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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 6 months

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 26, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 27, 2023

A four-year-old dual Israeli-American citizen was among the 17 more hostages released by Hamas today. Israel released 39 Palestinian prisoners, all of whom were under 19 years old. Hamas has expressed interest in extending the truce; Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has echoed that interest so long as each day brings at least ten more hostages out of captivity. Officials from the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar continue to negotiate.

In the Washington Post today, reporters Steve Hendrix and Hazem Balousha put on the table the idea that both Netanyahu and Hamas “may be on the way out.” Such a circumstance would permit changes to the current political stalemate in the region, perhaps bringing closer the two-state solution for which officials around the world, including U.S. president Joe Biden, continue to push.

Israelis are furious that Netanyahu failed to prevent the October 7 attack, and seventy-five percent of them want him to resign or be replaced when the crisis ends. At the same time, Hendrix and Balousha write, Palestinians are angry enough at Gaza’s leadership to be willing to criticize Hamas.

Whether Hendrix and Balousha are right or wrong, it is significant that a U.S. newspaper is looking for a change of leadership in Israel as well as in Gaza. That sentiment echoes the statement of Netanyahu’s own mouthpiece, Israel Hayom, about a month ago. Begun by U.S. casino mogul Sheldon Adelson to promote Netanyahu’s ideas, the paper in early November said that Netanyahu should “lead us to victory and then go.”

Meanwhile, Iran-backed Houthi forces from Yemen fired two ballistic missiles at a U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Mason, this evening, missing it by about ten nautical miles (which are slightly longer than miles on land), or eighteen and a half kilometers. Earlier in the day, the USS Mason and Japanese allies rescued a commercial vessel, the Central Park, when it came under attack by five pirates in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia. The USS Mason captured and arrested the attackers as they fled. The USS Mason is part of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group deployed to the region. Attacks on shipping in the area have increased since the October 7 attack. Last week, Yemeni Houthis seized a cargo ship linked to Israel.

As Congress prepares to get back to work after the Thanksgiving holiday, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today released a letter addressed to his colleagues outlining the work he intends to get done before the end of the year. He emphasized that he and the Democrats want bipartisan solutions and urged his colleagues to work with Republicans to isolate the Republican extremists whose demands have repeatedly derailed funding measures.

Top of Schumer’s list is funding the government. The continuing resolution that passed just before Thanksgiving extended funding deadlines to two future dates. The first of those is January 19, and Schumer noted that lawmakers had continued to work on those bills over the Thanksgiving holiday to make sure they pass.

Next on Schumer’s list is a bill to fund military aid to Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific region as well as humanitarian assistance for Palestinian civilians and money for U.S. border security, including funding for machines to detect illegal fentanyl and for more border agents and immigration courts. President Biden requested the supplemental aid package of about $105 billion back in October, but while the aid in it is popular among lawmakers, hard-right Republicans are insisting on tying aid for Ukraine to a replacement of the administration’s border policies with their own. Some are also suggesting that helping Ukraine is too expensive.

Schumer noted that U.S. aid to Ukraine is vital to its ability to continue to push back the Russian invasion, while Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has pointed out that money appropriated for Ukraine goes to the U.S. defense industry to build new equipment as older equipment that was close to the end of its useful life goes to Ukraine.

Foreign affairs writer Tom Nichols of The Atlantic explains that foreign aid is normally about 1% of the U.S. budget—$60 billion—and 18 months of funding for both the military and humanitarian aid in Ukraine have been about $75 billion. Israel usually gets about $3 billion; the new bill would add about $14 billion to that. (For comparison, Nichols points out that Americans last year spent about $181 billion on snacks and $115 billion on beer.)

Schumer reminded his colleagues that backing off from aid to Ukraine would serve the interests of Russian president Vladimir Putin; backing off from our engagement with the Indo-Pacific would serve the interests of China’s president Xi Jinping.

“The decisions we will have to make in the coming weeks on the aid package could determine the trajectory of democracy and the resilience of the transatlantic alliance for a generation,” Schumer wrote. “Giving Putin and Xi what they want would be a terrible, terrible mistake, and one that would come back to haunt us…. We cannot let partisan politics get in the way of defending democracy….”

Schumer said he would bring the measure up as soon as the week of December 4.

Schumer’s letter came the day after the annual day of remembrance of the 1932–1933 Holodomor famine in Ukraine, when the Soviet Union under leader Joseph Stalin starved 3.5 to 5 million Ukrainians, seizing their grain and farms in an attempt to erase their national identity.

In a statement in remembrance of Holodomor yesterday, President Biden drew a parallel between the Holodomor of the 1930s and Russia’s war against Ukraine today, noting that “Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure is once more being deliberately targeted” as Russia is “deliberately damaging fields and destroying Ukraine’s grain storage facilities and ports.” (Even so, Ukraine has managed to deliver more than 170,000 tons of grain to Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Yemen in the past year.)

