Israeli regime had unrivaled access to Obama White House: Fmr. Official
…from PressTV, Tehran
[ Editor’s Note: I did not have time to dig into where Ben Rhodes had a conversion, if that is what happened, on Israel. All political people in ALL administrations continue the national scandal of bending over and grabbing a fence rail when asked to by the Israelis.
They have been conditioned to do so, which makes it not entirely all of their fault. We have security organizations that are supposed to protect America from foreign intelligence penetrations. Sadly, an exception is made for Israel, one which has extended for decades and has resulted in great damage to the United States, which VT’s archives has volumes of articles.
But that said, those security organizations are led by political appointees, and whose budgets are in the hands of Congress, which also has been penetrated by Israeli intelligence for decades, to the point of the Israeli lobby writing legislation it was passed and just handing it in, like the Lord of the Manor instructing his kitchen what he wants for dinner.
American media, of course will not feature this huge travesty for the same reason that it also has been substantially penetrated, where over the last two decades the situation evolved from ‘heavy Lobby influence’ to many media organizations being purchased by Israeli Lobby people and even Israeli intelligence itself by the simple use of a cut out purchaser.
What Rhodes has done is something that is not supposed to be feasible, a career suicide move, or worse. Maybe he has had a come to Jesus moment. We shall try to look into this deeper as, if he has learned how to escape the heavy hand of the Lobby, others may want to do the same. Color me curious… Jim W. Dean ]
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First published … March 03, 2021
A former senior US official has said some 20 American mouthpieces for the Israeli regime had unrivaled access to the White House during Barack Obama’s presidency, highlighting the close link between Israeli lobbies and the White House and Congress.
Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser under Obama, said he had to meet with Israel lobbyists as much as all other interest groups combined.
He said there were 10 to 20 individuals who invariably took the position of the Israeli regime and were apparently scripted by the Israelis in some cases.
“You just have this incredibly organized pro-Israel community that is very accustomed to having access in the White House, in Congress, at the State Department. It’s taken for granted, as given, that that’s the way things are going to be done,” Rhodes said in an interview with US-based Foundation for Middle East Peace.
Rhodes said White House national security aides were expected to appear at the Israel lobby group AIPAC’s annual conference, but if they paid attention to Arab-American or peace groups, they could “get in trouble.”
The former Obama official said he was warned at times by members of Congress about the “acute” financial threat of taking on the lobby as the Israel lobby’s access was reinforced by “compliant media and Congress.”
Rhodes said the Biden team is forgetting the “history,” that Israel made life hell for Obama, when the Obama White House pretended that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu believed in a “two-state solution” when he never did.
He also recalled Netanyahu’s pressure by calling on “vast” rightwing media resources in the US.
“The media interest is dramatically intensified [on this issue]. And that’s both a very aggressive kind of pro-Likud media in the United States. It’s also just the mainstream media delights in any Israel controversies. Netanyahu knew that he could gin up the rightwing pro-Likud media in the United States, which is pretty vast, but he also knew that if he needled Obama he would create a week-long political story, because political reporters view Israel as a domestic political story, not a foreign policy issue.”
Regarding efforts to block anti-Israeli moves at the UN, the former Obama official said whenever there was an international incident like the Goldstone Report or the Turkish Flotilla,” you have to make sure that you’re doing everything that you can at the UN to kind of block this from going forward.”
On Iran, Rhodes said “by the way, it’s not as if anyone plans to “decenter” Jews! Today it is no coincidence that the top three officials in the Biden State Department — Tony Blinken, Wendy Sherman and Victoria Nuland — are all Jewish. These appointments are meant to reassure the Israel lobby of Biden’s support.”
“The same reason Obama hired Hillary Clinton as secretary of state in 2008 by reaching out to an Israel lobbyist to be the intermediary. The same reason that for many years all of the Treasury undersecretaries for counter-terrorism, enforcing Iran sanctions, were Jewish.”
Ben Rhodes bio:
Peter Beinart speaks to Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor from 2009-2017, about working on Israel, Palestine, and Iran in the Obama Administration. Rhodes draws insights from interactions with different lobby groups, presidential travel to Israel and a memorable meeting with young Palestinians in Ramallah, and talks about navigating the assumption by Israel advocates that Blackness translates into sympathy for Palestinians living under oppression.
