As I commented earlier on …

Bill Clinton Attacked: What about Gaza?  

○ Bill Clinton explains Hillary’s policy, defends Israel | Ynet News |

Interesting what Bill said about the Israeli war crimes in Gaza, Egypt’s president Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood …. and Hillary’s role in stopping the hostilities. LMAO, what a load of bunk!

○ Learning Curve of the Clinton Dynasty, 8 Year Drought for Palestinians

Bill Clinton: When Iraq Attacks Israel, “I’ll Get Down in the Trenches and Die” | Tikun Olam |

Bill Clinton would’ve been far better off if he’d just faded away, in the words of Douglas MacArthur, after he left the presidency.  Instead, he lives on poisoning the well of American political discourse and disconcerting his wife’s presidential campaign.  During his days as president, many of us made the mistake of believing that he was the first president in decades who truly harbored a chance to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians.  His wonkiness meant that he’d mastered the intricacies and minutiae of the conflict and would use that knowledge for good.  We thrilled to Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat shaking hands on the White House lawn.  When Clinton failed, we didn’t blame him because we thought he’d made a herculean effort.

It was only afterward, when the Aipac-affiliated appointees in his administration like Aaron David Miller and Dennis Ross touted their boss’ “generous offer” and pinned the blame for failure on Arafat alone, that questions arose about the Clintonians’ sincerity and honesty.

But in two recent speeches, Clinton has bared his nasty fangs and displayed his poisonous attitude regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict.  It’s remarkable that someone the world once looked up to as an expert on the Mideast has reverted to the most inane platitudes and falsehoods regarding Palestinians and the Muslim world.  It makes you wonder whether the image he projected at one time of being a jovial political warrior, at home anywhere and with anyone, was a complete fake.  Is the sour, sullen Clinton we now hear from, the real Clinton who was Islamophobic and racist all along?  Can you take the redneck out of the racist South (my apologies to Southerners who are anti-racist) but not take the racist South out of the redneck?

A few days ago, an audience member asked about his record on Israel-Palestine.  This is how Clinton responded:

    I killed myself to give the Palestinians a state,” Clinton said after the critical attendee interrupted his speech. “I had a deal they turned down that would have given them all of Gaza, 96 to 97 percent of the West Bank, compensating land in Israel, you name it.

    …The heckler did not stop there, however. “She [Hillary] said neutrality [toward Israel] is not an option,” the man bellowed, prompting the former president to argue on behalf of his wife’s…vow to make clear her support for the Jewish state’s security.

 « click for more info
Zionism will always cite lack of U.S. support for a Jewish State as history proves

[Read on …]

‘Little Jewboy’ moment highlights coming divorce between US Jews and Israel | Mondoweiss |

You’ve surely seen the coverage of the “Jewboy” insult aimed at the US ambassador to Israel by a former aide to the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Aviv Bushinsky was speaking on television about Ambassador Daniel Shapiro’s criticism of Israeli settlements. “To put it bluntly, it was a statement typical of a little Jew boy,” Bushinsky said. What did Shapiro do wrong? Reuters:

    Shapiro’s supposed misstep was to observe in a speech to a security conference that
    Israel applies the law differently to Israelis and Palestinians living in the West Bank.
    “There seem to be two standards…”

Shapiro was raised in Illinois but speaks Hebrew and studied at Israel’s Hebrew University. Yet his criticism is the most direct so far by an American official. Indeed it has led some to wonder whether the US is giving up on Israel.

The flap demonstrates an important sociological trend: American Jews, even mainstream ones indoctrinated to love Israel, are breaking more and more publicly with the Jewish state. The Netanyahu government is proving to be embarrassing to American Jews; they do not want to be associated with rightwing apartheid policies.

America’s Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East   by Chas W. Freeman Jr.

The cost of the experience that has refuted these delusions has been considerable.  It starts with a lot of dead and maimed soldiers and mercenaries as well as $6 trillion in outlays and unfunded liabilities.  The dead and wounded came home.  The money will never return.  It was poured into the sands of West Asia and North Africa or ripped off by contractors.  The fact that it was not invested in the general welfare and domestic tranquility of the United States accounts for our broken roads and rickety bridges, the educational malnutrition of our youth, and our reduced international competitiveness.

But our misadventures in the Middle East have had plenty of consequences abroad as well as here at home.  These include the eruption of tribal and sectarian conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen; escalating proxy wars between Saudi Arabia and Iran; a putrefied peace process between Israel, the Palestinians, and other Arabs; the gradual self-transformation of Egypt into the political equivalent of an IED; continuing impasse with Iran; diminished respect for us by allies in Europe; and the ongoing metastasis of terrorism with global reach.  Our homeland is shabbier and we are less, not more secure than we were.

Terrorists explain that they are over here because we are over there.  Our political leaders keep saying that they can’t possibly have that right.  Surely, they hate us because of who we are, not what we’ve done and where.  Really?  To assert this overlooks the magnitude of our accomplishments in the Middle East.