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Saturday, September 17, 2016

Going All in with Netanyahu

http://lobelog.com/going-all-in-with-netanyahu/#more-35836

Going All in with Netanyahu

by Paul R. Pillar
The Republican Party and Republican candidates have been moving over the past few years ever more fully into the embrace of Israel’s right-wing government, even more than American politicians in general do. This trend has been apparent notwithstanding the traditional preference of AIPAC, the core of the Israel lobby, to keep its support bipartisan so that its influence on U.S. policy will not be largely dependent on the success of only one U.S. party. The de facto alliance between the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney can be considered a part of this trend. A more obvious part was the spectacle last year of Congressional Republicans inviting the head of a foreign government—i.e., Netanyahu—to denounce from the podium of the House chamber a major U.S. foreign policy initiative.
For this year’s campaign, the Republican Party platform surrenders all traces of independent thought on issues involving Israel and defers completely to the preferences and themes of Netanyahu’s government. The platform makes no mention whatever of Palestinians, of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or of a two-state solution or any other resolution of that conflict. It explicitly denies that there is any such thing as an Israeli occupation. It calls for outlawing any boycotts or other peaceful measures directed against Israeli policies in Israeli-controlled territories. It speaks of “no daylight between America and Israel”. This section of the platform would read no differently if it had come straight out of a printer in Netanyahu’s office.
Republican canvassers for Donald Trump are showing in another way their attitude toward the occupation by opening offices in settlements in the occupied West Bank to seek votes from U.S. citizens who live there. Those running the operation say their funds are raised locally but they coordinate daily with the Trump campaign. Their operation is based in what, according not only to long-established U.S. policy under multiple administrations but also the position of the international community generally, is an illegal Israeli presence. http://lobelog.com/going-all-in-with-netanyahu/#more-35836

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