Politics rewards creeps — individuals whose desire to please others makes them willing to sacrifice any principal in the pursuit of power. The more pliable the politician, the more useful he is to the lobbies he serves.

This is why Chuck Hagel has made enemies in Washington — not because of any specific views he holds, but because he lacks the servile disposition that has become the norm. As former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage puts it: Hagel “doesn’t care if people like him or not.”

Bloomberg reports: If Hagel wins confirmation, he will face challenges such as the increasing threat of cyber warfare, readying military contingency plans for the volatile Middle East and jockeying with China for naval influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

The former enlisted combat veteran is uniquely equipped to take on four-star generals over how fast to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and how to cut forces and weapons in a time of restricted defense spending, according to friends such as Richard Armitage.

“He’s got proven guts,” Armitage, who was deputy secretary of state in the Bush administration, said in an interview before the appointment. “He doesn’t care if people like him or not. He knows who he is.”

Hagel, whose father died when he was 16, dropped out of college and worked as a radio disc jockey before going to serve in Vietnam with his brother Tom. When their armored personnel carrier hit a mine in 1968, Chuck, suffering burns to his body, dragged his brother from the vehicle to safety.

He came back from that war with two Purple Hearts and a conviction that, as he put it in a 2002 interview, “War is the last resort that we, a nation, a people, call upon to settle a dispute.”

“The horror of it, the pain of it, the suffering of it — people just don’t understand it unless they’ve been through it,” Hagel said in the interview for the Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center. “There’s no glory, only suffering in war.”

It is widely reported that President Obama will nominate former Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense today.

Peter Beinart writes: Hagel says in public what others only say in private. In his 2005 book, The Much Too Promised Land, former Clinton administration Middle East hand Aaron Miller notes that “of all my conversations [about the Israel debate in Congress], the one with Hagel stands apart for its honesty and clarity.” That’s because when Hagel told Miller that “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here,” he was saying the same thing that people who work in Congress and the executive branch say all the time. As Thomas Friedman has noted, “I am certain that the vast majority of U.S. senators and policy makers quietly believe exactly what Hagel believes on Israel.” But the operative word is quietly. I’ve also heard many government officials, some of them Jewish, say things similar to what Hagel is now being flayed for having told Miller. The difference is that those other officials first confirmed that they were speaking off the record. One even lowered his voice and closed the door.

Hagel’s uncommon honesty isn’t restricted to Israel. Among the statements that critics now decry is Hagel’s 2007 declaration that “People say we’re not fighting for oil [in Iraq]. Of course we are.” In The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol calls Hagel’s statement “vulgar and disgusting.” What Kristol doesn’t note is that the same article that quotes Hagel also quotes noted radical Alan Greenspan saying virtually the same thing. The difference: Greenspan said it in his memoir, published once he was safely retired from government service.

As John Judis notes, Hagel was considered a plausible Republican presidential candidate in 2008 until his blunt criticism of the Bush administration’s Iraq policies ended his career in the GOP. He is, therefore, one of the very few public figures in recent memory — Joe Lieberman, whose blunt support for the Bush administration’s Iraq policies ended his career in the Democratic Party, is another — to have forfeited a national role in his political party because of his policy views. In the process, Hagel has incurred the wrath of the same hawkish “pro-Israel” forces whose influence he was rash enough to acknowledge. He has done, in short, exactly what people who aspire to jobs like secretary of defense in Democratic administrations learn not to do.

Reuters reports: President Barack Obama will nominate former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel to be his defense secretary and an announcement could come on Monday, a Democratic congressional aide said.

The choice will likely set up a confirmation battle in the Senate over whether the former Nebraska senator and Vietnam veteran is a strong enough supporter of key U.S. ally Israel and over his past calls for military cuts.

The Obama administration backed down from a tough Senate confirmation battle over Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, who was Obama’s first pick to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Rice withdrew her name from consideration after drawing heavy fire from Republicans for remarks she made in the aftermath of a September 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

“The administration has a lot of work to do on Hagel,” a Democratic Senate aide said.

“He is in a weaker position now than Rice ever was because Rice would have rallied Democrats behind her. The administration floated Hagel’s name, then neglected to defend him effectively when his critics started taking shots,” the aide said.

However, the White House is confident it can weather criticism of Hagel’s record and garner enough votes from both sides of the political aisle to get his nomination through committee and win confirmation in the Democratic-led Senate.

“The president wants him, because he trusts him and he’s an independent voice,” a source close to the situation said.

