Are the elections results of US presidential elections determined by 2 percent of the population? Can the five million or so Jewish population be counted as the US majority? Does the Israel lobby shape the majority of US voters’ decisions? Is Israel the main determinant of political elections’ results when it comes to high US public offices?
I don’t know your take or answers to these questions, but we do have ‘theirs, on the record, loud and clear, and of course, delivered with hubris and cockiness:
Metzger to Obama: Release Pollard or lose reelection
By Jonah Mandel, Jerusalem Post
Chief Ashkenazi rabbi says he’s not making prophecy, just reflecting the feelings of US Jews who supported US president’s election.
Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger wants US President Barack Obama to know that unless he acts to release Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard, he will not be elected for a second time in November 2012.
“If Obama wants another term as president, he must immediately release Pollard,” the rabbi said on Saturday.
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I don’t believe the above article is in need of any interpretation or explanation. It is pretty straightforward: Mr. President if you do A, we won’t let you get reelected, but if you do B, we will; yes, we have that much power and influence. The condition put on this one way negotiation has nothing to do with the topic I am discussing here. Period. In this case it is about Jonathan Pollard, the convicted Israeli spy who betrayed his nation and endangered lives. It could very well be about Iran: Mr. Obama you either attack or advocate for an attack on country X, and we’ll ensure you get reelected, or, stand against it, and lose your chance of getting reelected. Why? Because ‘we’ have that power. Because ‘we’ perceive country X as a threat to ‘us,,’ and ‘we’ want you to put your nation at war for ‘us.’
Now you may say, ‘hey, that’s a ludicrous empty threat! Give or take two percent of the voting population can’t carry that level of influence over a United States President!’ And, you will be wrong; flat out wrong. It is true that the population of American adherents of Judaism was around 5 million, 1.7 percent of the total US population in 2007, and including those who identify themselves culturally as Jewish (but not necessarily religiously), around 6.5 million, 2.2 percent as of 2008. But who ever claimed that these things are all about size, and that only size matters?!!! If you don’t have the size you go about compensating for it; don’t you? Well, that’s exactly what ‘they’ have been doing, and doing successfully. How? In more than one way:
Shape the voters’ votes
So you want power and influence but there are too few of you, and you want your ‘men and women’ to get elected to high and mighty offices. You can’t multiply your 3 or 4 million votes by 30 or so. That option is out. But if you are shrewd and clever enough, if you are dedicated enough, and if you are rich and willing to pay for it enough, you can get the number of votes you need for your candidate. All you have to do is: shape the voters’ votes. And how do you shape the voters’ votes? One major way is to get ownership and or control and or management and or influence of the media. And ‘they’ have done exactly that, and have been doing ‘that’:
Declassified files from a Senate investigation into Israeli-funded covert public relations and lobbying activity in the United States were released by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on July 23rd, 2010. The subpoenaed documents reveal Israel’s clandestine programs for “cultivation of editors,” the “stimulation and placement of suitable articles in the major consumer magazines” as well as U.S. reporting about sensitive subjects such as the Dimona nuclear weapons facility.
. . .
Click here if you want to read the report detailing how ‘they’ successfully control, direct and shape American media.
So, what else can you do?
Pay what it takes—every candidate has a price
Do I even need to expand upon this particular means of getting one’s candidate of choice? Come on people, I don’t have to tell you how far big dollars will get you when put inside political candidates’ pockets , enabling them to successfully and fruitfully campaign. And that’s another means ‘they’ have been successfully pursuing. In 2006 The Washington Post had a fairly sanitized report on the Israel Lobby’s ‘known & direct’ donations between1990–2006:
Pro-Israel interests have contributed $56.8 million in individual, group and soft money donations to federal candidates and party committees since 1990, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. (By contrast, the center says, pro-Arab and pro-Muslim groups donated $297,000 during the same period.) Between the 2000 and the 2004 elections, the 50 members of AIPAC’s board donated an average of $72,000 each to campaigns and political action committees. One in every five board members was a top fundraiser for President Bush or John Kerry.
And a more recent report had this finding:
Since 1990 the Israel lobby has contributed $78 million to congressional incumbents and $94 million when including non-incumbents. The pro-Israel lobby ranks 40 in total campaign giving as compared to more than 80 other industries, reports the Center for Responsive Politics.
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I want to emphasize: these dollar figures are only known and above board donations. There are many indirect and or under the table and illegal ways of getting big dollars into your candidates’ pockets. While working at the FBI I had the pleasure (Not!) of learning about a few of these scams. And the Israel lobby is a pretty well-known participant in ‘these’ practices in the United States.
I am not writing this piece to attack anyone. I am not attacking Israel or the Israel lobby. Not really. In fact, I am giving them credit due: They are clever and shrewd, they are rich and successful, and they are dedicated (not to the United States) enough to put shrewdness and cleverness and richness to work for ‘what’ they believe in, and ‘who/what’ they are loyal to. Good for them. Terrible for us whom I am directing this article to. This is about us, the American voters. You may say, ‘hey, I ain’t got the money, and I ain’t got the position or means necessary to influence the media. So I can neither buy politicians nor use the media marketing platform!’
And my response to you is: I am not asking you to. All I am doing here is letting you see what I see, and letting you know what is out there in front of us; that is, if you haven’t already seen and don’t already know. Then, I’ll let you decide for yourself: Do I sit back, buy the things the media is marketing and selling, and let ‘them’ shape my vote easily? Or do I treat the media’s marketing campaign as I do Nike’s super performance ads when it comes to deciding on the candidate who will be getting my vote? Do I become enamored of the candidates with the glitziest and fanciest campaigns, or, do I direct my attention to the ones’ whose pockets have been left empty by foreign and special interests?
After all, it is your vote, and I am not going to spend more words or time trying to shape it, so please don’t let ‘them’ either.
In addition to publishing Boiling Frogs, where this article originally appeared, Sibel Edmonds is the founder and president of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers. She has appeared on national radio and TV as a commentator on matters related to whistleblowers, national security, and excessive secrecy & classification, and has been featured on CBS 60 Minutes, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and in the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The American Conservative, and others. Her book, ‘Shooting the Messenger,’ co-authored with Professor William Weaver, is forthcoming from Kansas University Press in the fall of 2010.
