Is the United States Moving Its Capital to
Jerusalem?
American Politicians flock to Israel while dismembering the US Constitution
in deference to Jewish power
By Philip Giraldi
May 20, 2023:
Information Clearing House --
It would seem that American politicians and
media think that the entire world should rightly conform to the marching
orders emanating from Washington, even though that pretense has become a bit
shopworn after more than twenty years of pointless wars initiated and
sustained by a serious of clueless presidents and Congress. Increasingly,
the international community is looking for a way out of the tight embrace
offered by the White House, a growing sense that a multipolar world would be
much better than “rule of law” dictated by any self-proclaimed superpower.
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there have been indications that rather than Washington being the center of
the universe that title should rightly belong to Jerusalem as an
extremist-led Israel has demonstrated its power over the self-anointed
idiots who fancy themselves to be the “leaders” of the United States of
America. Why do I think that? I truly believe that there have been several
interactions lately involving US politicians and the Israelis that
illustrate just how ignorant and self-absorbed America’s governing class
actually is. The most egregious example of the “wag the dog” syndrome
whereby Israel says “jump” and the fawning American government
representatives beg to ask “How high?” comes from none other the newly
appointed Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, who spoke
before the Israeli Knesset on May 1st. McCarthy made it a point
to flatter his Israeli hosts by emphasizing that traveling to Israel was his
first foreign trip as speaker, underlining the value of the relationship,
and observing that he was also only the second speaker invited to make the
trip to the Jewish state to address the Knesset.
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McCarthy was accompanied by the usual cast of
congressional toadies who flock to Israel during every recess. The group was
bipartisan and included the loathsome Steny Hoyer of Maryland who has made
and even led the groveling entourage more than twenty times. The
ambition-driven McCarthy, who has never been accused of having a great deal
of brain power, delivered a
predictable speech that produced the pro forma standing
ovations from the audience, but I would call attention to one part of it in
particular where he said the following: “This is the foundation of our
special relationship: We are the only two countries in history that were
conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that we are all equal.
Our values are your values. Our heritage is your heritage. Our dreams are
your dreams. America is grateful for our friendship with Israel. We are a
better nation because of it. And we must never shy away from defending it…
As long as I am speaker, America will continue to support fully funding for
security assistance in Israel.”
Nearly
every line in this part of the McCarthy speech is basically either an
out-and-out lie or a twisting of reality to such an extent that it is
incomprehensible. Palestine, by the way, was not mentioned by McCarthy, but
how Israel can claim to be “conceived in liberty” with the “proposition that
we are all equal” when it has been engaged in genocide and expulsion as well
as government endorsed violence directed against its Christian and Muslim
subject population? And if American and Israeli values are identical, can we
expect in the US different laws based on religion. And our common
“heritage?” Israeli Jews claim to be “chosen,” don’t they? And finally, how
on earth does McCarthy claim that the United States is a better nation
because of its ties to Israel? It is ridiculous and insulting, but it leads
to the punchline that McCarthy is making an unconstitutional pledge to
defend Israel, no matter what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his band
of criminals do, presumably to include attacking Iran. McCarthy should be
impeached. Or even better he should magically become a Palestinian and spend
a couple of months under the Israeli occupation. He might change his tune.
McCarthy
continued his exaltation of Israel campaign after his return to Washington.
On May 9th, he blocked an effort by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib
to host a gathering at the Capitol Visitor Center that would have
included least nine groups for an event entitled “Nakba 75 and the
Palestinian People.” “Nakba” in the title of Tlaib’s canceled event is the
Arabic word for “catastrophe,” which would have meant the speakers would be
describing the founding of the state of Israel as a “catastrophe” for the
Arab inhabitants of historic Palestine, which it was with hundreds of
thousands left homeless, many winding up in refugee camps. McCarthy
announced in a message that he was shutting down the event, tweeting that
“This event in the US Capitol is canceled. Instead, I will host a bipartisan
discussion to honor the 75th anniversary of the US-Israel relationship.”