The source said Hagel had received high-level messages of reassurance in recent days that his nomination was on track despite a campaign by his critics aimed at derailing it.

The Cable: President Barack Obama is expected to name Chuck Hagel as his choice for defense secretary as early as Monday, as critics of the former Nebraska senator prepare to go to war to fight his expected nomination.

White House officials and sources close to Hagel declined to confirm to The Cable that Hagel is the president’s choice to be the replace Leon Panetta at the helm of the Pentagon, but several sources close to the process said have told The Cable that the White House and Hagel have been in touch on a regular basis and that Hagel is indeed the expected pick. Decisions about the timing and logistics of the announcement are being finalized now.

The Cable had previously confirmed that Hagel successfully complete the vetting process, as have Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter and former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy.

Meanwhile, Hagel’s detractors are moving forward with their campaign against the nomination, which has been expanding ever since The Cable first reported in November that Hagel was in consideration for the Pentagon post. That campaign has included anonymous Senate aides calling Hagel an anti-Semite, the Washington Post editorial board writing that, “Chuck Hagel is not the right choice for defense secretary,” and the Emergency Committee for Israel, which counts among its board members Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, running a television ad criticizing Hagel’s opposition to unilateral sanctions against Iran. “For secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel is not a responsible option,” the ad claims.

“Even if one left aside Chuck Hagel’s dangerous views on Iran and his unpleasant distaste for Israel and Jews, a dispassionate analyst would have to conclude that the case for Hagel is extraordinarily weak,” Kristol wrote in an editorial Friday, in which he urged Obama to choose Carter, Flournoy, or Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. [Continue reading…]

Elizabeth Drew writes: Far more is at stake in Barack Obama’s decision on whether to nominate Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense than whether Chuck Hagel is nominated. What the president decides will bear on: his effectiveness in his second term; any president’s ability to form a government; whether an independent voice can be raised on a highly sensitive issue in opposition to the views of a powerful lobby and still be named to a significant government position; whether there is actually a proper nominating system; whether McCarthyite tactics can still be effective more than half a century after they were rejected by a fed-up nation. And, by the way, what will be the direction of American policy in the Middle East? In particular, how adventurous will we be toward Iran? Have we learned anything from the calamitous foreign policy blunders of the past decade?

Iran more than any other single issue is at the core of the opposition to Hagel, and that issue is closely linked to the question of the extent to which the US should be allied with the aggressive policies of the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toward Iran, as well as other issues, such as the settlements and a Palestinian state. And Iran has been among the policy differences Hagel has had over the years with the strongly pro-Israel organizations that are trying to influence US policy, the most politically powerful one being, of course, AIPAC. While still a senator, Hagel spoke out against using military force against Iran, was more circumspect about imposing sanctions, and refused to sign some of the more robust letters that AIPAC circulated on Capitol Hill, an extra-legislative way of trying to impose policy. The most vocal opponent to Hagel is Bill Kristol, an architect of the neocon policy that led to the Iraq war. Kristol set the tone for the opposition to Hagel by equating his criticism of some Israeli policies to “a record of consistent hostility to Israel,” and his caution about a possible military strike on Iran as “anti-Israel-pro-appeasement-of-Iran.” Hagel has been labeled “anti-Israel” by his opponents, and even “anti-semitic,” a monstrous and preposterous charge.
[…]
The opponents of Hagel weren’t content to fight his nomination in the Senate, where they were expected to lose, so they have tried something different, with long-term significance to the power of the presidency. They have been attempting to dissuade the President from nominating Hagel, which he was on the verge of doing before this fight broke out. These forces counted on Obama’s caution, his oft-displayed lack of stomach for a fight, and set out to convince him that Hagel was “controversial”—that if he were nominated there would be a difficult set of confirmation hearings, so it wasn’t worth it.

In Washington it’s quite simple to get someone labeled “controversial.” All it takes is an attack by a prominent person, followed up by similar arguments by allies; throw in a couple of senators whom the press loves because they make controversial statements—John McCain has been the reigning champ for years—and, voila! someone is seen to have “a lot of opposition.” In the absence of a statement of support by the president, some elected politicians hide under their desks. Before you knew it the word in Washington was that Hagel was controversial and his nomination faced strong opposition. [Continue reading…]

In an op-ed on the campaign against the possible nomination of Chuck Hagel as next U.S. secretary of defense, Muhammad Idrees Ahmad writes: The late great historian Tony Judt once observed that what makes the Israel lobby distinctive is that unlike other lobbies it is not content with achieving its desired political outcomes; it also had an interest in denying its own existence and enforcing silence on the subject of its lobbying. It exists “to silence as well as to voice, to suppress as well as to secure”.