“On this anniversary, we remember and honor all those, both past and present, who have endured such hardship and who continue still to fight against tyranny,” Biden said. “We also recommit ourselves to preventing suffering, protecting fundamental freedoms, and responding to human rights abuses whenever and wherever they occur. We stand united with Ukraine.”

On the Ukrainian remembrance day of Holodomor, Russia launched 75 drones at Kyiv, its largest drone strike against Ukraine since the start of its invasion in February 2022.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Holodomor #Ukraine #war #hostages #diplomacy #Joe Biden #Heather Cox Richardson #history #famine

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mariacallous · 7 months

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LAS VEGAS (JTA) — Throughout the annual conference of the Republican Jewish Coalition, it seemed like attendees and speakers talked about two Donald Trumps.

One was the past president who delivered the crowd’s wishlist — moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, brokering normalization deals between Israel and four Arab countries, pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and more. The other was the Donald Trump of today, running for president with a vision of an insular, isolationist United States.

That split was at the core of the insecurity occupying American Jewish Republicans: With the rise in the party of an isolationist right, spurred in part by Trump’s “America First” rhetoric, how secure is the U.S.-Israel relationship? And how committed to the relationship is the former president?

“Corners of the party have turned into isolationist navel gazing Charles Lindbergh-esque pockets of stupidity, and they’re not committed to America’s robust role in the world anymore,” said attendee Jonathan Greenberg, a Reform rabbi and conservative activist who is an advisor to a private charitable foundation, referring to the aviator who sympathized with the Nazis. “And I don’t think they understand what the ramifications of that are.”

The RJC conference, which meets annually at the Venetian, acts as a forum for Republican presidential candidates. The hotel and casino was owned by the late Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson. His widow, Miriam Adelson, has said she will remain neutral in the 2024 presidential primary.

Trump got the biggest ovation of all eight candidates attending the event, earning applause for a speech laden with boasts that he would have prevented the war in Ukraine and Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. He also repeated his falsehoods about winning the 2020 election.

“Think of it, you wouldn’t have Ukraine, you wouldn’t have Israel being attacked,” he said. “I will defend our friend and ally the State of Israel like nobody has ever defended. I will rescue the economy. I will restore America’s borders, which are a disaster. I will stand up for American sovereignty and I will save American freedom starting on November 5, 2024.”

The audience whooped with delight, a reflection of Trump’s wide lead in the polls and the very likely possibility that he will be the nominee.

But just before he spoke, one of his rivals, Nikki Haley, also earned applause when she articulated a concern that has preoccupied many in the Jewish Republican establishment.

“We all know what Trump did in the past,” Haley said. “The question is, what will he do in the future?”

Insiders say that GOP Jewish donors fear that Trump is now alienated from many of the Jewish and pro-Israel advisers who shaped his first-term foreign policy such as his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. They have been replaced by isolationists who have flirted with antisemitism, such as Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Trump has indicated that if he is reelected he would pull the United States out of the NATO alliance and that he would broker a deal between Russia and Ukraine that would be favorable to Russia. In his final days in office, he sought to pull U.S. troops out of global conflict hot spots.

Trump has made no secret of his frustration with American Jews who continue to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. One year ago, he wrote on his social network, “Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel – Before it is too late!” And private conversations about Trump during the RJC confab inevitably ended up at his dinner a year ago with two notorious antisemites, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West and the Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.

Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who is also a contender and who addressed the RJC conference, told CNN on Sunday that Trump’s penchant for retribution presaged an uncomfortable second term for Israel and its supporters.

“What a second Trump presidency looks like will be much, much different,” Christie said, noting Trump’s repeated attacks on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in part because Netanyahu recognized Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. “F— him,” Trump once reportedly said of the prime minister.

“He will take vengeance against anyone who he thinks has done him wrong,” Christie said on CNN. “And it’s clear he thinks Benjamin Netanyahu has done him wrong and certain elements that support Israel have done him wrong politically..”

Hamas’ attack on Israel, and Israel’s ensuing war on the terror group in Gaza, was a focus of the conference. A featured speaker was Eli Beer, president of United Hatzalah, volunteer first responder corps, who wept as he read a traditional Jewish prayer for healing. A table was left with settings intact and empty chairs to honor the hundreds of hostages Hamas took in the invasion, which killed 1,400 Israelis and wounded thousands.

In a searing address the same day, Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, shocked the room by announcing his decision to drop out of the presidential race. Pence made clear he believed his former boss’s increasingly isolationist posture was ill-equipped to meet the current crisis.

“I don’t have to tell people that there are powerful voices within and outside our party that say we have to choose between supporting our allies and solving problems here at home,” said Pence, who never named Trump. “We have done both, we must do both and we will do both for the sake of America, Israel and the world.”

Trump’s volatility poses specific threats to Israel, said Haley, the single candidate among the seven Trump rivals who directly named the former president and repeatedly attacked him.

“As president, I will not compliment Hezbollah,” she said, referring to a recent speech by Trump in which he bashed Netanyahu and called the Lebanese terrorist organization “smart.” “Nor will I criticize Israel’s prime minister in the middle of tragedy and war. We have no time for personal vendettas.”

