lauder, Adelson Funding Israel Lobby Assault on Hagel”

   SEE: “The New McCarthyism of Jewish Organizations: Where Is Our Murrow?”, by Bernard Avishai, bernardavishai.blogspot.com, 12/26/12

   [EXCERPT] I am just old enough to remember grown-up disquiet when speaking of McCarthyism—the first thick book I read was Louis Nizer’s My Life in Court, which was largely about the libel case of Quentin Reynolds against Westbrook Pegler, the impresario of the scurrilous Red Channels—and I remember feeling a certain pride in the very large number of Jewish liberals who, like Nizer, helped bring America back to its senses.
   Let the galoots disgrace themselves attacking war-heroes like General Marshall. Let weird groups like the John Birchers and Daughters of the American Revolution and Republican Tafters impugn a man’s integrity, then repeat each others’ insinuations, then spread them to widening circles in captive media (where sympathetic pens were waiting). Let them point to the public doubts they themselves manufactured “out of whole cloth,” as my father used to say. Jews, and Jewish organizations, knew where they stood in the face of such smears. They stood for fairness, patience, sanity. We knew for whom an unfair, impatient, insane America would not “be good for.”
   There was Fred Friendly, who collaborated with Edward R. Murrow in challenging McCarthy on CBS. There was Arthur Miller, whose 1953 play, “The Crucible,” about the Salem witch trials, was a thinly veiled attack on the House Un-American Activities Committee. There was I.F. Stone who, forced to strike out on his own, proved the grandeur of the first amendment. There was Commentary Magazine before Norman Podhoretz lost his mind. In the America I knew, which only grew more so during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, American Jews—with their worldly souls and experience of the social margins—were the natural opponents (because potential victims) of the fear, flocking, and fanaticism that produced political libels.
   Which brings me to Sen. Hagel. I think it is time to acknowledge, bluntly, that certain major Jewish organizations, indeed, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations—also, the ADL, AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee, political groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition, along with their various columnists, pundits, and list-serves—are among the most consistent purveyors of McCarthyite-style outrages in America today. Are there greater serial defamers of public officials in fake campaigns against defamation? Starting with Andrew Young and the late Charles Percy, and on to Chas Freeman and (now) Chuck Hagel, the game has been to keep Congresspeople and civil servants who might be skeptical of Israel’s occupation and apologetics in a posture that can only be called exaggerated tact.
   Fault Israel and you are accused of faulting Jews in our collective state, or, the same thing, overlooking the venality of our enemies—things only an anti-Semite would do and, of all times, in the wake of the Holocaust. This is not a charge anyone in public life wants to suffer or try to deny. My Israeli friends love that old Borsch-belt joke, that anti-Semitism means disliking Jews more than necessary. For American Jewish organizations, the very idea that dislike is ever warranted is proof of bigotry, like Philip Roth’s early novels were proof of “self-hatred.” . . .

   ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to bernardavishai.blogspot.com

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3. It’s Secretary of Defense he’s going for not Secretary of State (first paragraph), John Kerry has already taken that one.

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4. I just have to wonder if there is some Jewish calling list, or does someone just go through the phone directory looking for Jewish-sounding names. I think it’s more likely that calls are strictly random.

   I really don’t know why all the fuss about Hagel. He won’t be able to change US foreign policy and will only do what Obama tells him to do. Is this all just political theater, or what?

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   1. Marketing companies will sell mailing/calling lists which purport to be any sector of the population their customers might be interested in. Along the way, many of them are prepared to break all sorts of data protection laws to compile the list, and most of them are willing to sell lists with an awful lot of false positives on. So, possibly very nearly random in practice, but in theory the phone book and electoral register will have been fed through a few database “filters” to produce a list, which someone will have paid money for.

      Anyone running a major gambling racket will have this kind of marketing company on speed-dial already.

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5. Pathetic Elders-of-Zion wannabes.

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