03/05/14 – M.J. Rosenberg – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
And our first guest up today is MJ Rosenberg.
He's formerly, I know you hate it when I say this, MJ, but it's relevant.
He's formerly a staffer with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, although that was a long, long time ago.
You were hastened to have me, hastened to add.
But now he's a peace activist kind of a guy.
He writes at the Huffington Post.
And I don't know, what happened to your website?
It looks like it's gone, mjrosenberg.com.
Is that right, MJ?
Yeah, I took it down.
I have my own list, which goes out to thousands of people, and I prefer to sell my stuff that way.
And I have it on Huffington Post.
I mean, it goes out to Huffington Post and Washington Spectator and TACOON.
So I need my own website.
Nobody went to read my stuff at the website.
They always looked at other places.
There you go.
Okay.
Well, yes, certainly I always look at Huffington Post for the latest.
And this will be an issue later on in the interview.
I want to talk about your latest there about the BDS movement, a very interesting article to me.
But first of all, let's see what kind of coverage we can get about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee meeting this week in Washington, D.C.
What are the highlights so far?
I guess Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken.
Well, it's over.
I mean, it ended already.
Oh, is it over?
Yeah, yeah.
They saved the big moment, you know, his speech for the end.
And the very last thing, following his speech, his speech is sort of like it was the AIPAC delegates, their marching orders.
And then they go up to Capitol Hill.
It was interesting.
We hadn't heard from him for a while.
And then they go up to Capitol Hill.
And then they go up to Capitol Hill.
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And then they go up to Capitol Hill.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah.
I mean, I suppose people who are, you know, like, you know, disabled don't go.
Yeah, but you're saying pretty much.
Yeah.
They all, they go to, they have meetings scheduled with every single congressional office.
I was talking to a friend about, who works on Capitol Hill, works for a senator.
And I said, oh, AIPAC is up there.
And he said, I said, yeah, is that your, I said, is that your second worst day of the year?
Because I worked on Capitol Hill for 15 years.
So he said, he said, second worst.
What's the worst?
So I said, well, when all the right-to-lifers go up on January 20th, and they all march with their red roses about the unborn and all that, and they have, they have even more people than AIPAC.
He said, I don't know.
They're nothing like AIPAC.
He said, one, they don't demand to see the congressmen themselves.
They're happy with staff.
Two, if they have a staffer, they don't demand a higher staffer.
And three, they don't give us orders.
They're polite.
They make our points.
They make their points.
And he says an entirely different thing.
No, I can't stand them, but I'll take them any day.
They don't come up and boss us around like they own us.
But that was kind of interesting.
Yeah, so what is the worst day, then, if it's not this one?
The worst day is, no, the worst day is the, I'm sorry.
The worst day is the AIPAC one.
I thought it was the second worst after the right-to-lifers.
And he said, absolutely not.
These people, the right-to-lifers don't act like they're entitled.
I thought you were going to say, no, it's another event that's also hosted by AIPAC, or maybe when the Christians United for Israel come, or something like that.
Well, yeah, I don't know about that, but this is just one office.
But when I was up there, it was awful when they'd come in, because they demand they really demand to see the senator or congressman.
I've known them to just walk into meetings where the doors are closed.
I mean, nobody does that.
But I guess they think it's their Congress.
They paid for it, so hey, what can you do?
Yeah, the senators, they're just the help.
Exactly.
Well, yeah, no, I mean, that's really something else.
I guess it's funny, because I'm a libertarian, so I'm not much into democracy, because what right does 51% have to boss me around on any issue, really?
But it comes down to it, I kind of admire the organization and the stick-to-itiveness and the ability to simply work within the system.
And that's not to say that they don't work around the system, because they do, but that's the Grant Smith interview coming up next.
But for our purposes, the Israel lobby, AIPAC and their associated groups, they play the game of democracy so well.
I mean, the way you described it, they're so arrogant, it probably backfires on them at least a little bit.
