WUC NEWS: AIPAC

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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yesterday the Senate passed the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr644/text">Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015</a> by a 75-20 veto proof margin. The large trade policy bill includes <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2015/02/behind-legislation-designed/">anti- BDS</a> <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2015/04/legislation-targeting-movement/">trade legislation</a> promoted by <a href="http://www.aipac.org/learn/resources/aipac-publications/publication?pubpath=PolicyPolitics/Press/AIPAC%20Statements/2015/04/House%20Fast%20Track%20Bill%20Targets%20Economic%20Attacks%20Against%20Israel">AIPAC</a> and introduces new U.S. policy language by including all “Israeli-controlled territories” as part of Israel.<br><br>President Obama will be signing the legislation. However, the White House issued a statement hours after the bills passage stating “[W]e do not support, including a provision that contravenes longstanding U.S. policy towards Israel and the occupied territories, including with regard to Israeli settlement activity.” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/02/11/statement-press-secretary-trade-facilitation-and-trade-enforcement-act">a statement</a>:<br>

</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx1TG4cttQzW2aRJUr_x1XfPg958nf5Ntijy4tjmATu8wB5FGdfT0QN_5t3uvdGNoc_Ao3-qpKaIhkg-uS8c63yg-yl3pz0YFBzX8HO_n2Q0xhsD4R9HkM5DUNHefb1MAC6U86iHCPiuhO/s1600/1obama-jail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx1TG4cttQzW2aRJUr_x1XfPg958nf5Ntijy4tjmATu8wB5FGdfT0QN_5t3uvdGNoc_Ao3-qpKaIhkg-uS8c63yg-yl3pz0YFBzX8HO_n2Q0xhsD4R9HkM5DUNHefb1MAC6U86iHCPiuhO/s320/1obama-jail.jpg" width="320"></a><br>
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Obama to sign AIPAC-promoted trade bill that legitimizes Israeli occupation and fights BD

Yesterday the Senate passed the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 by a 75-20 veto proof margin. The large trade poli...