McCarthy announcement was in response to a letter from Anti-Defamation
League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt to him which said ADL had concerns that
some of the organizers of the “Nakba” event “have a record of rhetoric that
demonizes and delegitimizes Israel, as well as dangerous stereotypes about
Israel’s supporters.” Apparently free speech relating to a historic event is
not even allowed to congressmen in today’s Zionist-occupied America.
If more
evidence of the slime that is at the heart of the American political class
is needed, I would cite another event which took place in Jerusalem on April
27th as both shameful and a disgrace. And “no” I am not referring
to the Israeli police and army shooting dead more Palestinian teenagers on
and around that date before stealing their family homes and destroying their
livelihoods. I am referring to Florida’s governor and presidential aspirant
Ron DeSantis’s groveling performance in bowing to Jewish power and money
during his own trip to Israel. His abhorrent crawling before his masters
culminated in his signing a new state law that will inter alia
exploit the “hate” mechanism to criminalize nearly all criticism or even
skepticism regarding Israeli apartheid, of the co-called holocaust
narrative, or of the behavior of Jewish groups and individuals.
At the
signing, DeSantis
boasted how “We are doing what we can do in Florida to enhance the
ability to hold people accountable when that really crosses the line into
threatening conduct. We are fighting back.” He also made clear that the
legislation was as much about Israel as about Judaism,
arguing that rejecting “Israel’s right to exist is antisemitism” and
adding that the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement
is “DOA” in his state. He also bizarrely
described “Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons” as an “existential threat
to the state of Israel and to the United States of America.”
Perhaps
DeSantis should have checked with the CIA and even Mossad before commenting
on Iran as both have confirmed that the Iranians do not currently have a
nuclear weapons program. Unsurprisingly DeSantis
claims that “Florida is the most Israel-friendly state in the country
and as long as I’m Governor, we will continue to stand with the Jewish
community.” In that he is no doubt correct. Twenty-six other states
have penalized anyone seeking to either boycott Israel or promote doing
so, sometimes to include denial of government jobs or benefits, but there is
no doubt that Florida is currently number one in its deference to the Jewish
state and its claimed interests.
The bill
(HB 269/SB 994), which passed unanimously in both chambers of the Florida
legislature, attempts to criminalize what it perceives as anti-Semitism.
Even though its language avoids identifying Jews as the protected class, the
clear intent of the document is to do just that. It accomplishes that by
transforming what would have once been seen as trivial incidents into hate
crimes, which are felonies. It includes “to litter a yard with a flier,
harass people, disrupt schools or religious services, deface graves and
certain buildings, or project images on someone else’s property” as possible
actions rendered felonious based on racial or ethnic prejudice, making them
hate crimes. It might mean, for example, that if someone laughs at another
person’s clothes and if the attire is considered “ethnic or religious” that
person can be arrested and charged with a third-degree felony as a hate
crime. Or if a student in a college history class disputes the standard
largely fabricated narrative relating to the founding of Israel, a Jewish
student can feign distress and demand that the offender be arrested.
One of
the bill’s co-sponsor’s State Representative Randy Fine, who was present at
the signing in Jerusalem, explained how “There is no First Amendment right
to conduct. If you graffiti a building, it is a crime now, but if your
motivation is hate, it will be a third-degree felony and you will spend five
years in prison. If you want to litter, it’s a crime right now, but if you
litter and your motivation is a hate crime, it will be a third-degree felony
and you will spend 5 years in jail.” After the bill passed the Senate, Fine
tweeted that the bill was “the strongest antisemitism bill in the United
States” adding “To Florida’s Nazi thugs, I have news: attack Jews on their
property and you’re going to prison. Never again means never again.” Another
co-sponsor Mike Caruso warned “If we do nothing, we are going to have 1933’s
Nazi Germany all over again.”
DeSantis, who is seeking Jewish money and media support for his run at the
presidency, turned in something of a
repeat performance of his inaugural trip to Israel back in 2019. At that
time, he boasted, like Kevin McCarthy, that his first foreign trip was to
good friend and perpetual ally Israel. He took his entire gubernatorial
cabinet with him to celebrate his election and theatrically signed an
earlier bill (HB 741) in Jerusalem that sought to “criminalize ordinary
political speech” by making religion as a “protected class” similar to
“racism” to be included in “hate crime” legislation. The new designation
specifically included attempts to “demonize Israel.”