The deep foreign policy divisions in the Republican Party were on constant display throughout the weekend. Vivek Ramaswamy, the businessman who has explicitly called for cutting foreign aid to Israel, pitched his approach as pro-Israel.

“I am not running for president of Israel, I’m running for president of the United States,” he said. U.S. assistance to Israel meant that the United States had a say in how Israel waged its wars, Ramaswamy said, adding that the aid was holding Israel back. He pledged that he would continue to back Israel in diplomatic arenas.

“So what does that mean for U.S. involvement now?” he said. Using Israel’s missile defense system as a metaphor, he added, “It means we support Israel to the fullest with a diplomatic Iron Dome that allows Israel to fully defend its national existence without anybody else, not the U.S., not the U.N., not Europe, not anybody standing in Israel’s way.”

Pence, Haley, Christie, and South Carolina Sens. Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham pleaded with the RJC to lead the pushback against those views. (Graham, a longtime ally of the RJC, was a keynote speaker and, unlike the others, is not running for president.)

“If America does not change the way we look at the world, the world will get worse,” Graham said, describing the devastation he saw during a recent visit to Israel. “Isolationism and appeasement led us to this day.”

The Democratic National Committee, which held a call with reporters ahead of the RJC conference, said it was ready to push foreign policy to the forefront of the debate when it battled Republicans for the Jewish vote — a shift from a Democratic strategy of emphasizing domestic policy in past Jewish campaigns.

“Joe Biden flew into a war zone to stand with Israel at its moment of greatest need,” said Massachusetts Jewish Democratic Rep. Jake Auchincloss. Referring to an article in the Atlantic, he said, “Contrast that with Donald Trump, who refused to even visit a cemetery of American war dead including Jewish war dead in Normandy because it made him uncomfortable.”

Despite the warnings and criticism, the crowd at the conference seemed to love Trump. The former president enraptured the audience with a speech long on extravagant claims and short on facts. Trump saluted his backers in the audience, including lawmakers, donors and a star of the History Channel reality show “Pawn Stars.” He called Miriam Adelson “a fantastic woman.”

Trump boasted of his accomplishments, pulling numbers and historical dates out of thin air.

“We kept paying them $742 million a year,” he said of U.S. funding to the Palestinian Authority, which he cut. (It was about $564 million.) He said the new Jerusalem embassy cost $500,000, after he told his advisers not to be so cheap. (It cost an estimated $21 million. Previously, he has said he told his advisers to double the amount from $200,000 to $400,000). He said he ended 72 years of pleas to recognize Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights. (Israel has held the Golan for 56 years, since it captured the territory from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War.)

He praised Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban for praising him. “Viktor Orban said the other day, the only way that this world is going to be solved is a very strong man,” Trump said. He also claimed that if he had stayed in office, within three months, he would have persuaded the whole Middle East to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

And Republican leaders remained reluctant to criticize Trump for his recent comments about Hezbollah and Israel. Florida Sen. Rick Scott, in a brief interview, declined to comment on Trump’s attacks on Netanyahu. “I have a very good working relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” Scott said. “I’m just going to talk about my relationship.”

Matt Brooks, the RJC CEO, and Ari Fleischer, a former press secretary for President George W. Bush who is an RJC board member, said Trump’s record was more important than his ballistic rhetorical tendencies.

“He’s saying that Hezbollah, he’s not saying he supports them, he’s not saying he endorses them, he’s saying that they’re strategic and focused in how they act,” Brooks said in a briefing with reporters after Trump spoke. “That doesn’t change all that he has said previously and currently, and all that he has done. His record is unblemished on this.”

Fleischer said, “He shouldn’t have said it.” He added, “But his record is so strong and so good. He still has a deep pool of goodwill, because he earned it — as you saw in this room.”

The candidate earning the biggest boos, by contrast, was Christie, who has shaped his campaign around attacking Trump. Ronna McDaniel, the GOP chairwoman, opened the proceedings with a plea to end Republicans’ internecine fighting, which also played out in a lengthy, bruising and unprecedented fight in Congress over who would be speaker of the House.

“We cannot fight each other,” she said to applause. “Please resolve to unite around our eventual nominee.”

That appeal had resonance, even to people attending who admired Trump’s most serious rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Sharon Kattan, a New York City real estate agent, said she backed DeSantis for taking on allegations of campus antisemitism, and for how he ended COVID-19 restrictions. But she was ready to vote for Trump given his commanding lead in the polls.

“I know Trump will get it done,” she said. “But there’s a lot of divisiveness that comes along, he creates a lot of anger. And you just want a more peaceful situation in the country.”

Rep. Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican just elected speaker of the House, made his first public appearance in that role. He and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, also of Louisiana, said the days of Republican infighting were over. Scalise had also run for speaker.

Johnson described one of his first calls as speaker, with Netanyahu. “I assured the prime minister of our unwavering unwavering support of Israel and her people and I assured him that our Congress and under my leadership, we will be there until the end,” he said.

