Two incendiary Likudist media provocations today: the first is yet another in a series of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s New York Times ads touting Sheldon Adelson’s anti-Muslim agenda. Previous ads in the series have attacked Iran, Hamas and the UN with equal vitriol. I’ve written about a few of them before here. But today’s ad is truly extraordinary. It essentially accuses Susan Rice, Obama’s national security advisor, and by extension the President himself, of being willing collaborators in a future genocide against not just Israel, but the entire Jewish people.
As I’ve noted before in posts on these ads, the ad copy makes no pretence of truth or accuracy. It is shameless, hucksterism for Likudist values. In case anyone needs to read Boteach’s accusations against Rice in long-form, he’s elaborated on his diatribe here.
Note, in the ad the attempt at drawing a parallel between Rwandan and Jewish genocide. This is no accident: Paul Kagame is a “good friend” of both Israel’s and Shmuley’s. He’s appeared at pro-Israelfests along with Elie Wiesel and Adelson. Kagame’s Rwanda is a major customer of Israel’s military defense industry, buying millions in advanced weaponry. As I’ve written here, Israel likes its African clients to be hungry for weapons, corrupt and tyrannical. Kagame, co-author of Congolese genocide which has murdered over 4-million, fits the bill perfectly.
Now let’s explain why this is Boteach’s Night of the Long Knives for Susan Rice. Though the OBama administration has made perfectly clear its boiling anger at Netanyahu for bringing his anti-Iran road show to Congress, it has been careful about the tenor of public statements on the matter. Officials have argued that the speech is ill-advised and politely expressed their displeasure. Off the record statements have been more strongly negative.
But Rice was the first official to take out after Bibi publicly. The Washington Post reported her interview with Charley Rose, in which she accused Netanyahu of :
“inject[ing] a degree of partisanship, which is not only unfortunate. I think it’s destructive of the fabric of the relationship. It’s always been bipartisan. We need to keep it that way. We want it that way. I think Israel wants it that way. The American people want it that way. And when it becomes injected or infused with politics, that’s a problem,” Rice said Tuesday, using the strongest language yet from an Obama administration official regarding a visit that has rankled both sides and strained ties between the countries.
Bibi is not one to take such “impertinence” from a mere Obama underling lying down. His reply took the form of this disgusting ad. How disgusting is it? It’s so bad almost the entire Jewish communal world released statements denouncing it as soon as Shabbat had ended. That is quick work. Usually when some outrageously offensive pro-Israel statement like this comes out, it will take the ADL at least days to respond, if it ever does.
While these criticisms of Boteach are welcome, they’re hypocritical. Most of these organizations, including Aipac, support Bibi’s views of Iran. They may not believe Iran contemplates genocide against the Jews, as the loony tunes brigade does. But they believe Iran is evil and probably support a military attack against it if either Israel or the U.S. were willing. So the Jewish communal leadership is only marginally saner and more pragmatic on Iran than Bibi.
Further, none of these groups attacked any of Boteach’s previous disgusting Islamophobic ads. As long as Boteach smears Muslims it’s fine with the Jewish elites. But when he smears a U.S. president and high administration official, then it goes too far. I’ve got news for them all. Boteach and Adelson are a menace to American Jewry. If they don’t take a stronger stance against them, pretty soon they’ll have bought there way into positions of even greater power and influence here in America. You think the last election cycle, when Adelson pumped over $100-million into the presidential campaign, was bad? Try $200-or even $300-million in 2016. And Adelson the gambling magnate will put it all down on one number: Israel. Adelson’s next president, if his money has any say in the matter, will turn the adminsitration into an annex of the Likud party. All administration personnel having anything to do with the Middle East will be vetted by Adelson and Bibi and their political minions.
There is another thinly concealed factor in the attack on Rice: race. It’s no secret that the majority of those Congress members refusing to attend Netanyahu’s Congressional speech are members of the Black Caucus. The Israel Lobby, which heavily finances some House races in minority districts, doubtless sees this as a betrayal. Further, Boteach and Adelson can’t attack Obama head-on since he’s the President, so they attack the second most senior African-American in the administration, Susan Rice. Make no mistake, this is politics as ugly as it gets. And the only reason it won’t get a lot uglier in the next election is the likely Democratic candidate will be white.
More must be done to inoculate the American people against the hate and lies spewed by the Adelson-Boteach cabal.
