11/12/14 – M.J. Rosenberg – The Scott Horton Show

Hey y'all, Scott Horton here.
Are you a libertarian and or a peacenik?
Live in North America?
If you want, you can hire me to come and give a speech to your group.
I'm good on the terror war and intervention, civil liberty stuff, blaming Woodrow Wilson for everything bad in the world, Iran, central banking, political realignment, and, well, you know, everything.
I can teach markets to liberals and peace to the right.
Just watch me.
Check out scotthorton.org slash speeches for some examples and email me, scott at scotthorton.org for more information.
See you there.
All right, so welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, Scott Horton Show.
Hey, check it out.
I got MJ Rosenberg back on the line here.
Been a little while.
Hey, MJ, how are you?
OK, how are you, Scott?
I'm doing real good.
Very happy to have you back here.
Thank you.
Let me tell the people about you for a minute.
You were senior foreign policy fellow at Media Matters Action Network and worked on Capitol Hill for the Democrats as a staffer for congressmen and senators for 15 years.
And in the early 80s, you were the editor of APAC's weekly newsletter, The Near East Report.
And, oh, it says here, too, from 1998 to 2009, you were director of policy at the Israel Policy Forum.
All right, so, and people can find your articles at The Huffington Post and other places like that.
OK, so very happy to have you on.
The reason I brought you on is I was wondering about what all you would have to say about this meeting where the two, I guess, most rich and powerful Jewish donors to the two American political parties got in a contest to see who likes killing people more, blowing stuff up more, I don't know.
And, well, who could denounce everything that is, you know, like peace, democracy, the very basics of what people tend to think are the default consensus in America and in Israel, for that matter.
I'm blabbering because I'm paging through looking for the title of the thing.
It's the Israeli-American Council.
It's their inaugural conference is where they were speaking.
And I'm sure you're familiar with this, and I guess we could go through the different parts of it.
But I think, first of all, can we talk about the conversation about whether it matters or not whether Israel is a democratic state?
What was the context there for Sheldon Adelson, the leading donor in America to the Republican Party?
Yeah, well, you know, the big issue that people point to as a reason for Israel to divest itself of the occupied territories is that if it keeps the territories, as it seems to be doing, and doesn't allow the people inside the territories, the Palestinians, to vote in Israeli elections, and, of course, they're not allowed to vote in Israeli elections, so long as that continues, Israel is not a democracy.
And if it's made permanent with, let's say, a formal annexation, then Israel is formally no longer a democracy.
And so people on the dovish side of the Zionist spectrum say, well, we've got to get rid of the territories, because otherwise Israel won't be a democracy.
The right-wingers like Sheldon Adelson and so many others say, well, yeah, that's true, if Israel holds on to the territories, there'll be more Arabs inside Israel than there are Jews, and that would be a problem for democracy.
So the answer to that is, get rid of democracy.
It's only a problem having more Arabs in Israel than Jews, if you care whether it's a democracy.
And Sheldon says, to hell with democracy, it's a concept that doesn't apply to the Middle East anyway.
And that was one of the many crazy things that were said at this new organization.
It's like a dual-loyalty organization.
What's it called again?
The Israel-American Council?
Right, the Israeli-American Council.
So it's not a Jewish-American, a traditional American-Jewish organization.
It jumps to the next level, where it's dual citizens.
I mean, obviously 99.9% of American Jews are only citizens of the United States.
This organization is for people who are dual citizens.
It's like, really?
Okay.
Now they have to have their own organization, and they have Saban, who is the biggest supporter of Hillary Clinton, number one, her number one donor.
He's a dual citizen.
He's an Israeli-American.
He's from Israel.
Sheldon Adelson, the one who's the big Republican donor, the number one Republican donor to both right-wing causes, Newt Gingrich, Santorum, all those guys, Romney, but also just as much to fighting labor unions, which he hates labor unions even more than he claims to love Israel.
He's not a dual citizen, except his children are Israelis, and he says his dream for them is that they become snipers in the Israeli army.
Now, these people are billionaires.
And because they're Americans, even Saban was from Israel, Adelson was from here, they obviously have no limits on what they can do in campaigns.
So they are, between the two of them, one is buying the Democratic candidates, and one is buying the Republican candidates.
Well, and the thing about this is, you actually couldn't overstate this in a way.