Almost every speaker at the conference brought up the first congressional vote of Johnson’s tenure, a resolution condemning Hamas and supporting Israel that was passed overwhelmingly, 412-10, with six voting present. Johnson said a small number of progressive Democrats’ votes against the resolution “underscored an alarming trend of antisemitism.”

He also quoted favorably G.K. Chesterton, the writer who said Hitler’s philosphy “is almost entirely of Jewish origin.”

“He observed that America is the only nation of the world that was founded upon a creed, and he said it was listed with almost theological lucidity,” Johnson said of Chesterton.

The tensions between some Jewish Republicans and people with deeply Christian outlooks such as Johnson — who has said in the past that homosexuality is “inherently unnatural” — became evident after Johnson left the stage and the comedian Modi closed the weekend.

Modi launched into a series of jokes about the differences between Gen Z and millennials by mentioning his husband, Leo, who is younger than him.

“It’s okay,” Modi said. “Mike Johnson isn’t here anymore. We can talk about it.”

There was nervous laughter.

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lepartidelamort · 2 days

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La milliardaire juive Miriam Adelson conditionne son colossal soutien financier à Trump en échange de l’annexion de toute la Palestine

Trump a grand besoin de l’or juif. Le peuple élu lui présente sa liste de conditions et nos lecteurs ne seront pas vraiment surpris d’apprendre qu’elles relèvent de l’extorsion.

Haaretz :

Bien que Donald Trump conserve depuis sept mois une avance dans les sondages sur le président Joe Biden, des informations de plus en plus nombreuses font état d’une panique financière qui s’est emparée de l’ancien président républicain. Donald Trump est à la traîne de Joe Biden en matière de collecte de fonds, et le fait qu’il ait dépensé une grande partie de ses dons pour une batterie d’avocats dans quatre affaires pénales, ainsi que pour des compensations dans d’autres affaires civiles, n’arrange certainement pas les choses. Les grands donateurs ont du mal à ouvrir leur chéquier et insistent pour que l’argent soit affecté à la campagne politique plutôt qu’aux frais juridiques personnels de M. Trump. Aujourd’hui, Trump a désespérément besoin d’argent, et il organise une braderie sur la future autorité présidentielle. Tout est possible pour cet homme qui pense qu’une victoire présidentielle le sauvera de la prison – ce qui l’effraie plus que tout. Même s’il est désormais un criminel condamné, M. Trump peut toujours compter sur des donateurs – et le New York Magazine a consacré son numéro du 20 mai à un profil détaillé de l’un de ces donateurs, le Dr Miriam Adelson.

La juive Miriam Adelson

Les grands donateurs ont toujours eu une influence considérable sur la politique américaine, mais grâce à la Cour suprême, ils sont devenus les faiseurs de roi au cours des 14 dernières années. Les juges issus de la Federalist Society qui ont conquis la Cour suprême au XXIe siècle ont ouvert les vannes avec l’arrêt Citizens United de 2010. Cinq juges nommés par les Républicains ont statué que les entreprises jouissaient de la liberté d’expression et que l’argent était une forme d’expression, et qu’aucune limite ne pouvait donc être imposée aux dons des campagnes électorales. Les quatre juges nommés par les démocrates ont exprimé leur désaccord. Quelques jours avant l’arrêt, le président Barack Obama avait prévenu dans son discours sur l’état de l’Union que les juges fédéralistes avaient ouvert une boîte de Pandore. La droite lui a reproché de porter atteinte à la dignité et à l’indépendance du pouvoir judiciaire. Très vite, il s’est avéré qu’il avait raison. Selon une étude de l’université de Chicago, 144 millions de dollars ont été dépensés par les démocrates et les républicains lors de l’élection présidentielle de 2008. Lors de la première élection présidentielle qui a suivi l’arrêt, en 2012, le montant combiné a grimpé à 1 milliard de dollars. Lors de l’élection présidentielle de 2020, ce montant s’élevait à 14,4 milliards de dollars.

En Amérique, la présidence est à vendre au plus offrant. À ce jeu-là, il n’est pas difficile de savoir qui est « faiseur de roi ».

Et non, ce ne sont pas les Blancs.

Le magnat des casinos de Las Vegas, Sheldon Adelson, a été le premier à reconnaître ce potentiel. Au cours de la dernière décennie de sa vie, il a dépensé la somme astronomique d’un demi-milliard de dollars pour soutenir des hommes politiques. Lors de la campagne présidentielle de 2012, il a rompu avec la longue habitude des grands donateurs de financer plusieurs candidats, couvrant ainsi leurs paris, et a préféré miser sur un seul candidat : il a donné à Newt Gingrich des dizaines de millions de dollars lors de sa candidature ratée à la primaire républicaine de 2012 contre Mitt Romney.