During Obama’s first term when a similar battle raged over the appointment of former Ambassador Chas Freeman as the Director of National Intelligence and when Chuck Hagel’s name was first floated as a potential adviser, Natasha Mozgovaya of the Israeli daily Haaretz reported on an astonishing reality of American politics. “Every appointee to the American government”, she wrote, “must endure a thorough background check by the American Jewish community.”

This is a curious position for a democracy to find itself in where an interest group lobbying on behalf of a foreign state can exercise veto power over government appointments based on ideological litmus tests. The distortion it engenders has been obvious in the disastrous course of recent US foreign policy.

For the majority of Americans who are tired of perpetual war, the battle over Hagel’s appointment presents an opportunity to check this decline. They can finally confront the forces of militarism and restore much-needed sanity. It is not a coincident that the line-up of Hagel’s detractors looks remarkably similar to the line-up that promoted the Iraq war and is eager to bomb Iran. [Continue reading…]

M.J. Rosenberg writes: The neoconservatives’ battle to sink the potential nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel has again raised the issue of the power of the Israel lobby. And it should. Hagel, as a respected former senator would be sailing to an easy confirmation, if not for the power of the Israel lobby which considers him insufficiently loyal to the policies of the Israeli government.

The assault on Hagel is truly ugly and opposing a highly respected ex-senator and decorated war hero out of fear he won’t defer to Netanyahu is also stupid. Unlike John McCain whose war record is ambiguous, Hagel’s record was indisputably heroic. He and his brother Tom served side by side in Vietnam as infantry squad leaders and earned military decorations and honors, including two Purple Hearts. To put it bluntly, how does it look to be opposing this American war hero for being insufficiently devoted to a foreign country?

The most maddening thing is that the lobby does not speak for most Jews, not even close. The best proof of that was this year’s election results in which 70% of Jews voted for President Obama although Netanyahu and his cutouts here made clear that they preferred Romney. And, as the definitive American Jewish Committee survey demonstrated, not even the Jewish Republican vote had much, if anything, to do with Israel. Only 5% of Jews consider Israel their most important issue. Republican Jews are Republican for the same reasons other Republicans are (the economy, and other domestic issues). Overwhelmingly, Jews choose domestic issues as most important to them. Additionally the Jews who do care about Israel (a strong majority at least) support neither Netanyahu nor the occupation. The last Israeli prime minister they admired was Yitzhak Rabin.

So who and what is the lobby?

The first thing to know about it is that it is about delivering money not votes. It is irrelevant that most Jews are liberals and not Netanyahu devotees. The people with the money (i.e., the lobby) are right-wing on Israel. And it is those people (think Democrat Haim Saban and Republican Sheldon Adelson and the like) who have the clout. Not the dentist or lawyer down the street or the local Hadassah chapter.

I worked on Capitol Hill for 20 years, for five Members of Congress, and had hundreds of dealings with the lobby. Despite claims that the lobby includes Christians, that is simply not true — at least not in terms of influencing U.S. policies.

First, so-called “Christian Zionists” do not give heavily to campaigns so their support for Likud policies is both amorphous and insignificant. Second, “Christian Zionists” are Republicans who will never support the party of GLBT rights, choice, regulations and higher taxes. Unlike the AIPAC-directed donors, they are not in play. They are just Republicans. (Even when “Christian Zionists” do contribute to campaigns, their issues are the social issues like blocking marriage equality, not supporting Israel).

Bottom line: the Israel Lobby is the Jewish Lobby. One would be hard-pressed to find a single legislator who kisses up to Netanyahu and AIPAC to please Christians. Not a single constituent organization that composes the lobby is anything but Jewish, starting with AIPAC. The others all have the word “Jewish” in their names. Who are they kidding? [Continue reading…]

In the bizarro world of political correctness, it’s better to say “Israel lobby” than “Jewish lobby” even though members of the lobby regard the use of either term as anti-Semitic. On the other hand, no one bats an eyelid at the term “Jewish state” even though most Jews choose not to live in Israel.

Marsha B Cohen:

AIPAC comes knocking with a pro-Israel letter, and ‘then you’ll get 80 to 90 senators on it. I don’t think I’ve ever signed one of the letters.’