Beinart and Rhodes end the conversation with a discussion of the Biden administration and Democratic foreign policy advisors’ approaches to the IHRA definition of antisemitism and Democrats’ longstanding commitment to the concept of the two state solution. Ben Rhodes’s new book, After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made, will be out in June 2021.
Ben Rhodes is the author of the New York Times bestseller The World As It Is; a contributor for NBC News, MSNBC and Crooked Media; the co-chair of National Security Action; and an advisor to former President Barack Obama.
From 2009-2017, Rhodes served as a Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama. In that capacity, he participated in nearly all of President Obama’s key decisions, and oversaw the President’s national security communications, speechwriting, public diplomacy and global engagement programming.
He also led the secret negotiations with the Cuban government which resulted in the effort to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba, and supported the negotiations to conclude the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. Prior to joining the Administration, he was a Senior Speechwriter and foreign policy advisor to the Obama campaign. From 2002-2007, he worked for former Congressman Lee Hamilton, supporting his work on the 9/11 Commission and Iraq Study Group.
A native New Yorker, Mr. Rhodes has a B.A. from Rice University and an M.F.A from New York University. He tweets at @brhodes. Peter Beinart is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He is also a Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, a Contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, an Editor-at-Large at Jewish Currents, and a CNN Political Commentator. He tweets at @PeterBeinart.
Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus. He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. He now writes and posts periodically for VT.
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Where are the rest of our Political Elite? They are ALL but Prostitutes, like our Congress! What Jim Traficant, the late Congressman from Ohio, called a, “BROTHEL.” Senators, Representatives, I add to that, All Three Branches of our Government, from the President on down, ever since, “LBJ’ the Traitor of a President, who covered up the Zionist Terror state’s WAR CRIME, against US; the ‘False Flag’ attack, (that Failed), against our NAVY, the Zionist Demonic zealots, have murdered, 34 of our Sailors; http://www.holocaustonthehighseas.com They continued the ‘False Flag’ attack on ‘9/11/2001’ this one was a roaring Success for the Zionists, it resulted in the murder of 2977 innocent collateral Victims, ‘Sacrificial Lambs’, on the Bloody Altar of Zionism, that dragged the, ‘Land of the Free’ into the unending Wars of the Middle East, that our Military has turned into, HELL on EARTH, and are still at it for almost 2 decades now! GOD Save America?? God Save the WORLD!?
Every nation that interacts with Israel does so with some feigned or forced sense of guilt and a misconceived sense of superiority or pity. Israel is treated as a nation to be protected.
True in the days of British imperialism false divisions or small differences have been exploited and have been trumped up in the invaded nation. This is done to allow the victim nation to destabilize and soften itself up. the objective is to facilitate internal dysfunction than take control. It happened in Africa, India, the US and via the US to Korea and Vietnam, the USSR. The invention of Israel was to divide the Middle East from its inception and to use wealth and military might of other nations to do this. The life blood of Israel comes from the US, Russia, China. All nations are utilized through deception. The deception is complete in America, the division is set and the enemy lies hidden to the critical masses. The stand down occurs because the ‘powerful’ Nation feels that due to their largess Israel is beholden to them but this could not be farther from the truth. We are pigs of war and the bankers are laughing. Apologies to Pigs.
I think you have a good bead on the situation.
It’s one thing to say that “some 20 American mouthpieces for the Israeli regime had unrivaled access to the White House during Barack Obama’s presidency.” It’s quite another to do what Trump did, surround himself completely with Likudniks and Zionists who controlled US foreign policy from day one of his presidency. That’s why he killed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, murdered General Soleimani, and did everything he could to start a war with Iran, all to placate the Christian Zionists in his base. ReTrumplicans always seem to forget that.
The key issue is the complete stand down my all of our security organizations on Israeli espionage, the political version of which is done right out in the open with no fear whatsover, and the Lobby people know there is a stand down on interferring with their operations, under the cloak of it being political activity which cannot be obstructed.
That’s right Jim, and any subtly suggestive “display” of calling out “Israeli” or “Jewish” influence in American poiltics, or anything else, is merely an impotent feinting exercise to falsely intimate a goodwill effort of opposition while also doubling as a dog-whistle for backlash charges of antisemitism by the poor, put-upon Talmudics.
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