But when it comes down to making sure that they have somebody there to push a congressman or a staffer or whoever on each and every issue, they've got it covered.
They've got somebody there.
The word goes out that everybody call everyone on your telephone tree and everyone on your email list and everyone who gets an email actually do the thing that it's telling you to do.
Send the letter, make the phone call, do the thing.
They do it, and they get it done.
They're better than the AARP, they're better than the gun lobby, they're better than anyone at going up there and just making sure.
Oh, and the one other thing would be, if you cross them, if you're a congressman and you cross them, they will guarantee bankroll your primary challenger.
And if you beat him, then they'll bankroll your general election challenger.
And if you beat him, then they'll see you in two years, and they're not going to forget.
It's all very working within the democratic system and all that.
But it's hardball, man.
They play hardball bad.
It's hardball, but the difference between the AARP and the NRA and the other ones that you mentioned is they're doing it at the orders of and for a foreign government.
Ah, well, there's the rub.
Yeah, there has to be something, and that's it.
There is no other lobby for a foreign government that's like that.
Nothing close.
But what if we had a peace lobby like that, where everybody who was anti-war, no matter what we hate about each other on any other issue, we just always work together on anti-war, and we're hardcore like this, and we're all on one big email list like this, and that kind of thing.
It would be great.
It would be great.
It's my ultimate fantasy to have that, for just the 300 million of us versus D.C., and the 300 million of us say none of this, no more.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
But that's not going to happen.
I mean, it might happen, but you're younger than me.
Maybe we need to get the Canadians to bankroll it, or the Brazilians or somebody.
It's certainly not the Canadians.
They're even further to the right than we are these days.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, man.
Maybe we should get you started on that.
Yeah.
Well, you want to comment a little bit more about that?
Because I don't pay much attention.
I know they have a right-winger in power now, but I don't know much about him.
Oh, well, on war peace issues, they're crazy.
He's not just a right-winger.
He's a religious fundamentalist, but I didn't even know they had those up there.
And he's crazy on the subject of Israel.
He recently went over to the Canadian prime minister, went over there and gave a speech that would shame an American president.
It was just ridiculous.
I mean, I'm not going to hold that against all Canadians, but still.
There are fewer countries for us to run, and I do, and when the time comes.
Yeah.
All in all, though, Canada is better on most things.
But I want to say about the AIPAC conference, I think they would have been better off had they not had it, had it been canceled because of the snow.
I bet they were sitting there watching the weather reports and hoping they had an excuse to cancel.
Because the purpose, what happened, they beat Obama on the Iran sanctions thing, when Obama said, I'll veto the bill, more sanctions, which would destroy the negotiations.
AIPAC lost, and the Democrats all abandoned the AIPAC bill, and then AIPAC abandoned the AIPAC bill, and amazingly said, well, it was a Republican bill, and we're bipartisan.
It was just so ridiculous.
They wrote the bill.
Republicans didn't write the bill.
But anyway, they abandoned the whole thing.
So, man, they were hurting.
They had lost big time.
So the point of this conference should have been that they could show, we're here, we're strong.
But it didn't.
Obama scared them so much that it was just, there are two speakers from the administration, the Secretary of State, who in their eyes is all evil, because he's the one behind this Iran negotiation.
But they applauded him and cheered him, even though privately they were seething.
But they had been told, no booing, none of that.
And they had the Secretary of Treasury, Jacob Lew, there.
He defended, of course, his own administration.
They sat there and applauded and did all that.
There was no saber-rattling at Obama at all, because they now know he fights back.
He doesn't like them.
He doesn't like them.
He doesn't like their prime minister, either.
So they're scared of him.
And when he said those words in his State of the Union speech, in which he said, I will veto Iran, APEC's Iran sanctions bill, because it's against our national security, that scared them.
I mean, he was all of a sudden saying, which side are you on?
So at their conference, where they could have either fought back hard or kind of rolled over, they rolled over again.
It ended with Netanyahu giving a speech.