When someone would accuse him of not being pro-Israel because he didn’t sign the letter, Hagel told me he responds: “‘I didn’t sign the letter because it was a stupid letter.” Few legislators talk this way on the Hill. Hagel is a strong supporter of Israel and a believer in shared values. “The Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here,” but as he put it, “I’m a United States senator. I’m not an Israeli senator.”

— Chuck Hagel to Aaron David Miller, The Much Too Promised Land

The kerfuffle over Chuck Hagel’s use of the term “Jewish lobby” — and the implication that some members of Congress are intimidated by it — pervades the right-wing media and its echo chamber in the blogosphere. Since Hagel was floated as a possible Secretary of Defense, some American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) representatives, among them former spokesman Josh Block and former Executive Director Morris Amitay, have denounced Hagel’s characterization. Even progressives are not immune to debating its appropriateness. M. J. Rosenberg, also a veteran of the AIPAC but now one of its fiercest critics, writes:

It is true that it is impolitic to use the term “Jewish lobby” rather than “Israel lobby” although the very same people criticizing Hagel for using the former term objected just as vehemently when Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer used the latter in their book on the subject. In any case, the term Jewish lobby is accurate when one refers to organizations like the American Jewish Committee or the Anti-Defamation League, etc. They are Jewish organizations and not AIPAC, the registered Israel lobby.

AIPAC’s rebranding of itself as “America’s pro-Israel lobby” instead of the “Jewish lobby” is also relatively recent. The critiques of AIPAC from both the right and left overlook a long paper trail of AIPAC’s self-perception and self-description, which for much of its history — from the 1950s through the 1990s — has reveled in its role as the voice of “the Jewish community.” [Continue reading…]

Peter Oborne writes: It is impossible to understand the modern Conservative Party without a grasp of the scale and profundity of its links to the state of Israel. The connection dates back at least as far the historic meeting between the great Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann and the Conservative prime minister A J Balfour in 1905, during which Weizmann convinced Balfour of the case for a Jewish national state.

The warmth forged 107 years ago is today sustained by the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI). Some 80 per cent of all Tory MPs are members, including most Cabinet ministers. No other lobbying organisation – and certainly not one that acts in the interests of a foreign country – carries as much weight at Westminster. Every year, it takes a significant number of parliamentarians to Israel. Meanwhile, its sponsors play an important role in financing both the Tories nationally, and MPs at the local level.

There is no doubt that the CFI has exercised a powerful influence over policy. The Conservative politician and historian Robert Rhodes James, writing in the Jerusalem Post in 1995, called it “the largest organisation in Western Europe dedicated to the cause of the people of Israel”. Its power has not waned since. On Tuesday, it hosted approximately 100 Tory MPs, including six Cabinet ministers, and a further 40 peers, at a lunch in central London. The speaker was David Cameron, who pronounced himself a “passionate friend” of Israel, making clear (as he has done in the past) that nothing could break that friendship.

This speech can be seen as part of a pattern. The CFI can call almost at will upon the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer or Foreign Secretary. The Palestinians enjoy no such access. They would be lucky to get a single Conservative MP in the audience for their events, and perhaps some moribund peer to make an address. There is no such organisation as the Conservative Friends of Palestinians. [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: When casino magnate Sheldon Adelson switched his support from Newt Gingrich to Mitt Romney during the spring primaries, the billionaire and the candidate were eager to shed their skepticism of each other. If Adelson was going to give a political campaign more money than anyone ever had, he wanted to be certain Romney would join him in steadfast support of Israel. And Romney, according to friends of both, sought assurance that Adelson wouldn’t embarrass him.

Since then, Adelson has joined Romney during the candidate’s visit to Israel this summer, attended presidential debates and gotten together with Romney so often that their wives have become friends, according to confidants of the two men.

Although Adelson, 79, has said he will give $100 million to help Romney and quash President Obama’s “socialist-style” approach to the economy, he remains skeptical, believing that politicians don’t deliver on promises and can’t be trusted.

“Many people who give very significant donations to political campaigns come to me afterwards very frustrated that they don’t get what they wanted once the person is elected,” says Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, which Adelson has supported for years. “Sheldon doesn’t expect people to change. He’s very realistic about politics.”

Adelson — whose gambling operations span the globe from Las Vegas to casinos open or planned in Macau, Singapore and Spain — tells friends he finds the way U.S. elections are funded to be abhorrent, putting too much power in the hands of a wealthy few. So as one of those wealthy few, why would he pour more money into a campaign than 65 average Americans will earn in their combined lifetimes?