I mean, the story about Chris Christie accidentally referred to the occupied territories as the occupied territories, and there was a giant scandal about that.
They're called disputed because we're not done stealing them yet, pal, and you're on board for that.
That's the consensus, and you screwed up.
And he had to go back, according to Politico, had to go back to the mob boss's back office and kiss his ring and get down on one knee and beg forgiveness for accidentally referring to the West Bank as occupied.
And this guy has given more than the Koch brothers.
This guy has given more than the Koch brothers.
He is the single largest donor to the Republican Party.
Yeah, that thing about the occupied territories was nuts.
Even MSNBC reported that Christie had made a gaffe, that was the word, by calling it the occupied territories.
I know the Hebrew.
That's what it's called in Hebrew, too.
That's what they are, the occupied territories.
Yeah, of course.
But only the far right in Israel and the far right here say, oh, no, they're not occupied.
Wait a minute.
It's truly nuts.
Yeah, it's not even the West Bank.
It's Judea and Samaria.
They don't even recognize it as Palestinian territory at all.
As Netanyahu said in his U.N. speech that, hey, listen, if there ever is anything like a second state there, it won't be because they have a right to it.
It's our land.
We might give them some of it if we feel like it, meaning never.
Right, exactly.
We're really into it.
I have to say, I have never been so dispirited and depressed, not so much about the situation over there, where I think the Palestinians are quite capable of resistance, and I think they will, and they are resisting.
But over American politicians, it really is, you know, as someone who worked at, as you say, Scott, I did work at AIPAC back in the day.
I know this issue.
I know, and I worked in Congress for 15 years or 20 or whatever it was.
All this, quote, unquote, support for Israel is bought and paid for.
It's really amazing.
I started working up there when I was 29, 28, and I was there for such a long time.
I know what congressional aides think.
I know what congressmen think.
The days when AIPAC comes up to Capitol Hill to make their demands, it's when people are, like, you know, gagging over having to sit down with these people.
But they do, and they tell them exactly what they want to hear because they get the money, which, of course, does not, as I often say on your show, which does not make AIPAC different from all the other corrupt lobbies that buy these congressional whores.
That's just business as usual, except Israel is a foreign country.
It's such a, yeah, I mean, it's a foreign country, and there's such a disproportionate effect.
You know, I'm no fan of the NRA.
I mean, they love cops a lot more than a civilian's right to bear arms.
They're terrible Republicans.
But you could argue that, well, hey, half of Americans are gun owners, and they've got a right to be representative, a right to petition their government up there, that kind of thing.
But a foreign government has what right to petition, to rule the entire discussion of what the policy should be about their country in this manner is quite a bit different.
The Jews are only 10% of Americans, and most of them aren't Likudniks by a long shot.
I've got a poll right here that says they want to give up the West Bank.
We're going to take a break.
MJ Rosenberg, more in just a sec.
Hey, Al, Scott Horton here to tell you about this great new book by Michael Swanson, The War State.
In The War State, Swanson examines how Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy both expanded and fought to limit the rise of the new national security state after World War II.
If this nation is ever to live up to its creed of liberty and prosperity for everyone, we are going to have to abolish the empire.
Know your enemy.
Get The War State by Michael Swanson.
It's available at your local bookstore or at Amazon.com in Kindle or in paperback.
Just click the book in the right margin at scotthorton.org or thewarstate.com.
I'm talking with MJ Rosenberg, and I was ranting at him as we were going out to break there about how most American Jews, assuming they're even interested in Israel issues at all, which I think is kind of a big assumption, but the polls say here Israeli, oh, this poll is Israeli majority wants peace, wants to give up the West Bank for a Palestinian state, and, of course, there are a million polls like that that say the same thing about American Jews, and yet the richer you are, the more right-wing you are most of the time, and so we end up with a very right-wing policy being bankrolled by these extremely rich oligarch types.
I think it's funny that it's a casino magnate who is the ruler of the supposedly conservative Christian Republican Party right now, MJ.
They don't give a damn about that.
What does God say about gambling?
I have no idea.
He doesn't say anything about democracy either, so forget that, too.
You know, one of the things that's strikingly talking about, you know, when we talk about this Saban and Adelson agreeing on everything at this right-wing summit, the fact of the matter is the Democrats, I'm a Democrat, and I vote lesser of two evils all the time.
Right or wrong, that's what I do.