Netanyahu's speech is kind of a classic.
It's his usual stuff that the Iranians are the worst people in the world and that they're going to lob nuclear weapons at Israel and we're all going to die and all this stuff.
But he said it jokingly this time.
He made jokes about it, like he was kidding.
Like, we all know I'm going to say this.
Oh, he said the Iranians are going to start shooting Scud missiles at the United States.
And then he said, it used to be just a threat for us, but now they're going to be a threat to you too.
And he said, you know the phrase, this Scud's for you?
Well, America, it's going to be this Scud's for you.
Are you kidding me?
Scud's he threatened us with.
I hadn't realized that continental drift had sped up by 100 million percent.
Yeah, he didn't threaten it.
He just was making a joke.
But the very fact that he was joking about it, it was, you know, usually it's like gloom and doom.
It's 1942.
It's to be the end and Hitler is taking over again.
He kind of said all of it, but his heart wasn't in it.
And then he spent 25 percent of the speech.
I know that because I counted.
25 percent of the speech denouncing the BDS, Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, and said how it's terrible and anti-Semitic and college students should avoid the plague.
And then I wrote my piece in Huffington Post.
I thought it's like, it would be like Lyndon Johnson in the middle of the Vietnam War giving a major speech and attacking SDS.
It's just like, why are you attacking BDS?
I understand you don't like it.
I don't like it either.
But the point is, that's not your problem.
Your problem is the damn occupation.
And that's why you've got a problem.
And your problem is you tried to get the United States into a war with Iran.
That's your problem.
And what a diversion that is.
Blame it on college students and activists who, right or wrong, favor boycotting, divestment, and sanctions on Israel.
And that's the way the speech ended.
It ended with all that, and they gave a standing ovation.
It was a big nothing.
Yeah, it sounds just like a big nothing.
Now hold it right there.
We've got to take this break.
We'll be right back with M.J. Rosenberg right now at the Huffington Post.
We'll be right back after this.
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All right, guys.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
I'm talking with M.J. Rosenberg about the big AIPAC meeting in Washington, D.C., and Netanyahu's speech, and then, of course, policies.
The ones in question, of course, Palestine, Iran, also Syria, of course.
Let me ask you this before we get back into it.
M.J., are you aware of and or are you going to the national summit to reassess the U.S.-Israel special relationship this Friday at the National Press Club?
I am aware of it, and I'm not going because I'm too old for these meetings.
I don't do it anymore.
I don't go to anything.
I sit in my house and write.
That's what I do.
If I actually went somewhere or if you probably did an advertisement for it, I'd probably go because your ads convince me to buy anything.
Oh, you like those, huh?
I love them.
I got to tell you, I have a kid who's a big radio guy in New York, and he's really good at selling stuff on the air.
I always get amazed by how, because now on radio, of course, as you know, you pitch one thing after another.
There's no longer between the music.
You are the best.
I know it has nothing to do with your show.
You just obviously cut this out.
Whenever I listen to you, I think, wow, if you advertised Walmart, I'd shop at Walmart.
Wow, that's pretty good.
I actually have, I don't know if I got it cued up here, but I have a commercial for it.
I'm actually giving the opening remarks first thing in the morning.
Really?
The whole thing is 8 to 5.
Oh, really?
I'm doing the opening welcome everybody thing, and then I'm hosting one of the panels later in the afternoon.
But it's going to be all of my guests who care about the Middle East at all are going to be there, man.
Where is it?
It's at the National Press Club.
At the National Press Club.
What will be the website for it?
It's NatSummit.org.
NatSummit.org, okay, good.
They've got General, and they've got a former FBI agent or two, I think at least two.
They're going to have a whole panel of former CIA guys, including Giraldi, Shoyer, and McGovern, and a couple others, I forget.
And Phil Weiss is going to be there, Justin Raimondo, Scott McConnell from the American Conservative Magazine, and Karen Kutowski, the former lieutenant colonel in the Air Force.