Adelson would not agree to an interview unless he could screen all questions in advance, a condition The Washington Post declined to meet. But more than 20 friends, critics, colleagues and beneficiaries portray a man with several motives for his massive donations to political, religious and medical causes.

He’s a scrappy fighter who defends what is his, a self-made man who held more than 50 jobs before striking gold with his Venetian casino on the Vegas Strip, and he has developed a powerful aversion to taxes and unions. He is the 12th-richest person in the nation, according to Forbes magazine, with a fortune valued at $21 billion. ­Under Obama, Adelson has achieved a larger increase in his wealth than anyone else in the country. In the past two decades, he has also undergone a political conversion, from a Massachusetts Democrat who considered Republicans to be the establishment that resisted newcomers like him, to a Nevada Republican who believes that his former party coddles the idle and has fallen captive to identity politics.

Adelson is driven by the idea of Israel as a muscular riposte to the Holocaust. Based on his experience as a Jewish kid who would get insulted and roughed up in a tough Boston neighborhood, Adelson believes Jewish Americans should back an Israel that puts security first and resists compromise with Arabs who do not accept its existence.

“Israel is at the core of everything he does,” says Fred Zeidman, a friend of Adelson, fellow Romney backer and former chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. [Continue reading…]

M.J. Rosenberg writes: It was inevitable. Constantly under pressure from the Jewish center-right (Reform rabbis, for instance), J Street has thrown in the towel. Read its document of surrender.

In response to the letter from Christian denominations urging that aid to Israel be compliant with U.S. law, J Street has joined Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation league and the half-million a year hacks that run the other Jewish organizations to blast the Christians. (See Foxman letter).

J Street agrees with them that aid to Israel is an entitlement. It must never be questioned unless you also add “criticism of Israel’s behavior with appropriate criticism of, for instance, rocket fire from Gaza into Israeli civilian areas.” You must also “put the present situation into a historical or political context that might provide a fuller appreciation for the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over many decades.”

Blah, blah, AIPAC, blah. The church letter is about the $2.5 billion aid package to Israel. As far as I know, the U.S. does not provide the rockets fired from Gaza. [Continue reading…]

Ben White writes: Top administrators at the University of California are considering what action to take against speech and activities alleged to be anti-Semitic. As part of their discussions, the university may endorse a seven-year-old document, which — despite not having an official status — is often called the European Union’s “working definition” of anti-Semitism.

Although the administrators have indicated that their motive is to protect Jewish students, a careful examination of the definition indicates that the real agenda may be to stifle Palestine solidarity activism and criticism of Israel in the classroom.

In early July, a report commissioned by the University of California’s Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture and Inclusion was published (“U. of Calif. Weighs Banning ‘Hate’ Speech,” Forward, 2 August 2012).

The council has been co-directed by Richard Barton, national education chairman of the Anti-Defamation League — one of the most powerful groups in America’s pro-Israel lobby. Its report claims that Palestine solidarity activities were “undermining Jewish students’ sense of belonging” and creating a hostile environment.

The report’s recommendations include the adoption by the administration of a definition of anti-Semitism that could be used to “identify contemporary incidents” which would then “be sanctioned by University non-discrimination or anti-harassment policies.” [Continue reading…]

Dave Lindorff writes: Netanyahu blinked. That’s the takeaway from the goofy address by the right-wing, Chicago-raised, MIT-educated Israeli prime minister to the United Nations General Assembly Thursday.

Prior to that address, Netanyahu had been virtually campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, hinting repeatedly on US television interviews of a pre-election attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear energy facilities, criticizing incumbent US President Barack Obama, and demanding that Obama and the US draw a “red line” on how far Iran could go in refining nuclear fuel before it would be considered essential for the US to join Israel in destroying Iran’s military infrastructure.

It was the most blatant attempt by a foreign leader to interfere in a US election in memory, but it was a bust.

American Jews have historically supported the Democratic Party by wide margins, and despite Netanyahu’s threats and bluster, and President Obama’s smack-down — a refusal of Netanyahu’s request for a meeting during his trip to the US –that support didn’t budge. In fact, a number of leading Jewish Democrats, including powerful Congressman Barney Frank and Henry Waxman, publicly told the Israeli leader to back off and stay out of US politics. In endorsing Obama’s refusal to meet with Netanyahu, Rep. Frank said, ”The Israelis have to consider American public opinion. America’s not ready to go to war until it’s absolutely necessary.” He added, “I think it’s a mistake from Israel’s standpoint if they give the impression they’re trying to push us into going to war. I don’t think any pressure’s going to work.”