<h1 style="border: 0px; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">The bill by AIPAC’s U.S. senators<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>enables Israel to make the decision to go to war for us.   The bill hands over American foreign policy on a matter as grave as war and peace to a foreign government that is constantly breaking international law.</span></h1><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just when President Obama was starting to believe that it was safe to go back into the water, the lobby has come out with a new Iran sanctions bill designed to torpedo negotiations with Iran. And, once that is accomplished, it provides for automatic U.S military backing for Israel if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu decides to bomb.</span></span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This may be the lobby’s most brazen attempt yet at subverting negotiations and, in Andrew Sullivan’s<a href="http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/12/18/the-best-of-the-dish-today-115/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">words</a>, “handing over American foreign policy on a matter as grave as war and peace to a foreign government….”</span></span></div> <br />
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<div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The resolution, introduced by Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Mark Kirk(R-IL),</span></div><div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_400642" style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; margin: 0px auto 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 630px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img alt="Senate Lockerbie Hearing" class="lazy size-full wp-image-400642  data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/AIPAC-Occupied-Territory-Menendez-Schumer-Kirk-620-x-142.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="142" src="http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/AIPAC-Occupied-Territory-Menendez-Schumer-Kirk-620-x-142.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); display: inline; margin: 0px 0px 5px; outline: 0px; padding: 4px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="620" /></span><div class="wp-caption-text" style="border: 0px; line-height: normal; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AIPAC-controlled U.S. Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Mark Kirk(R-IL)</span></div></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">seemingly responds positively to President Obama’s request that Congress hold off on new sanctions during the negotiations. It does that by giving Obama the authority to waive its proposed new sanctions until the two sides successfully reach an agreement. It is only at that point, with the agreement in hand, that the new sanctions would go into effect, effectively killing the deal.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The bill is almost like an exploding Christmas present. It looks pretty under the tree, all wrapped up nicely, but then in six months it blows down the house.</span></div><div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_400640" style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; margin: 0px auto 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 550px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img alt="AIPAC's purchased Trojan Horse: the U.S. Congress, corrupted on Middle East foreign policy by Israel, a foreign government that constantly breaks international law. (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in upper right.)" class="lazy  wp-image-400640  data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/U.S.-Capitol-Building-nighttime-Netanyahu-600-x-342.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="308" src="http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/U.S.-Capitol-Building-nighttime-Netanyahu-600-x-342.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); display: inline; margin: 0px 0px 5px; outline: 0px; padding: 4px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="540" /></span><div class="wp-caption-text" style="border: 0px; line-height: normal; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AIPAC’s purchased Trojan Horse: the U.S. Congress, corrupted on Middle East foreign policy by Israel, a foreign government that constantly breaks international law. (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in upper right.)</span></div></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is how it would work, according to an <a href="http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/18/exclusive_top_senate_democrats_break_with_white_house_and_circulate_new_iran_sancti#sthash.EFPx" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">exclusive report</a> in Foreign Policy by Ali Gharib, who obtained a copy of the AIPAC bill. The legislation would expand current sanctions to include all aspects of its petroleum trade and its shipping and mining sectors. However, these new sanctions would not take effect so long as Obama certifies that Iran is negotiating in good faith and that imposing them would not be in the U.S. national interest.</span></span></div> <br />
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<div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That is all well and good. Other than threatening to further damage Iran’s economy while in the midst of negotiations, the new sanctions remain theoretical so long as the president can waive them. Although damaging (there is no telling how the Iranian government will react to such an insulting action by Congress while it is in the midst of negotiating with the administration) the resolution is par for the course. If it’s not one donor-backed lobby dictating policy, it’s another.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img alt="No more wars for Israel  432 x 324" class="lazy size-medium wp-image-230615 alignright data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/No-more-wars-for-Israel-432-x-324-320x240.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="240" src="http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/No-more-wars-for-Israel-432-x-324-320x240.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; display: block; float: right; margin: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 2px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="320" />But then the bill goes off in a truly unprecedented direction.</span></span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It states that if negotiations fail (it defines failure as leaving Iran with the capacity for any nuclear enrichment at all (a goal President Obama calls unrealistic) and </span><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Prime Minister Netanyahu </span><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">decides to dispatch his bombers, the United States is automatically at war too.</span></span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is the language of the resolution:</span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px 30px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If the government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapon program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide in accordance with the laws of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, and economic support to the Government of Israel in the defense of its territory, people and existence.</span></span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is difficult to know where the deconstruction should start. First, is the resolution’s assumption that the existence of an Iranian weapons program makes Israel “compelled” to take “military action of legitimate self-defense” against Iran. That is absurd. The mere possession of a “weapons program” by any state does not give any other country a “legitimate” right to respond militarily.</span></span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If it did, the United States would have had the right to bomb the Soviet Union when it ended our atomic bomb monopoly in 1949. In fact, given that there are today nine states with nuclear arsenals (including Israel), recognition of such a right would have meant that the last 60 years would have seen one war after another as various nations felt “compelled” to attack when they suspected that an unfriendly state was on the verge of a nuclear breakthrough. Accepting the logic of the Menendez bill, Iran has the right to attack Israel right now, given that Israel not only has nuclear weapons but is clearly hostile to Iran.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And then, of course, is the resolution’s acceptance of Binyamin Netanyahu’s view that any Iranian capacity to enrich uranium is tantamount to nuclear weapons development. This is not the view of any nation on earth but Israel’s</span> and yet the resolution would have us “stand with Israel” in combined “military action” should Netanyahu decide that Iranian enrichment at 5% or 10% or whatever means a nuclear bomb is being developed.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img alt="NO MORE WARS FOR ISRAEL  (250 x 346)" class="lazy size-medium wp-image-228299 alignleft data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/NO-MORE-WARS-FOR-ISRAEL-250-x-346-231x320.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="320" src="http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/NO-MORE-WARS-FOR-ISRAEL-250-x-346-231x320.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; display: block; float: left; margin: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 2px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="231" />But worst of all is the fact that this resolution would enable Israel to make the decision to go to war for us. Israel would decide it feels threatened and we would have to back an attack on Iran with “military force,” not to mention all the other forms of support the resolution spells out.</span></span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Never in American history have we permitted another government to decide such matters of life and death for us. Israel is a friend but the United Kingdom was our foremost ally in 1940 when it was under constant bombing by Nazi Germany (50,000 British civilians were killed in the Blitz).</span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nonetheless, President Roosevelt could not join the war alongside Britain until Nazi Germany declared war on the United States. Not even Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor automatically brought us into the war against its German ally.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, it took Germany declaring war on us before Roosevelt was able to go to Congress and ask for a declaration of war.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This resolution would dispense with all that in the case of Israel, giving Netanyahu a power that not even FDR had, or any other president, for that matter.</span></span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Andrew Sullivan has it exactly right:</span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px 30px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the US Senate to proactively bless future aggressive military action by a foreign government when it is not justified by self-defense is an appalling new low in the Israeli government’s grip on the US Congress.</span></span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px 30px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But to proactively commit the United States as well to whatever the Netanyahu government might want to do in a war of choice against Iran is more staggering. Yes, this is non-binding language. But it’s basically endorsing the principle of handing over American foreign policy on a matter as grave as war and peace to a foreign government, acting against international law, thousands of miles away. George Washington would be turning at a rather high velocity in his grave.</span></span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But, of course, George Washington never imagined the awesome clout of campaign donors.</span></div><h2 style="border: 0px; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">By <a href="http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2013/12/19/another-aipac-bill-designed-to-get-us-into-a-war-with-iran/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">MJ Rosenberg</a></span></h2><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Source: <a href="http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2013/12/19/another-aipac-bill-designed-to-get-us-into-a-war-with-iran/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tikkun</a></span></div><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 17.15625px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2013/12/20/another-aipac-bill-designed-to-get-us-into-a-war-with-iran/"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2013/12/20/another-aipac-bill-designed-to-get-us-into-a-war-with-iran/</span></a></div><br />
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Another AIPAC Bill Designed To Get US Into A War With Iran

The bill by AIPAC’s U.S. senators enables Israel to make the decision to go to war for us. The bill hands over American foreign policy o...

WUC NEWS

Obama to sign AIPAC-promoted trade bill that legitimizes Israeli occupation and fights BDS

Obama to sign AIPAC-promoted trade bill that legitimizes Israeli occupation and fights BD

House Committee votes $474 million more to Israel in AIPAC sponsored legislation

Another AIPAC Bill Designed To Get US Into A War With Iran

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