I always vote lesser evil.
The fact of the matter is the Democrats are worse than the Republicans on this, and here's the reason why.
Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, they have their Chaim Saban and all these rich donors who are associated with AIPAC in Israel who tell them what to do, and they have to listen.
The reason they have to listen is the Democratic Party does not have that many sources of big money, and it's estimated that 40% of the money that the Democrats get come from sources associated with AIPAC and the lobby.
Republicans, on the other hand, yeah, they've got Adelson, and yeah, they've got a few other right-wing pro-Israel types, but they're a tiny portion of the money they have because they get so much money from big business and the corporations.
So that is why I think that George Bush at the end of his term absolutely refused the Israeli request to bomb Iran, but I think that when the opportunity comes, and it probably will in the next presidential term, Hillary Clinton, if she's president, will agree.
Democrats can't say no.
Neither party will say no to their big source of money, but for the Republicans, the pro-Israel money is absolutely dwarfed by all the other corrupt money that they have, and Democrats don't have as many sources.
So that puts it, in my opinion, Hillary Clinton, if she's elected, will be the most emphatically liquefied president we've ever had, and that includes George W. Bush or Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.
Man, can you imagine?
I think it's going to be Jeb anyway, and he'll be bad enough.
He'll be bad enough.
I doubt on this issue that he would be as bad as Hillary would be, for the reason I mentioned.
He's a corporate tool.
He's not an AIPAC tool.
He's got so much money locked up from wherever he wants it.
That's definitely true, yeah.
So it's an important distinction, and it's like I see now that MoveOn.com has a campaign to try to get this really good African-American woman, Congresswoman Donna Edwards from Maryland, to become the head of the DCCC, which raises the money for the Democratic congressional campaigns.
I'm interested to see it.
I've never seen a public campaign for someone to be head of the DCCC, but here's the thing that MoveOn.com doesn't understand.
The head of the DCCC is picked depending on how close they are to AIPAC.
The current head of the DCCC, who was such a disaster this time, his name is Steve Israel, which cracks me up, actually.
I mean, it's like Donna Edwards is independent on this issue, is not an AIPAC tool.
I'd be willing to bet the house.
No way Donna Edwards becomes head of the DCCC.
The Democrats are owned by the lobby.
Amazing.
It really is amazing.
The New Yorker piece says he built the new Democratic National Committee headquarters.
Haim Saban did.
He did?
Yeah, he paid millions and millions of dollars for it.
That was in the...
Ah, I forget her name at the New Yorker.
Oh, Connie Brook.
Connie Brook's piece, yes, exactly.
This is how these people operate, and he also bought the Brookings Institute department that deals with the Middle East.
It's called the Haim Saban Center.
Well, and remember the Jane Harman scandal?
Pardon?
Do you remember the Jane Harman scandal from a few years back?
Yeah, the one about her waddling over to whatever she was doing?
Well, what happened was the NSA was spying legitimately on an Israeli spy in America, and she happened to be on the phone with him.
And she was agreeing that she would try to put pressure on the White House to back off the prosecution of Rosen and Weissman.
Yes.
And he would get Haim Saban.
Yeah, I will waddle over to the White House to make sure that that prosecution ended, which it did.
Right, and then the promise was, and then I'll have Haim Saban tell Nancy Pelosi that she better make you the chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
Can you imagine?
An Israeli asset, a functioning Israeli asset, and the plan was to make her head of the House Intel Committee, but the NSA tipped off Nancy Pelosi, and so she refused.
It's really, the whole thing's incredible.
And who are these people speaking for?
They're speaking for Benjamin Netanyahu.
There was a poll in front of you there.
In the last two elections of the American Jewish community, there were six million American Jews.
Four percent consider Israel when they cast their vote.
So, I mean, the one thing we have to disabuse ourselves of the notion of is that this stuff is all about votes.
It's all about money.
Oh, the Jewish vote is 75% for Barack Obama.
The Jews overwhelmingly do not want to bomb Iran.
They want negotiations.
But that doesn't matter.
It's the money, people, that matter.
So it's like we have this, you know, we're taught in school that democracy is about votes.
That is, yesterday, the votes come with the money, and now we're finding out that in the elections that we just had, the more money that was spent, the more likely you were going to win.
I mean, it's just, and Democrats, we have to remember, are just as bad.