Analysts are now suggesting that Netanyahu has backed off, even complimenting President Obama and giving him a valentine — an endorsement before election day of sorts–saying in his UN address, “I very much appreciate the president’s position, as does everyone in my country.” This was a reference to Obama’s rather tame if ambiguous warning to Iran in his own UN address that the US would “do what we must” to ensure that Iran doesn’t get a nuclear bomb.

Since Iran insists that it is not trying to develop a nuclear bomb, and since the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has declared that building and stockpiling such weapons would be “a big sin,” there should be no need for the US to do anything, then.

The important point though, for the US, for Israel, and for Iran, as well as for the world at large, is that a combination of overreach by Netanyahu, a bumbling Republican presidential candidate and campaign, and a widespread weariness among most Americans over this country’s more than a decade of pointless, losing wars in the Middle East, have combined to seriously and perhaps terminally blunt the influence of the right-wing pro-Israel lobby in the US, the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). [Continue reading…]

Benjamin Netanyahu flanked by Congressional courtiers Reid and McConnell.

Ali Gharib writes: After midnight yesterday, the Senate voted 90 to 1 to express the “sense of the Congress” as weighing in on the debate about what red lines the U.S. should declare against Iran. You’ll remember this issue as the one roiling the relationship between Benjamin Netanyahu and President Obama at the moment. On the Hill, almost everyone — including most of the Democrats — just sided with Netanyahu.

The resolution, initially introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in the Spring, laid out a non-binding position that “strongly supports United States policy to prevent the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability” and “rejects any United States policy that would rely on efforts to contain a nuclear weapons-capable Iran.” Obama has set his red line at Iran producing nuclear weapons rather than the “capability” to do so, a phrase loaded with a special yet ill-defined meaning in proliferation matters.

The “capability” debate was initially framed as one over “containment” in February, and hawks like Graham found little bipartisan support until their position became a centerpiece of the AIPAC policy conference in March. But the initial resolution from Graham in May stalled. Then things rose into the national consciousness.

This month, an unprecedented campaign by Benjamin Netanyahu to get Obama to shift his Iran red line drew jeers from liberals and even Members of Congress. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) upbraided Netanyahu for interjecting himself in American politics. AIPAC took notice, e-mailing its members last week with articles on Obama’s refusal to lower his threshold for war and Netanyahu’s denials of interference. The debate seemed, for now, over, with Obama victorious. Then this week, Majority Leader Reid surprised everyone by re-introducing the Graham resolution.

The Associated Press reports: An Assembly resolution urging California colleges and universities to squelch nascent anti-Semitism also encouraged educators to crack down on demonstrations against Israel, angering advocates for Muslim students.

With no debate, lawmakers on Tuesday approved a resolution that encourages university leaders to combat a wide array of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel actions.

“California schools need to recognize that anti-Semitism is still a very real issue on college campuses around the state — it did not disappear with the end of World War II,” said Assemblywoman Linda Halderman, R-Fresno, the resolution’s author.

Most of the incidents of anti-Semitism the resolution cited are related to the Israel-Palestine debate. These include instances of protesters comparing Israeli police to Nazis and urging support for Hamas.

The resolution, which is purely symbolic and does not carry policy implications, also condemns the suggestion that Israel is a “racist” state and that Jews “wield excessive power over American foreign policy.” The resolution characterizes the student campaign to pressure the University of California system to divest from Israel as anti-Semitic, and applauds university leaders’ refusal to consider it.

The Council on American Islamic Relations said the resolution went too far and constituted an attack on students’ right to free expression.

“To be clear, genuine acts of anti-Semitism should be condemned, but this resolution goes far beyond that,” said Rachel Roberts, a spokeswoman for the group. “By characterizing pro-Palestinian speech as anti-Jewish, the Legislature sidelines those Muslim students and progressive Jewish students who often organize together to raise awareness about the Middle East.”

Roberts said the council was disappointed that the resolution was drafted and passed while California colleges were out of session.

Pro-Palestinian protests have become a regular occurrence on many University of California campuses. Students sometimes use sensational tactics including simulating checkpoints and combining swastikas with the Star of David.

In 2010, 10 Muslim students were convicted of misdemeanors for repeatedly interrupting a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine, where students were suspected of painting swastikas in university buildings.