About that Iran sunset clause… // Headlines from the future: March 2025 pic.twitter.com/OEsBO3JDR6
— Embassy of Israel (@IsraelinUSA) February 26, 2015
A junior member of this cabal is Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer. He’s a former operative in the Frank Luntz political consulting machine and Bibi’s brain according to some Israeli media portrayals. Dermer was the “mastermind” behind Bibi’s Congressional speech, having organized it with John Boehner. Not to be outdone by that feat of political malpractice, Dermer has tweeted a memorable fake New York TImes front page from 2025. The headlines scream about a dystopian world in which gas prices have pentupled, Iran has ICBMs capable of striking New York, and Pres. Rouhani boasts about the lies he told to hoodwink President Obama into a terrible nuclear deal.
To say the tweet is shameless and moronic is an understatement. In fact, I’d say there are lies, damn lies, and Ron Dermer.
There will be a nuclear agreement with Iran. I hope Pres. Obama will sell it well to the American people. I hope his enemies will not carry the day in portraying it as a betrayal of American interests. I very much doubt that will happen. Bibi Netanyahu will scream bloody murder about it. He will travel the world telling anyone who will listen about American betrayal and nuclear apocalypse.
More than anything else what must happen is that the world must tune this static out. It must send Bibi and his world view packing. The Middle East deserves better. It deserves a chance to see Iran and the U.S. engaged in building a constructive relationship, even if this takes years or more to accomplish. The region deserves stability and development. Not endless rancor and blood-letting: the nostrum Bibi offers.
There another important reason why this agreement must succeed. Islamism is on the rise around the world. There is only one way to combat it successfully: by showing an alternative. Iran can exert a positive, stabilizing force in regional affairs including serving as an anchor against Islamist terrorists like ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Today’s Israel, ruled by megalomaniacs like Bibi and disciples like Bennett and Lieberman, leads only a dead end. The U.S. must not follow these ultra-nationalists into that Alley to Nowhere.
Sign the petition: we’re up to 328 signers of the Change.org petition asking Congress to skip Bibi’s speech. There are now five senators and over 20 House members who are doing so. Keep the momentum going. Please sign.
Shame on Rabbi Boteach, Susan Rice is a friend of Kagame and other African despots. 🙁
In this odious advertisement George Shultz is quoted as saying about Iran: “They don’t want a nuclear weapon for deterrence. They want it to use it. On Israel.”
I have not been able to verify the authenticity of this quote. If Shultz really came up with this it is easier to assume that he is individually losing his marbles than that the ayatollahs are collectively doing so. Why would they hanker after the assured destruction of most of their own country?
I am inclined to think however that the quote is apocryphal – in spite of Shultz’s reputation of being the most pro-Israel Foreign Secretary ever.
His known present preoccupation with nuclear matters suggest that he is still sane enough. He wants nuclear disarmament on al sides and attends many meetings where this aim is discussed. One of these was the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament of February 2009, which gathered at the initiative of the Norwegian government.
What was one of the more remarkable moments for Shultz there? In an interview with him, published in MIT News, he is quoted as saying inter alia: “At that United Nations meeting, in some ways the most startling comment was made by President Sarkozy of France. He said, “Well, this is very fine and we’re all for it. But let’s get real. If a tinpot country like North Korea cannot be stopped, where are we? If we can’t stop Iran, where are we?”
Remarkably enough Israel wasn’t mentioned here. Even though Israel has the bomb, and Iran hasn’t (yet). Even though no effort has ever been made – with the exception of some futile attempts by President Kennedy – to stop Israel and the US is bending over backwards to stop Iran.
So yes Mr. Sarkozy we should heed your advice: “Let’s get real”.
MIT NEWS 18th October 2010
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2010/3q-shultz-1018
The Shultz quote appears to be accurate.
http://topnews.4wy.net/Shultz:_No_Empty_Threats_If_You_Want_People_to_Trust_Foreign_Policy_-_PJ_Media
Mind you, I stopped paying too much attention after this nonsense: “We have granted the right to enrich.”
Apparently the “right to enrich” isn’t a “right” at all, merely something that is “granted” by the US government to those countries deemed worthy enough for American largesse.
And here was I thinking that the NTP said “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.”
But, no, apparently not.
In Shultz-world(tm) an “inalienable right” isn’t so must “inalienable” as it is “granted” from Up On High. Or from the White House. Whichever is the mightier.
@ Yeah, Right: Schultz must be over 90 by now. They might have just proppped him up at the hearing and gave him Aipac talking points which he regurgitated verbatim.
On the website of the Senate Commission, there is no digital transcript available of the testimony by George P. Shultz. I searched a found an automated transcript on C-SPAN with quite a few errors and parts lost. So I took the trouble to provide an accurate transcript about his Iran testimony. Not a word about Israel!
○ Global Challenges and the U.S. National Security Strategy testimony George Shultz
Oui, Shultz didn’t mention Israel in the prepared (or in his case, unprepared) portion of his testimony.
