Following Rand Paul’s victory in the Kentucky Senate Primary, this post by Daniel Greenfield from last February is worth re-reading, not least because it demonstrates that on matters of US foreign policy, Rand would appear to have identical views to his father.
Those views were laid out in an interview with 9/11 conspiracy-monger Alex Jones, who has also conducted a similarly simpering one-on-one with George Galloway. Here’s Rand Paul’s money quote:
“…here are people on the left who acknowledge the vast expenditures of the military industrial complex, and there are people on the right who are beginning to understand that. There’s a sort of left-right paradigm that you bring these groups together in order to try to win an election. I think it’s coming.”
And sooner than we think? In any case, this is a salutary reminder that when we discuss the alliance of interests between the far left and the Islamists, we shouldn’t leave out the isolationist right.
UPDATE: I should have mentioned that the superb Adam Holland has written extensively on Rand Paul. Find Adam’s articles here.
Bravo to Philip Klein for giving General David Petraeus the opportunity to clarify the following: one, he never requested that the West Bank and Gaza be added to his remit as Commander of CENTCOM, which includes Afghanistan and Iraq. Two, the perceived pro-Israel slant of US Middle East policy is just one of many strategic factors, and not the only one, which he has to take into consideration (the other factors include, Petraeus said, “a whole bunch of extremist organizations, some of which by the way deny Israel’s right to exist. There’s a country that has a nuclear program who denies that the Holocaust took place.”) Three, that he never made the statement, widely attributed to him, that US policy endangers the lives of American soldiers under his command (“There is no mention of lives anywhere in there. I actually reread the statement. It doesn’t say that at all.”)
Even if the Ramat Shlomo announcement and its aftermath is a salutary reminder of the old Yiddish proverb about not spitting in the well you drink from, that should not be the only lesson we draw from this week’s events. Continue reading ‘Meanwhile, in Ramallah…’
The propensity of some Israeli political leaders to speak publicly or take action before thinking clearly of the consequences hit a new low this week during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit.
If Israelis were looking for reassurance that the United States is genuinely the Jewish state’s number one ally, the vice president couldn’t have been clearer. “The bond between the U.S. and Israel has been and will remain unshakable,” declared Biden. “Progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel.” But, alas, there is a significant gap, on settlements, and it was an Israeli Cabinet Minister who decided to remind all with international media focused on every step of Biden’s visit.
After a week in which the Israeli government displayed its exquisite sense of timing, Vice-President Biden delivered a major speech at Tel Aviv University today. For those who don’t have time to watch the video, here are the bullet points.
“Jimmy Carter is asking the Jewish community for forgiveness — and insists it’s not simply because his grandson has decided to launch a political career with a run for the Georgia state Senate.” More on JTA.
“It is with disgust and dismay that I find my name listed as a signer of ‘Boycott Apartheid Israel: Open Letter from US Trade Unionists.’ I demand that my name be removed immediately! Prior to seeing the letter on the Palestine Chronicle website, I had never seen such a letter or engaged in discussions about its content. I find it disrespectful that someone would attach my name to a document and circulate such a document without contact with me, or consent from me.” Leading Black trade unionist Clayola Brown discovers the fetid depths to which the boycotters will sink; more on TULIP.
This is a crosspost by Mark Gardner of the CST blog.
On 4th December, the Guardian published an immediate and complete apology for a letter that had appeared upon its letters page the previous day. CST covered the story, here and here. (The letter, upon close scrutiny, advocated Holocaust Denial. A ‘Google’ search of the author showed that whilst he was not well known, he did have ‘previous’ in this regard.)
Over a year ago, I wrote about an entry on Zionism for an encyclopedia published under a well-known, trusted imprint: the “Encyclopedia of Race and Racism,” which carries the names of both Macmillan Reference USA (now owned by the Michigan-based Gale, Cengage Learning company) and the Macmillan Social Science Library. At the time, there was quite a storm and the publishers resolved to do something about it. Sadly, their compromise formula makes a bad situation worse, as I explain in this op-ed for the Jerusalem Post.
Below is a statement from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) opposing the proposed academic boycott of Israel at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
Our friends and colleagues at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim will soon be voting on whether to initiate a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Faculty members in Norway have already spoken out eloquently and on point about the reasons to defeat this proposal. Because the decision has the potential to have an impact on debates at academic institutions in many other countries, we would like to join our many Norwegian counterparts who oppose the action.
Disgraced former Congressman Jim Traficant was recently freed from federal prison after serving seven years of hard time for corruption and tax evasion. He surprised many people who haven’t followed his case by claiming in subsequent interviews that he had been framed by the “Israel lobby”.
When cultural historians look back at this week’s J-Street conference in Washington, DC, they will observe that many of the participants invested its proceedings with an almost mystical significance: a Woodstock moment for Jewish politics in America which poked a finger into the flabby bellies of the establishment organizations by declaring, “change has come, move aside.”
Some of the most interesting material on the controversy about J-Street that has developed in the run-up to the organization’s currently ongoing conference was provided by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who recently published an interview with J-Street’s executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami.
On the op-ed page of the South Carolina newspaper The Times and Democrat, two Republican officials are defending Senator Jim DeMint’s opposition to Congressional earmarking - the process whereby politicians can allocate funding to approved projects with very little oversight. Such allocations are famously dismissed by detractors as “pork” because they serve interests that are, most of the time, parochial and rather murky.
The time for “analyzing” and “reassessing” the situation in Iran is over. The Obama Administration should speak up on behalf of the millions of embattled Iranians confronting the Islamic Republic to demand fairness and the rule of law.
Even if the Ramat Shlomo announcement and its aftermath is a salutary reminder of the old Yiddish proverb about not spitting in the well you drink from, that should not be the only lesson we draw from this week’s events.