The Assembly’s actions also drew criticism from free speech advocates. Carlos Villarreal, director of the San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, called the resolution irresponsible and dangerous because it combines legitimate condemnations of acts of intimidation and hate with specific objections to tactics used to support the Palestinian people.

“In doing so, it can be seen as having no other purpose than to demonize all those who criticize the nation-state of Israel or support the rights of the Palestinian people,” he said.

Marsha B Cohen writes: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is probably the most notorious work of anti-Semitic propaganda ever written. First surfacing publicly in 1905 after several years in private circulation, the work was a fabricated transcript of a secret meeting of rabbis plotting to control the world, as Gary Saul Morson explains. Its initial purpose appears to have been to blame the Jews of Russia for the radical activity that was beginning to shake the foundations of the Tsarist Russian Empire. Translated into English, French, German, Polish, Spanish and Arabic, its unfounded claim that a global Jewish conspiracy seeks to rule the world has shaped and seeped into anti-Semitic propaganda for over a century.

The Protocols of the Elder of Las Vegas, on the other hand, is a 21st century work in progress, and it is no hoax. It’s about a casino magnate with an estimated net worth of just under $25 billion (the seventh richest man in the United States) who decides to devote a small portion of his vast wealth to a neoconservative agenda determined to thwart negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinians; prevent the reelection of an incumbent U.S. president; engineer the destruction of political liberalism; and reshape the political environments of the U.S. and Israel by funding the election of politicians who serve his own corporate and ideological interests. Following is a rough draft of the plot line so far. [Continue reading…]

Will Israelis cast the key votes determining who becomes the next U.S. president?

The campaign, ‘I Vote Israel,’ is trying to persuade as many American Israelis as possible to cast a vote for Israel in the 2012 elections:

“I’m an Israeli now,” you might be thinking… “Voting should be left to real Americans.” But actually, the next president and Congress will have a huge impact on your future and the security of Israel.

Indeed, the campaign asserts that the outcome of the election matters more to Israeli-Americans than it does to the average American.

The Times of Israel reports:

According to I Vote Israel national campaign director Elie Pieprz, 30,000 US-Israelis voted during the 2008 elections. His goal for the current campaign is to have up to 100,000 dual citizens cast absentee ballots before the November 6 vote that will decide whether Barack Obama will remain in the White House or be replaced by his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.

“The biggest reason why people don’t vote is because it’s cumbersome. People don’t know how to do it,” Pieprz said. He and his team of paid staffers and volunteers attend events in Israel with heavy American participation to sign them up for absentee ballots. They also go “door to door” to convince people to vote and help them with the paperwork, he said.

“Each week, we’re bringing hundreds if not thousands [of voter registration forms] over to the American Embassy,” according to Pieprz. Currently, the organization running the campaign — a nonprofit called “Americans for Jerusalem,” which was incorporated in Delaware in August of 2000 — employs eight paid full-time staffers and at least one paid political strategist.

In addition to hosting the website, which features professionally produced YouTube clips, the organization also pays for office space in central Jerusalem, advertising, events, printing, travel, communication and other day-to-day expenses.

However, the group is determinedly mum on the subject of who specifically stands behind I Vote Israel and where the money for its activities comes from. Key staffers refused to reveal any names even when it was suggested that a lack of transparency might raise questions as to the campaign’s stated nonpartisan nature.

By US law, I Vote Israel does not have to divulge donor rolls because of the tax bracket it is registered under.

“We’re fundraising in Jewish communities and pro-Israel groups across the US,” said Aron Shaviv, I Vote Israel’s campaign strategist. “There are literally hundreds of donors, perhaps even more. They are quite diverse. They are giving in small increments. There is no one who stands out.”

Asked whether this wide donor community could be considered more on the left or the right end of the political spectrum, the British-born Shaviv replied that it was “quite balanced between the two groups.”

Pieprz, on the other hand, said he believes most donors usually give to more politically conservative causes, both in the United States and in Israel. “Is it more right-of-center? I would say yes,” he told The Times of Israel in an interview. Yet he, too, declined to offer more information about who was behind the initiative.

“These are many pro-Israel people, Republicans and Democrats, who all want to have an impact on the election. They want Israel to have more of a voice,” Pieprz said. “The issue is not who’s behind it. Let’s just say they are Republicans and Democrats. Some people feel passionate about it but for their personal reasons don’t want to be associated with something that’s so pro-Israel.”

