US-Israel relations: a point of view
A proposal from Clifford Kiracofe*:
[...] for openers Team Obama should:
1. Task the intelligence community for a fresh NIE on Israel which includes counterintelligence issues.
2. Justice Department puts prosecutions on fast track for the AIPAC case/Franklin case.
3. Justice Department then requires AIPAC to register as a foreign agent (of Israel) just like other foreign agents/lobbyists around town must do.
4. Justice Department investigates status of “Religious Right” organizations, the Christian Zionist Lobby, to determine whether such organizations should also register as foreign agents of Israel. This would include CUFI, Christians United For Israel, led by Hagee.
5. Justice Department and appropriate intelligence community assets investigate any counterintelligence issues associated with “Religious Right” and its relationship to Israel and lobbying on the Hill and general influence peddling in Washington and nationally.
Once these openers are under way, we can move to some hard ball. Israelis forewarned that any attack on Iran by Israel to be treated like Ike treated Israel at Suez in 1956 (in an election year no less) along the following lines:
1. Embargo all US weapons to Israel.
2. Halt all foreign assistance to Israel.
3. Deny tax exempt status for State of Israel bonds and freeze all sales of such bonds in United States financial markets.
And so on. - Link
* Commenter MRW offers this information regarding Dr. Clifford Kiracofe: Dr. Clifford A. Kiracofe, Jr. is a former Senior Professional Staff Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He holds a B.A. (Foreign Affairs), M.A. (Foreign Affairs), and Ph.D. (Foreign Affairs) from the University of Virginia. He served as an Instructor (civilian) at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, Quantico, VA. and was a Research Associate at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Inc., Cambridge, MA.
US Empire and the Conflict in Israel/Palestine
Why Palestine? It’s hard to overstate the significance of Israel/Palestine to global politics. Some say that Barack Obama’s success or failure will be judged on whether a resolution to the conflict is reached during his presidency. For others the issue has deep moral resonance. As an indication of the fault lines in America, Hampshire College’s recent decision to divest from companies that do business with Israel has been both repudiated and celebrated as a major breakthrough.
Ali Abunimah, editor and founder of The Electronic Intifada says that Palestine matters precisely because it is the site of the last Western colonial project in the Third World and that opposition to Israel is also opposition to US hegemony in the region.
Abunimah, Brian Van Slyke of Hampshire College’s Students for Justice in Palestine, Kanwal-Shazia Chaudhry a Doctor in Brooklyn who recently traveled to Gaza with the American Medical Mission to Gaza, and Hannah Mermelstein, co-founder of Birthright Unplugged take on the question of why Palestine matters.
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