Sheldon Adelson, mari de Miriam Adelson, décédé en 2021

Adelson a peut-être perdu cette bataille, mais il a gagné la guerre. Sa volonté de soutenir un candidat avec une somme d’argent sans précédent a fait de lui une figure dominante du GOP presque du jour au lendemain. Adelson n’a jamais caché sa satisfaction d’être dans cette nouvelle position de faiseur de roi. C’est ainsi qu’ont été conçues les « primaires Adelson » : à l’approche des élections de 2016, pas moins de 17 candidats potentiels à la présidence ont fait le pèlerinage à Las Vegas pour l’implorer de les financer, laissant leur amour-propre au pays.

Le New York Times a révélé qu’en 2016, après que Trump a remporté les primaires républicaines mais s’est retrouvé sans donateurs pour affronter Hillary Clinton, Adelson lui a proposé un marché : 20 millions de dollars en échange du transfert de l’ambassade des États-Unis en Israël de Tel-Aviv à Jérusalem. Ce fut le début d’une relation fructueuse et enrichissante pour les deux hommes. Au total, Adelson a versé plus de 90 millions de dollars à Trump, l’ambassade a été transférée à Jérusalem (contre l’avis des collaborateurs de Trump) et Adelson est devenu le donateur le plus influent de Trump. Après la mort d’Adelson en janvier 2021, les républicains se demandaient ce que ferait sa veuve. Bien qu’elle s’abstienne d’accorder des interviews aux journalistes qui ne font pas partie de son personnel, Miriam Adelson a confirmé au New York Times, il y a environ un an, que les primaires Adelson ne reviendraient pas. Elle n’a pas l’intention de s’impliquer aussi profondément dans la politique américaine que son mari. Mais si quelqu’un pensait qu’elle se tenait à l’écart de la politique américaine, il s’est récemment trompé. L’article du New York Magazine sur Adelson, écrit par Elizabeth Weil, ne cite pas Adelson elle-même mais regorge d’informations sur la vie personnelle de la riche veuve, ce qui rend difficile de croire qu’elle ne s’est pas entretenue avec Weil officieusement. C’est assez facile à comprendre : Adelson utilise le magazine pour envoyer à Trump une allusion loin d’être subtile, elle pourrait être intéressée à lui faire des dons et serait heureuse d’être son plus grand donateur – et celui de toute la campagne – à condition qu’il lui donne ce qu’elle veut. Moins de deux semaines après cette histoire flatteuse, qui pourrait être interprétée comme l’appel public d’une femme à un homme, Politico a rapporté qu’Adelson avait finalement décidé de faire un don à Trump. Mais il ne s’agissait pas de n’importe quel don. Selon le rapport, Adelson n’a pas donné le nom de la somme, mais on s’attend à ce qu’elle « dépense plus que ce qu’elle et son défunt mari avaient fait il y a quatre ans ». Cela ferait d’elle la plus grande donatrice de la campagne 2024. Les journalistes de Politico n’ont pas donné la raison de la décision d’Adelson, mais l’article du New York Magazine pourrait fournir la réponse.

« La presse a souvent rapporté que les dons des Adelson étaient ceux de Sheldon, alors qu’en réalité, ils étaient aussi ceux de Miriam », a écrit M. Weill. « Certains observateurs des Adelson pensaient que la vie serait plus saine une fois que Miriam contrôlerait seule la fortune familiale. C’était une erreur. Sheldon était un tyran : combatif, procédurier, vantard. Miriam est une idéologue« . Un ancien cadre supérieur aurait déclaré : « [Sheldon] était celui qui aboyait, mais je crois que c’est elle qui mordait… Elle était plus agressive. Il était plus agressif si elle était dans la pièce ». Adelson a tendance à être tout aussi direct que son défunt mari lorsqu’il s’adresse aux hommes politiques. Après que M. Trump a transféré l’ambassade des États-Unis à Jérusalem, l’une des organisations financées par M. Adelson a publié une pleine page de publicité dans le New York Times. Sur une image de Trump portant une kippa et visitant le Mur occidental, l’annonce le félicitait : « Président Trump : Vous avez promis. Vous avez tenu parole ».

Cette année, M. Trump a remporté les primaires facilement et rapidement, en quelques semaines seulement. Après avoir renvoyé tous ses concurrents, il a invité Adelson à un dîner de shabbat à Mar-a-Lago en mars. Selon l’article du New York Magazine, Trump n’est pas sorti de ce dîner avec le chèque qu’il espérait, mais il semble avoir compris comment l’obtenir. Quelques jours plus tard, il a accordé une interview à Omer Lachmanovitch et Ariel Kahana du quotidien gratuit Israel Hayom, propriété d’Adelson.