I Vote Israel is about giving Israel higher visibility in the American political discourse, and any discussion of its founders or funders would distract from its core mission, Pieprz added. “Some people perceive this is as somewhat more of a right-wing thing and as a result many Democrats, people who are very politically active in DC, may not want to be associated as it may hurt them professionally,” he said.

An article in +972 Magazine suggested that right-wing philanthropists could be behind I Vote Israel. Shaviv is quoted in the piece saying that much of the donated money comes from the “[Sheldon] Adelsons of the world.” One of the wealthiest Jews in the world, Adelson has given hundreds of millions to Jewish and Israeli causes over the years. He has also given tens of millions to Republican politicians, most recently $10 million to a political action committee linked to Romney’s presidential campaign.

Shaviv, who is CEO of Shaviv Strategy and Campaigns, says Adelson has no connection to “Americans for Jerusalem.” “I never met him and have no connection to him,” he said, adding that he had merely meant to say that the group’s donations come from Jewish philanthropists and that Adelson would be a good example of a Jewish philanthropist.

Both Shaviv and Pieprz have a history of working with right-wing parties. Shaviv kicked off his career as a staffer on Yisrael Beytenu’s campaign for the 2006 elections and later won Campaigns and Elections magazine’s “Rising Star 2011″ award for his work running “research-driven campaigns for center-right candidates in Central and Eastern Europe.”

Pieprz used to be active in the Republican Jewish Coalition and, after immigrating to Israel, in Republicans Abroad Israel.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The lack of support for US President Barack Obama from Jews in Israel acted as a harbinger for their counterparts in the United States, Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matt Brooks and GOP strategist Ari Fleischer told The Jerusalem Post on a visit to Israel Tuesday.

Brooks and Fleischer came to Jerusalem to support the IVoteIsrael campaign, which aims to register as many as possible of the 150,000 American citizens in Israel who are eligible to vote in the November 6 election.

They cited polls in the Post going back to June 2009, which found that only a small percentage of Israelis considered the Obama administration more pro- Israel than pro-Palestinian.

“The polls in The Jerusalem Post reverberated around the Jewish community in America,” Fleischer said. “They were an early warning signal in the US that there were cracks in Obama’s armor. In 2009 American Jews were so pro-Obama. Israelis saw the cracks first, and now the American Jewish community is going through a significant case of buyer’s remorse.”

Brooks said they came to Israel because the number of eligible voters in the Jewish state was similar to key battleground cities like Fort Lauderdale, Florida or Dayton, Ohio. He noted that thousands of votes from American-Israelis would be counted in those states.

“I am a survivor of the 2000 election in the US [that George W. Bush won thanks to 537 votes in Florida],” Fleischer said. “If this race will be equally close, there is a possibility that a large number of absentee ballots coming into Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio can make the difference. It is also important to plant a flag on Israeli soil. Politicians notice a massive boost in voting like there could be here.”

Ahmed Moor writes: The United States is a sovereign country. That is sometimes hard to remember.

Illinois Senator Mark Kirk had a stroke in January. The serious neurological event sent him into surgery, where doctors excised two, tiny, damaged pieces of his brain. By all accounts, the senator is now in great recovery, his office releasing a video in May, which showed him walking on a treadmill and describing his eagerness to “get back to work”. Yet it appears that he has already got back to it.

At the end of last month, Kirk sponsored an amendment to a Senate appropriations bill, seemingly intent on stripping the United Nations Relief and Works Agency of some of its funding. His attempt to re-determine the definition of Palestinian refugees was met by stiff opposition from the State Department, but the senator prevailed – a considerable feat for a recovering patient.

The amendment requires the State Department to distinguish between and report on how many of those Palestinians who receive assistance from UNRWA were personally displaced from their homes as a result of the 1948 war, and those who are their descendants – which the UN agency continues to count as refugees, unable to return to their ancestral homes.

Ha’aretz reported that the senator had some help with his legislative burden, and not only from his deputy chief of staff, Richard Goldberg. It turns out that the amendment to the bill was first written by an Israeli politician. Einat Wilf, a member of the Israeli parliament, reportedly spent months working with current and former AIPAC employees, including Steve Rosen – who was once suspected by FBI agents of obtaining classified US government information and passing it on to Israeli officials – to deliver the language on Palestinian refugees to the US legislature.

In summary: a senator who suffered crippling neurological damage received legislation from an Israeli politician by way of AIPAC before he slipped it into a US bill that eventually became law. In other words, an Israeli politician helped write a US law. Then she boasted about it. [Continue reading…]