Oh, she's the best.
Neil Consolais sent a war from her seat at the Pentagon.
And Stephen Walt from Harvard is going to be there.
And so, yeah, man, it's going to be cool.
And you're the moderator?
No, just I'm giving the opening talk, and I'm moderating one of the panels.
Okay, I'm looking for your picture here.
Oh, am I on there?
Well, I don't know.
It is everybody speaking, and it's been alphabetic.
I don't know where you are on this, but you're obviously here.
Well, I'm not really giving a talk.
I'm just going to do a little bit of window dressing, but that's all.
I see.
Yeah, wow.
But Raimondo from antiwar.com.
The greats and the near greats of the movement are there, that's for sure.
Say what now?
How many people does it hold?
I don't know, but it's going to be packed, I'm pretty sure.
Yeah.
I mean, I guess depending on the weather, but.
Yeah, right.
Oh, Mark Perry's going to be there, too.
I like him a lot.
Yeah, there he goes.
Okay, what are we talking about?
You showing up there, so we can shake hands in person.
That would be great.
Yeah.
I don't even know what you look like.
You're a radio guy.
I'd rather not, because this way I have this image of you in my mind.
Oh, there you go.
Yeah, no, I'm very handsome and tall.
Oh, I'm sure you are.
Very broad shoulders.
Oh, no kidding.
Well, that's kind of exciting.
I might want to, you know, I need a bodyguard.
Yeah, I'm going to look into it.
All right, cool.
All right, so now, well, geez, let me ask you this about the Israel lobby.
So they had three pretty big losses in the last year.
They lost over Hagel, although not that he was great, but at least they were against him and lost on that issue.
Exactly.
And then they lost on Syria last fall.
I almost think that Obama deliberately asked them to help on Syria and then left them hanging out to dry, that he already was working on that deal with the Russians to get rid of the chemicals instead.
Well, he was already working on the Iran stuff at that point, and he wasn't telling the Israelis about it.
So, yeah, that's a good point.
Iran next.
I'm not certain of that.
I just sort of suspect, but I don't know.
Anyway.
Yeah.
So now then, as you said, Obama, and I think it took this, really.
It took him mentioning it in the State of the Union speech that, listen, you better not do these sanctions.
I mean it for them to lose on that one.
But that's a pretty severe smackdown from the president of the United States, and there's been a few different articles about how there are some people in the Israel lobby, I guess mostly those who lean more Democrat, who are saying, man, we really want to be opposite the president of the United States.
It's such an important issue, even if he disagrees with Netanyahu on this.
I mean we are Americans after all, right?
There's a little bit of dissonance going on there finally, I think.
And I just wonder whether you think that means that the fight over the final deal will be a little bit less than what we might have expected prior.
I see Josh Brock and some of the other guys on Twitter talking about how no enrichment, no enrichment.
Right, exactly.
What do you think?
You know, I think that they're hoping that the Republicans take over the Senate this year, and they think that that will help them a little bit.
But you know, you don't think it will really help.
I mean this deal is going to be April or bust, right?
Yeah, right.
And in looking toward the future, you know, I can see it's very easy to see a Republican Senate this year, or a fully Republican Congress, but it's really hard to imagine a Republican president.
And it's presidents that present them with their problem.
It's presidents who make state of the unions.
It's presidents who ultimately make foreign policy, not Congress.
And so they've got to think, you know, if they're going to have the Democrats around for the foreseeable future, it could be the end of the lobby.
I mean I don't want to get too optimistic.
But even Hillary Clinton, who I think is the most likely Democrat, presidents only like to get pushed around so far.
They are, you know, so God, Obama.
I was thinking about how at the conference, the APEC conference, everyone was denouncing Obama for being like weak on Ukraine.
You know, they were going on and on.
He, you know, privately, you know, he's spineless.
And also in the panel discussions, he's spineless.
He doesn't stand up for anything.
And I thought, yeah, but he sure stood up to you, didn't he?
