Obama in Bed with the Israel Lobby [Zionists]
Obama will have huge debts of gratitude to Jews,
to his very pro-Israeli political endorsers
as well as huge monetary debts
to pro-Israeli contributors
That will keep him from ever looking honestly
at what Israel is doing to the Palestinians
Israel Slaughters Palestinians...
Clinton & Obama Woo the Jewish Vote
"Israeli aircraft and troops attacked Palestinian positions in northern Gaza on Saturday, killing at least 46 people and wounding more than 100 in the deadliest day of fighting in more than a year."
"Hamas says Israel bombs Gaza Interior Ministry"
"Gaza residents are told to boil drinking water as purifying chlorine runs out"
"Escalating fighting renews threats of an Israeli invasion of Gaza"
"Rice heads to Israel"
That's the news of the day.
The next president will have to deal with the reality of a humanitarian, political and military crisis in the Middle East that grows worse with each passing year.
The reality is that the United States -- while profoundly influential in the region -- fails to operate as an honest or effective player.
So what is the response from the Barack Obama campaign on this desperate day?
"Barack makes a surprise stop at the Sombrero Festival in Brownsville, Texas," announces his website.
And what of the Hillary Clinton campaign?
"Our campaign announced that we've raised approximately $35 million in contributions for the month of February," declares her website.
Search as one might at mid-day, but you won't find a statement on the exploding crisis in the Middle East.
Of course these candidates are locked in a serious competition that may be heading for some sort of conclusion with Tuesday's Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont primaries.
But couldn't they at least bother to appear interested in the challenges that one of them might face as president?
None of us should be unrealistic. It would be ridiculous at this point to expect Obama or Clinton to display the concern for the plight of innocent Palestinians evidenced by Jimmy Carter... or even by the recently-engaged George Bush.
But failing to even discuss the burgeoning crisis in the Middle East sends a signal that should trouble people on all sides of the debate.
Carter told me a few months ago that the only way for a president to make progress toward peace in the region is to begin working on Middle East issues even before taking the oath of office.
If knowledge, concern and evidence of determination are not on display from the start, said the president who forged functional relations between Israel and Egypt, it will be impossible to advance the arduous process of peacemaking.
That Obama and Clinton are not inclined to look up from their campaigning for long enough to address an international crisis is probably to be expected. But that doesn't make it any less unsettling.
And if their current disengagement foreshadows things to come, then the talk of "change" that has so energized the 2008 presidential race will almost certainly turn out to have been just that: talk.
Obama Owned by Zionism Inc
It is generally accepted that Hillary Clinton has been, is and will forever remain in bed with the Israel Lobby, But what about Obama?
The Israeli establishment would most like to see Clinton in the White House.
Palestinians have accused her of taking an increasingly one-sided approach to the Middle East conflict.
Visiting the region in 2005 as senator for New York, Senator Clinton shunned the Palestinians completely, meeting only Israeli leaders and hearing and expressing only Israeli positions.
She particularly galled Palestinians by enthusiastically backing the 700-kilometre complex of walls and fences that Israel is building inside the West Bank.
Obama supporters say that their superhero cannot be seen to sympathize with the Palestinians or criticize Israel during the campaign.
Therefore, we should all lie low for now, not even press him on the issue, get him nominated and elected, and then work on him to change after he becomes president.
With all due respect to this position, which we recognize as legitimate, and to those who believe this, we feel it is a pipe dream to expect that Obama will ever change after being elected on a platform of unquestioning support for Israel and its oppression of Palestinians.
He will have huge debts of gratitude to the Jewish community, and particularly to his very pro-Israeli political endorsers as well as huge monetary debts to pro-Israeli contributors.
That will keep him from ever looking honestly at what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and particularly from ever speaking out forthrightly against this oppression.
Secondly, Obama has taken an extremely immoral stand on the Palestinian-Israeli issue by, among other positions, actually applauding Israel's siege and starvation of 1.5 million innocent Gazans.
And by mourning Israel's losses to Palestinian rocket fire (12 people in seven years) without bothering even to mention the approximately 2,600 Gazans killed by Israeli rocket fire, airstrikes, and assassinations in those same seven years.
He made one reference last year to Palestinian suffering, was immediately dumped on by Jewish leaders, and has since said nothing honest about the occupation -- not even expressing support for the two-state solution.
This is so distasteful that it ought to be totally unacceptable to anyone who works for peace in the Middle East, not just in Palestine-Israel but also in the broader region.
Many responsible people have said that Israel is committing or is nearing the commission of genocide against the Palestinians.
How in God's name can we just sit back and wait for the Israel lobby to work its will before we complain to Obama about his silence?
There might be some mitigating factors here if Obama were truly committed to really ending the Iraq war, but his position on this is ambiguous and uncertain enough to make us believe that here too he is at least partly in the pockets of Israel and its supporters.
Anything short of an immediate withdrawal from Iraq constitutes, in our view, a perpetuation of the militarism initiated by the Bush/Cheney/neocon/Israel conglomerate and backed by the centrist DLC.
This is horrifying. We also see little hope elsewhere: although Obama is not bad on Iran, he wants to attack Pakistan!
Our concern about Palestine-Israel, and about the way that oppression of the Palestinians is always put on the back burner in the interests of not antagonizing a key voting bloc, is not overdrawn.
U.S.-supported Israeli oppression of the Palestinians is the principal root cause of anti-American terrorism and of hatred of the U.S. around the world, particularly the Arab and Muslim worlds.
However often Mubarak and the Kings Abdullah and Abbas assure us that there is nothing to worry about, that it does not really matter if Palestinians are oppressed, we should never forget that their people, the proverbial "street throughout the Arab world, do care and care very deeply.
One day, the U.S. will pay dearly -- again -- for our obliviousness to Palestinian suffering. And that is quite apart from the hatred that Iraq and Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo arouse.
Will we ever see a Democratic candidate with the courage of his/her convictions, the honor to speak out against injustice no matter how politically risky.
Democrats are always ready to sell their souls for the Jewish vote. Cow-towing to Israel in order to get elected is the norm in the Democratic party.