Donald Trump, Omer Lachmanovitch et Ariel Kahana

« Je suis une personne très loyale. J’ai été loyal envers Israël. J’ai été le meilleur président de l’histoire par un facteur de 10 pour Israël en raison de toutes les choses que je fais, l’ambassade, Jérusalem étant la capitale… Mais ensuite, vous avez les accords d’Abraham et ensuite vous avez le plateau du Golan », leur a dit Trump, faisant référence à la reconnaissance américaine de la souveraineté israélienne sur le territoire. « Personne ne pensait que cela serait possible. » Après cinq mois au cours desquels il a refusé de préciser sa position sur la guerre entre Israël et le Hamas, préférant s’en prendre au Premier ministre Benjamin Netanyahu, grâce à Adelson, Trump a finalement exprimé un soutien sans équivoque à Israël. Cependant, selon l’article de Weil, Trump a commis une erreur tactique qui l’a éloigné de l’argent qu’il recherche si désespérément. « Vous devez terminer votre guerre », a-t-il déclaré. « Vous devez la terminer. Vous l’avez fait. Et je suis sûr que vous le ferez ». Adelson, qui habite à Herzliya et qui est un mégadonateur pour le développement des colonies en Cisjordanie, n’a pas voulu entendre Trump aspirer à la paix. Elle ne voulait rien entendre qui aurait pu être interprété comme une critique d’Israël. Selon le rapport, ce qu’elle attend vraiment du second mandat de Trump, c’est une annexion israélienne de la Cisjordanie et une reconnaissance par les États-Unis de la souveraineté israélienne dans toutes les régions du pays. Dans ces conditions, il n’y a pas de place pour l’Autorité palestinienne et personne avec qui signer un accord de paix.

Herzliya

L’article du New York Magazine se termine par une menace implicite à l’encontre de Trump : « L’élection présidentielle aura lieu dans cinq mois. Adelson continue de se tenir à l’écart de la course ». En l’espace de dix jours, Politico a rapporté que l’ancien président et M. Adelson s’étaient rencontrés et parlés au téléphone à plusieurs reprises depuis ce dîner de mars. Ce dont ils ont parlé n’a pas été rapporté, mais les relations de Trump avec ses donateurs milliardaires ont tendance à se multiplier. Adelson n’est pas le seul grand donateur ; d’autres viennent aussi avec leur liste de demandes. Le Washington Post a récemment fait état d’une autre réunion entre M. Trump et certains donateurs, un groupe qui, selon M. Trump, comprenait « 98 % de mes amis juifs ». Lors de cette réunion, qui s’est tenue à New York le 14 mai, les donateurs ont interrogé M. Trump sur les étudiants qui manifestaient contre Israël sur les campus, ce à quoi il a répondu : « Tout étudiant qui proteste est expulsé du pays. Vous savez, il y a beaucoup d’étudiants étrangers. Dès qu’ils entendront cela, ils se tiendront à carreau ».

Lorsque l’un des donateurs anonymes s’est plaint que les étudiants et les professeurs pourraient un jour occuper des postes de pouvoir, M. Trump a déclaré que les manifestants faisaient partie d’une « révolution radicale » qu’il s’était engagé à vaincre. « Si vous me faites élire, et c’est vraiment ce que vous devriez faire, nous allons faire reculer ce mouvement [pro-palestinien] de 25 ou 30 ans. » S’adressant aux donateurs, M. Trump n’a pas mentionné M. Netanyahou, qu’il déteste depuis que le premier ministre a reconnu la victoire de M. Biden en 2020. Toutefois, en faisant référence à l’attaque terroriste du Hamas du 7 octobre, il a laissé entendre de manière très directe que son opinion sur M. Netanyahou n’avait pas changé : « Si vous remontez dans l’histoire, c’est comme juste avant l’Holocauste. Le président ou le chef du pays était faible. La situation n’a cessé de s’aggraver. Et puis, tout d’un coup, vous vous retrouvez avec Hitler. Vous vous retrouvez avec un problème que personne ne connaissait ».

Trump est décidément le plus brave des goyim.

Hélas pour lui, malgré tous ses efforts, les juifs haïssent si fanatiquement les Blancs qu’ils doivent choisir entre écraser tout de suite l’insurrection pro-palestinienne portée par les gens marron qui votent à gauche aux USA, ou finaliser la mise en minorité des Blancs que Biden garantit avec l’ouverture totale des frontières.

Or Trump doit faire campagne sur la question de l’immigration clandestine.

Pour les juifs, c’est à n’en pas douter un choix cornélien.

Une pause de quelques années dans la mise en minorité des Blancs aux États-Unis, leur but de toujours, ne peut se négocier que moyennant une concession gigantesque. Cette concession, c’est l’annexion de la Cisjordanie et la reconnaissance du Grand Israël par l’Amérique sous occupation.

Et c’est exactement ce que Trump s’apprête à faire.

Si les juifs annexent l’ensemble de la Palestine, 7 millions de Palestiniens vivront dans un vaste ghetto contrôlé par la juiverie esclavagiste.

Les médias et les politiciens continueront de qualifier le régime de Tel Aviv de « seule démocratie du Proche-Orient » pour continuer de lui fournir armes, munitions, cash et impunité diplomatique.

Il n’y a que dans les démocraties peuplées de non-juifs que les gens sont systématiquement désarmés.

Si ces juifs veulent annexer ces territoires, ce n’est pas pour coexister ad vitam aeternam avec les populations tombées entre les griffes, mais pour les éradiquer d’une façon ou d’une autre.