The only big difference about Democrats and Republicans is when you say to Democrats, are you influenced by all that money you get from this or that special interest?
They act shocked.
They say, well, Republicans are, but that's not us.
We're the good people.
I mean, it's really, on some of these issues, particularly the Middle East, they are exactly the same, except for the Democrats being a little worse.
You know what we're going to watch that's going to be really interesting?
Is if Obama is able to reach this historic agreement with Iran in November, watching the lobby and the Israelis killing that deal, or at least trying, it'll be, I mean, they're really happy now because they got, you know, their buddies John McCain and Lindsey Graham are promising to block it in the Senate.
But really, it'll be a clear choice between American interest and the interest of peace and all that, and the interest of Netanyahu and the opportunity he seeks to have this war with Iran.
Well, and, you know, speaking of which, this brings up really the subject, the Harmon thing kind of reminded me there, but that too on the Iran deal, about the origin of the leak to the Wall Street Journal about Barack Obama's letter to the Ayatollah.
That did not seem like a Terror Tuesday type official sanctified leak from Obama.
It seemed to me like an Israeli mole inside the government got a hold of that and turned it over to the Wall Street Journal, tattletailing on the president as it were.
Exactly.
The White House, they put out a statement saying they did not release the letter.
No, I think that was an agent of influence at best inside the White House.
I mean, and, you know, it could have been anybody.
I mean, we remember under Bush we had Elliott Abrams.
Every time Bush would talk about he would, you know, in a private meeting, he was going to do this or that to pressure a little bit for peace, Elliott Abrams would get on the phone and tell the Israeli Prime Minister, don't do it.
We had Dennis Ross doing that under the Democrats.
I don't know who the person is now.
Whoever the agent is now, he's got a lower profile than these earlier guys.
But of course it came from them.
I mean, I don't know how a president can even do business in that kind of climate.
I mean, it's just really incredible.
With all this stuff with NSA and all the things we hear about, prosecution of totally innocent people for doing things that are totally not in any way dangerous to the U.S., you have a presidential letter to the head of state of Iran that's leaked by someone who works at the White House.
There's nothing about it because there's going to be an investigation because there will not be an investigation.
AIPAC will not permit an investigation.
It's nuts.
Yeah, I mean, it's not even a scandal.
I mean, the story's over.
It's only a scandal among critics like you and me and antiwar.com and stuff like that.
Exactly.
So where are the reporters?
Even the good ones who are covering the NSA scandal, like in the Times, like Rice and other people, why aren't they talking about this?
All right, that's M.J. Rosenberg.
Thanks very much for coming back on the show, M.J.
Great talking to you.
Take care.
Man, you need some new stickers for the back of your truck.
Scott Horton here for LibertyStickers.com.
Aren't you sick and tired of everyone else being wrong about everything all the time?
Well, now you can tell them all what's right with some stickers from LibertyStickers.com.
At LibertyStickers.com, they're against everything, so you know they're good on your issue too, whether it's the wars, police, state, gun laws, the left and right of the president.
LibertyStickers.com has hundreds of choices, so you can find just the right words to express your opposition and contempt for those who would violate your rights.
That's LibertyStickers.com.
Everyone else's stickers suck.
The Emergency Committee for Israel, Brookings, Heritage, AIPAC, WINEP, JINSA, PNAC, CNAS, the AEI, FPI, CFR, and CSP.
It sure does seem sometimes like the War Party's got the foreign policy debate in D.C. all locked up.
But not quite.
Check out the Council for the National Interest at CouncilForTheNationalInterest.org.
They put America first, opposing our government's world empire, and especially their Middle Eastern madness.
That's the Council for the National Interest at CouncilForTheNationalInterest.org.
Hey, Al Scott Horton here for The Future of Freedom, the monthly journal of the Future Freedom Foundation.
As you may already be aware, Jacob Hornberger, Sheldon Richman, and James Bovard are awesome.
They're also in every issue of The Future of Freedom, and they're joined by others of the best of the libertarian movement.
Like Anthony Gregory, Wendy McElroy, Lawrence Vance, Joe Stromberg, and many more.
Even me.
Sign up for The Future of Freedom at FFF.org.
It's just $25 a year for the print edition, $15 to read it online.
That's The Future of Freedom, edited by Sheldon Richman at FFF.org.
And tell them you heard it here.