Which didn’t sit well with The Warmonger, so McCain asked Shultz (and Kissinger, but not Albright…. odd) to have another go before they ended the meeting.
It’s that second bite of the cherry that elicited the all-important money-shot from Shultz.
So fast forward to about 1:14:14 in that video and you’ll see Shultz say that “they don’t want a nuclear weapon for deterrence, they want a nuclear weapon to use it on Israel”.
Quite what McCain would have done if he hadn’t got that quote is anyone’s guess – tho’ I imagine he’d still have that committee sitting even now, trying one more time to get somebody – anybody! – to give him the soundbite that he needed.
But, so sorry, the ol’ koot really did indeed oblige the warmonger.
○ Transcript Testimony George Shultz on Iran
PJ Media erroneous/false quotation reads as follows:
Schultz underscored that he’s “very uneasy about the way our negotiations with Iran are going on.”
He added it’s “a very threatening situation” because Iran gives “every indication … that they don’t want a nuclear weapon for deterrence, they want a nuclear weapon to use it on Israel.”
I couldn’t find a quote anywhere close except perhaps from Richard Cohen and specifically president George Bush.
○ President Welcomes German Chancellor Merkel to the White House – Jan. 13, 2006 [cached]
President Bush: I want to remind you that the current President of Iran has announced that the destruction of Israel is an important part of their agenda. And that’s unacceptable. And the development of a nuclear weapon seems like to me would make them a step closer to achieving that objective.
Picked up by media as: “Bush: Iran Intends to Nuke Israel. ”
In 2012 especially, Netanyahu threatened to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, thereby blackmailing the White House for further support for funding and shipment of advanced military arms. In the meantime increasing settlement espansion on Palestinian land with impunity.
○ The Hill: 53 Democrats to skip Netanyahu speech to Congress
Are the Iranian leaders rational?
J.J.Goldberg in the Jewish Daily Forward – 2/27/15
“The other, more veiled critique of Netanyahu is the assertion that the Iranian leadership is “rational,” as stated by then-IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz in an April 2012 Haaretz interview, and that Iran doesn’t pose an “existential threat” to Israel, as stated by Mossad director Tamir Pardo in a December 2011 speech and repeated since then by former IDF chief Dan Halutz and former Mossad director Efraim Halevy.
Despite its preparations, Gantz told Haaretz, Iran would stop short of actually manufacturing a nuclear device as long as it faced a credible military threat, because its leaders are “very rational people” who aren’t suicidal. The same logic led Pardo, Halutz and Halevy to conclude that Iran isn’t an “existential” threat — that it wouldn’t drop a nuclear bomb on Israel, knowing that Israel would retaliate in kind.
…
Netanyahu insists any Iranian enrichment is too much. Nobody believes Iran will voluntarily drop its entire project, but the prime minister believes — sincerely, his aides insist — that if he can convince enough people, a truly crippling sanctions regime can bring the mullahs to their knees. Apparently they’re irrational enough to welcome nuclear Armageddon, but rational enough to yield to economic punishment.”
Read more: http://forward.com/articles/215562/benjamin-netanyahu-s-iran-exaggerations-now-clea/#ixzz3TGv3B9kw
It is Bibi’s paranoia, which has probably a lot to do with listening too much to his late father, Ben-Tzion Netanyahu, that is the “existential threat” .
Uri Avnery wrote in 1998 in a column that has attracted a lot of attention:
“Binyamin is no intellectual. He is utterly devoid of any creative thinking, beyond tactical matters. His whole world view, his concepts and his philosophy have been absorbed from his father. Ben-Tzion laid down the conceptual tracks upon which the Binyamin train runs. And thus it is Ben-Tzion Netanyahu who, in effect, is running the country. And that is a scary thought.
…
Ben-Tzion Netanyahu has a few fundamental premises: We live in a jungle. All countries are predatory animals. The whole world hates the Jews. “The Arab quest to annihilate the Jewish state has neither ceased nor abated…if allowed, they will slaughter us to the last person.” When this happens, in Ben-Tzion’s view, Europe will not even send ships to rescue the survivors.”
In short: among sane people there is little doubt about the rationality of the Iranian leaders, but a lot about the sanity of Bibi’s ideas.
Exactly so – there must be a monumental amount of cognitive dissonance going on in Netanyahu’s brain. Either that or the man is utterly venal and completely unscrupulous.
On the one hand the Iranians are utterly irrational, not open to any argument or persuasion.
On the other hand you only need to squeeze them harder and they’ll submit because…. err… because.
You can’t square that circle, so either Netanyahu has Two Brains that he keeps in separate compartments or he knows perfectly well that he’s spouting nonsense and simply does not care so long as it wins him votes at home.
Either way, is that really the man you want to have in charge of a nuke-armed rogue state?