Démocratie Participative

#dempart #oy vey !#u.s.a.#us elections #us presidential election #donald trump

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thoughtlessarse · 2 months

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be moving ahead with his pledge to ban Al Jazeera following the recent passage of a new law in the Israeli Knesset. The law, approved in a landslide 71–10 vote, grants officials the authority to shut down foreign news networks suspected of causing “harm to the state’s security.” “Al Jazeera harmed Israel’s security, actively participated in the October 7 massacre, and incited against Israeli soldiers,” Netanyahu claimed last week, which Al Jazeera vehemently denied. The move has raised concerns among advocates, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, and from the White House. But what will this change mean within Israel, where media and nightly television depict a very different reality than the rest of the world is seeing? Ido David Cohen, a writer and journalist covering Israeli media for Haaretz, views this law as part of an ongoing campaign of intimidation and censorship by Netanyahu that began long before the current war. (His own outlet has been threatened as well.) He spoke to me from Tel Aviv about the state of journalistic independence in Israel, the potential impact of this new law on domestic Israeli media outlets, and how Netanyahu’s erosion of press freedom could have significant long-term implications for Israel’s standing as a democracy, even if the disappearance of Al Jazeera may not change much at first. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Aymann Ismail: It’s jarring to see the Israeli government make lateral moves to ban an international news outlet. Could something like this have happened before the war? Ido David Cohen: It’s funny, it’s almost hard to remember what life was like before the war. Since this government first came to power in January 2023, there were big concerns about what they were going to do regarding freedom of speech. Generally, free speech is allowed as far as journalists can do their work and criticize the government. But over 15 years with Benjamin Netanyahu, since 2009, things have gotten worse. Netanyahu put a lot of effort into making Israeli media loyal or flattering. He made himself the minister of communications and media—what we call in Hebrew Tikshoret. Some of his corruption charges are connected to his behavior in that role. He tried to give orders to media outlets. For example, he and his wife told Walla to remove articles. He planted people who are not journalists in the army radio station, which is actually one of the two mainstream Israeli radio stations. Netanyahu encouraged billionaire Sheldon Adelson to establish a newspaper to explicitly help the right wing. This newspaper, Israel Hayom, was handed out for free in public places like squares and train stations, and is widely considered to be one of the largest factors in Netanyahu’s return to power. It’s why in Israel, we call it “Bibiton,” or “Bibi newspaper,” though it has also been critical of him at times recently. Newspapers, television channels, and some websites have shifted right. We also have media outlets, like Haaretz, that try to do the work and believe in journalism, but we still have to keep our eyes open and be on the lookout for what Netanyahu is trying to do.

#israel #media in israel #government control #governnment propaganda

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ravenkings · 10 months

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The meddling of oligarchs and other monied interests in the fate of nations is not new. During the First World War, J. P. Morgan lent vast sums to the Allied powers; afterward, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., poured money into the fledgling League of Nations. The investor George Soros’s Open Society Foundations underwrote civil-society reform in post-Soviet Europe, and the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson funded right-wing media in Israel, as part of his support of Benjamin Netanyahu. But [Elon] Musk’s influence is more brazen and expansive. There is little precedent for a civilian’s becoming the arbiter of a war between nations in such a granular way, or for the degree of dependency that the U.S. now has on Musk in a variety of fields, from the future of energy and transportation to the exploration of space. SpaceX is currently the sole means by which NASA transports crew from U.S. soil into space, a situation that will persist for at least another year. The government’s plan to move the auto industry toward electric cars requires increasing access to charging stations along America’s highways. But this rests on the actions of another Musk enterprise, Tesla. The automaker has seeded so much of the country with its proprietary charging stations that the Biden Administration relaxed an early push for a universal charging standard disliked by Musk. His stations are eligible for billions of dollars in subsidies, so long as Tesla makes them compatible with the other charging standard. In the past twenty years, against a backdrop of crumbling infrastructure and declining trust in institutions, Musk has sought out business opportunities in crucial areas where, after decades of privatization, the state has receded. [...] In a podcast interview last year, Musk was asked whether he has more influence than the American government. He replied immediately, “In some ways.” Reid Hoffman told me that Musk’s attitude is “like Louis XIV: ‘L’état, c’est moi.’

–Ronan Farrow, "Elon Musk's Shadow Rule," The New Yorker, August 21, 2023

#ronan farrow #elon musk #article #quote

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sethshead · 5 months

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In the calculus of an antisemite, Jews are both subhuman and superhuman – vermin who control the world. Common antisemitic rhetoric places Jews at the center of conspiracies, secretly controlling anything and everything: America, the banks, the Middle East, a vast colonialist enterprise, immigration, the Federal Reserve, NATO, and even Taylor Swift’s concert tour schedule.

People hate Jews because they are communists, capitalists, foreigners, residents, immigrants, elitists, have strange ways, are unassimilated, too assimilated, bankroll the left (like George Soros) or bankroll the right (like Sheldon Adelson). People hate Jews because they are weak and stateless, or because they are Zionists and defend Israel.