I mean, it's interesting that he, of all people, would have picked this fight.
But he did, and he showed you can win.
Interesting to me that Israeli nationalists would side with Ukrainian nationalists when they're outright raiding around with SS lightning bolts on their posters.
They don't care about that, though.
There is such a thing as too far, right, guys?
It's crazy.
I was talking with Sheldon Richmond, and we agreed that anybody parading around with SS lightning bolts is not concerned that you might mistake them for a Nazi.
That's a Nazi.
Right, right.
Unless it's Halloween, and maybe he's, you know, British royalty or something.
But otherwise, they're pretty much.
It's pretty hilarious, though.
I mean, how we're being so indoctrinated here on this Ukraine business.
It's like you put the television on, and it's 1971, and it's the Cold War.
And you want to say, wait a minute, this is Russia, but there is no more Soviet Union.
Why do you talk as if it's the Soviet Union, and we're in this zero-sum battle with them?
They so obviously missed the bipolar world, and it's just crazy.
To listen to John McCain, that man is nuts.
Absolutely nuts.
I mean, it's amazing.
We're lucky that Obama is in there now, I think.
Because I don't think he's going to do as hawkish as he can be.
I don't think he can do anything like what McCain or even Romney would do.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know exactly about Romney.
I'm sure he'd be worse in this situation.
But I'm positive that if, I mean, there's just no question, I don't think, MJ, that if McCain had won in 1908, that we would have all been dead in a war with Russia a long time ago.
He would have gotten us killed in 2009 or 2010.
Oh, I agree.
And I also agree with you that I don't think Romney's the same.
I think Romney just, you know, he talked that game to win the nomination and all that.
But I don't think, look, I don't think he's out of his mind.
I think that McCain is nuts.
He is nuts.
McCain, I think, would have gotten us into war with Russia.
Oh, I absolutely agree.
He's unbelievable.
It's so ironic in a way.
I guess because he has such a lousy military record, he doesn't have that kind of Eisenhower, Hegel.
You know, people who really saw combat, I don't want to be too mean to John McCain, but he spent the entire war when he was in the POW camp dropping bombs on civilians from way up in the air.
He never really saw combat.
So unlike the model of Grant Eisenhower, Hegel, he thinks war is just terrific.
It looks pretty good when you're way up there, you know?
Well, and he's got the W. Bush problem, too, that he's the son and the grandson of great men, and yet he's really kind of pathetic and always falls short and everybody hates him.
I mean, really, he's a guy pushing 80.
He really should get over it.
On the other hand, he still has to impress his mother because his mother was 104.
Well, that's impressive.
I give him credit for it.
Yeah, I don't give him credit for it.
And the mother and his mom has a twin sister, and she's around, too, which means John McCain could be in the Senate for another 30 years.
Yeah, boy, I hope his father's genes favor him more than his mother's on the longevity.
I'm glad you said that.
Boy, oh, boy.
We could be in deep trouble with this guy.
I keep thinking, won't he go away soon?
But he just never goes away.
I know.
Bill Hicks said that Reagan was Jason under that hockey mask, but I think it's John McCain.
Oh, yeah.
I said Jason, but yeah, I ruined that.
God damn it.
Sorry.
Sorry, Bill's ghost.
All right.
Well, anyway, so now BDS, we don't even have time to talk about it, but I will recommend that people go and read your article at the Huffington Post about why you're against the sanctions and divestments.
I think it applies to all of Israel.
I do favor all the things like the Presbyterians and others are doing, which is a divestment from any company that does business in the West Bank or any occupied territory.
I'm sorry for goofing around so much that we didn't give a chance to give that.
I like goofing around with you.
It's fun.
Anyway, thanks very much, MJ.
It's great talking to you again.
Same here.
Bye-bye.
See you.
All right, everybody, that's the great MJ Rosenberg.
He's at the HuffingtonPost.com slash MJ-Rosenberg.
That's pretty easy.
We'll be right back.
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