The
Florida bill
also included the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance
Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, similar to that which is favored by
the office of the US Department of State’s Special Envoy to Monitor and
Combat Anti-Semitism, maintaining that “anti-Semitism” is “a certain
perception of Jewish people, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jewish
people, rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism directed
toward a person, his or her property, or toward Jewish community
institutions or religious facilities.” Under the bill, the BDS movement was
defined as a terrorist “hate” group no different than the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
or the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS), which at that time prompted some civil
libertarians to question if criticism of the behavior of the Jewish state
could be deliberately mischaracterized as being an “anti-Semitic hate crime”
that should or might be construed as criticism of the Jewish people and
their religion.
HB 741
amended Florida’s “hate crime” statute to include such “antisemitic” acts
as:
- “Calling for, aiding, or justifying violence against Jews.
- “Alleging myths about a world Jewish conspiracy or that Jews control
the media, economy, government, or other institutions.
- “Accusing Jewish people as a whole of being responsible for real or
imaginary wrongdoing by a single Jewish person, group, or the state of
Israel, or for acts of non-Jews.
- “Accusing the Jewish people of inventing or exaggerating the
Holocaust.
- “Accusing Jewish citizens of countries other than Israel of being
more loyal to Israel than their own nations.
- “Demonizing, applying a double standard to, or delegitimizing
Israel.”
DeSantis
has long nurtured political ambitions and, recognizing the power and wealth
of those who are passionate about Israel, he harbors a particular
“sensitivity” to Jewish and Israel issues as a means to help him move
onwards and upwards. When he was a congressman, survivors from the Israeli
attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American seamen who lived in his
district in Florida report that they sought to meet with him to discuss the
possibility of opening a new inquiry into the incident. Even though DeSantis
is a former Navy officer, he refused to meet with them.
The
power of international Jewry has been most observable in the largely
successful attempts to silence criticism of Israel by making such activity
describable as motivated by anti-Semitism. Former Israeli government
minister Shulamit Aloni
has even described the practice of labeling all critics as anti-Semites
as “It’s a trick. We always use it…the suffering of the Jewish people” is
routinely used to “justify everything we do to the Palestinians.” A number
of European countries have also criminalized what is described as “holocaust
denial” and in Germany and France have imprisoned those who violate the
laws, even when that denial only consists of questioning some of the facts
that are employed in the standard accepted narrative of the event. The most
recent country to climb onto the “hate speech” express is Ireland, where new
legislation is being
considered by the country’s parliament. Interestingly, the debate over
what one is allowed to say without criminally offending someone else has
largely focused on transexuals and gender identity, but it has also been
observed that the law would impact on supporters of the Palestinian cause
who would perforce criticize Israel, the Jewish state. That might easily be
construed as anti-Semitism and lead to heavy fines or even prison time.
Interestingly, the bill even criminalizes the mere possession of material
considered to be “hateful.”
In any
event, the domestic war dedicated to stamping out what is referred to as
anti-Semitism continues and grows in the United States, even when it is
trivial, largely imaginary, or even fabricated by hate groups like the ADL
headed by the hideous Jonathan Greenblatt. And if free speech and honest
inquiry have to be sacrificed along the way, so be it. On May 10th
the Biden Administration used its United Nations Security Council veto to
block a report on Israel’s war crimes in targeting civilians while bombing
Gaza, which has killed 25 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
Unsurprisingly, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense
Lloyd Austin and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan responded to the
development by declaring their unwavering support for “Israel’s right to
defend itself.”
Clearly,
for the vast majority of politicians in Washington and even at the states
level, allegiance and subservience to Israel and its interests are more
important than protecting constitutional rights or managing a sane and
responsible foreign policy. One wonders whether Ron DeSantis, if elected
president in 2024, just might hold his inauguration in Jerusalem, just as he
did when he became governor. It would actually be something of a relief – at
last the ultimate acknowledgement of who is really in charge back here in
America.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the
National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal
ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy
in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157,
Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is
inform@cnionline.org.