This hate is justified in a number of ways, and it is never just because someone is Jewish.

This is the crux of how so many seemingly well meaning people underestimate the prevalence of antisemitism. Few come right out and say “I hate Jews and want to exterminate them”. Antisemitism is expressed in evocation and euphemism. The attack will be on some evil Jews have been made to represent, yet the solution with cause harm to actual Jews unrelated to said evil. Thus Israel and Zionism can become colonialism incarnate, an expansionist system of global media and economic control out of the “Protocols”, with few realizing just how many libels that characterization depends on. And the solution - a river-to-sea Palestine and the dissolution of Jewish rights to self-determination and -defense - leaves seven million people immediately vulnerable to genocide and ethnic cleansing, and leaves eight million more without a guaranteed haven when their traditional persecution in any number of the countries where their diaspora lives resumes.

This is again why there is near-perfect overlap between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. The more we tolerate the equivocating denials of the ancient malice informing modern anti-Zionism, the longer antisemitism will endure.

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mitchipedia · 2 years

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American Gentry

Much of America is governed by a class of wealthy gentry—not billionaires but not middle class either. Their wealth is in the millions and tens of millions.

Patrick Wyman:

This kind of elite’s wealth derives not from their salary - this is what separates them from even extremely prosperous members of the professional-managerial class, like doctors and lawyers - but from their ownership of assets. Those assets vary depending on where in the country we’re talking about; they could be a bunch of McDonald’s franchises in Jackson, Mississippi, a beef-processing plant in Lubbock, Texas, a construction company in Billings, Montana, commercial properties in Portland, Maine, or a car dealership in western North Carolina. Even the less prosperous parts of the United States generate enough surplus to produce a class of wealthy people. Depending on the political culture and institutions of a locality or region, this elite class might wield more or less political power. In some places, they have an effective stranglehold over what gets done; in others, they’re important but not all-powerful.

Wherever they live, their wealth and connections make them influential forces within local society. In the aggregate, through their political donations and positions within their localities and regions, they wield a great deal of political influence. They’re the local gentry of the United States.

Gentry classes have been common throughout history: The Roman Empire, Han China, medieval France, and the planters of the antebellum South.

By definition, they’re local elites.

In the early Roman Empire, for example, local civic elites were essential to the functioning of the state. They collected taxes in their home cities, administered justice, and competed with each other for local political offices and seats on the city councils. Their competition was a driving force behind the provision of benefits to the common folk in the form of festivals, games, public buildings, and more basic support, a practice called civic euergetism.

These local elites of the Roman world served as the linkage between the central administrative apparatus of the earlier emperors like Augustus or Hadrian and the archipelago of cities that made up the Roman Empire. This was how the Roman Empire could function with a central administration of only a few hundred scribes, clerks, and functionaries gathered around the emperor: The central state essentially outsourced the day-to-day running of the empire to the city councillors of Marseilles, Tarragona, Antioch, Athens, Carthage, and a hundred other cities scattered from Britain to Arabia.

…

When we talk about inequality, we skew our perspective by looking at the most visible manifestations: penthouses in New York, mansions in Beverly Hills, the excesses of hedge fund billionaires or a misbehaving celebrity. But that’s not who most of the United States’ wealthy elite really are. They own $2 million houses on golf courses outside Orlando and a condo in the Bahamas, not an architecturally designed oceanfront villa in Miami. It’s not that those billionaires and excesses don’t exist; it’s that they’re not nearly as common as a less exalted kind of wealth that’s no less structurally formative to our economy and society.

There are an enormous number of organizations and institutions dedicated to advancing the interests of this gentry class: Chambers of Commerce, exclusive country clubs and housing developments, the American Society of Concrete Contractors, and fruit-growers’ associations, just to name a small cross-section. Through these organizations and their intimate ties to local and state politics, the gentry class can and usually does wield significant power to shape society to their liking.

It’s easy to focus on the massive political spending of a Sheldon Adelson or Michael Bloomberg; it’s harder, but no less important, to imagine what kind of deals about water rights or local zoning ordinances are being struck across the country on the eighth green of the local country club.

This class is largely hereditary.

Managers run their companies, lawyers look over their contracts, accountants manage their finances, but they’re the owners, whether or not they’ve done a single thing of their own volition to accumulate those assets.

…

Equating wealth, especially generational wealth, with virtue and ability is a deeply American pathology. This country loves to believe that people get what they deserve, despite the abundant evidence to the contrary. Nowhere is this more obviously untrue than with our gentry class. They stand at the apex of the social order throughout huge swathes of the country, and shape our economic and political world thanks to their resources and comparatively large numbers, yet they’re practically invisible in our popular understanding of these things.

Power resides in group photos of half-soused overweight men in ill-fitting polo shirts, in gated communities and local philanthropic boards. You’ll rarely, if ever, see these things on CNN or in the New York Times, but they’re no less essential to understanding how and why our society works the way it does.

#twt

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