Setting Trump's Agenda in Middle East

Wolffs book on housekeeping inside Trump’s White House mirrors U.S. foriegn policy on the Middle East: messy and unstable. Contrary to anti-Russian opinion across both Houses of U.S. Congress where there may be some dissent, about Israel and US funding there is near unanimity. There are not many minutes left in the Doomsday Clock …

○ The World Rejects Trump in UN Jerusalem Vote

A foreign leader — Netanyahu — set Trump’s agenda in Middle East, Michael Wolff book says | Mondoweis – Jan. 4, 2018|

With everyone talking about the Russia story again, fed by Michael Wolff’s bombshell new book on the Trump White House, it must be pointed out that the book documents that a foreign leader not Vladimir Putin pushed one of the Trump administration’s most grievous foreign policy moves, the decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as the supposed capital of the Jewish people. Benjamin Netanyahu influenced that decision, and so did Trump mega-donor Sheldon Adelson. And they are also pushing Trump to end U.S. policy of opposing the Israeli occupation.

More below the fold …

In his new book, Fire and Fury, excerpted in New York Magazine, Wolff reports on a meeting between Trump adviser Steve Bannon and the late Fox News boss Roger Ailes at a dinner party in Greenwich Village a year ago, during the transition after the 2016 election.

Let’s be clear that this is a major change in U.S. policy they were talking about (and that Ailes raised an eyebrow about). This week brings new reports that the U.S. is not going to call the occupation an occupation- well, here are the fingerprints. Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly interfered in U.S. matters of state, without an outcry. Sheldon Adelson- who is very close to Netanyahu and a major player in Israeli politics- has been personally pushing the unification of Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty since Camp David threatened to divide Jerusalem, in 2000, and using his wealth to do so.

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No one gives Adelson credit for this influence because such reports would feed the idea that a rightwing militaristic Israel lobby is influencing U.S. policy in the Middle East, a supposed anti-Semitic canard. But that just happens to be true.

Consider Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s nutty full-page ad in The Washington Post, attacking the New Zealand singer Lorde as an alleged anti-Semite for choosing not to play Israel. However loony this ad is, it feeds the malignant characterizations of the boycott Israel movement; and who is behind Shmuley Boteach? Why – Sheldon Adelson. Though again, no one reports this. Here’s a shot of the Adelson Family Foundation’s federal tax reporting from 2016. Over $1 million to Rabbi Shmuley.