Steve Sailer writes: “At AIPAC earlier today, Hillary denounced Trump for not being wholly in Israel’s pocket.”
Comments:
* Reaction to what Trump said in his Washington presser – the headline at Israel Hayom (Sheldon Adelson’s paper): “Trump promises to move US embassy to Jerusalem”. Man, they do like him.
* Does every politician have to speak at AIPAC, what would happen if they refused?
* Obama shows up at AIPAC in election years, but tends to skip the ordeal during off years.
* No need to go live stream. It’s all over the cable news networks. Because, you know, there is nothing more important to our presidential election than Israel.
Trump is about to materialize. He supposedly huddled today with people who can help him say all the right things and properly kowtow. Let’s hope he doesn’t talk about the Jewish guy in his building who makes great bagels…or how his accountant is a Jew…etc. (the way he did at the last Israeli-kiss-ass event he attended).
* Trump talking now. Speaking very practically about Iran’s regional ambitions, which are Israel’s biggest concern. I’m impressed.
* Did Trump suddenly decide he’s running for Israeli PM?
* Trump is using a teleprompter for the first time I’ve seen him do it…because, you know, if you say the wrong thing to AIPAC, you’re ruined.
* Trump reminded me of the time Bugs Bunny tossed the conductor out, snapped the baton in two, and totally took over and dominated the orchestra.
* I watched Kasich pay his tribute on MSNBC.
Now Cruz is launching into his worship.
No other foreign country gets this kind of nationally-televised blow job from our candidates. The parties might as well hold a primary in Israel itself.
* I don’t know who is advising Trump on Israel, but the mention of the name “Palestine” was obviously NOT an error. It was a signal.
Speaking of Cruz–gawd, I know he has a retentive, sharp mind, but he’s so damned unctuous in his deliveries. College award winning debaters should at least APPEAR to be less mechanical in every gesture, every pause.
* Interesting pivot by Trump to unite the Republican party behind him. Earlier today he said if you unite behind me we can pick 5 conservative Supreme Court justices over the next few years (which he is going to name now), and if you don’t unite, or if you go third party, we are going to lose the election and lose the chance to remake the Supreme Court.
* A good friend on site has been emailing me updates. He says the crowd liked Trump and there was no sign of the walkout some people tried to engineer.
* Yeah, they panned across the room a few times and he seemed to be genuinely popular.
I’ve got mixed feelings. On the one hand, I wanted someone who would be independent of the lobby. On the other hand, now that he’s proved he’s not dangerous, maybe they’ll let him win?
* I don’t know what to think. Earlier in the day he talked about non-interventionism, reducing aid to Israel and reducing NATO.
Then he makes this pandering speech.
I don’t care how much he swears he loves Israel as long as we don’t get dragged into another war.
Purely from a political skill perspective that was an impressive performance.
* Interesting: no screaming protesters inside the AIPAC hall.
* I wonder if Glen Beck and the other mega-church types supporting Cruz called their “dear friends” at AIPAC asking, pretty-please, if they could give Trump a cold reception, and were told zip it?
* George “The Scold” Will and Charles “The Sage” Krauthammer thought the use of the word “Palestine” was a yuuge error.
* Yes, this speech was a disappointment. He does have a lot in common with Rand Paul, foreign policy wise. Rand’s been pretty pro Israel but still maintained his pragmatic/anti interventionist bent.
This speech and the statement about picking SCOTUS appointments by consulting with Heritage may go a ways in bringing some of the GOPe guys around to supporting him.
After watching Obama humiliate himself today I’m thinking that Trump has an interesting task cut out for himself. He’s clearly never been an interventionist. But he has a visceral loathing for Obama style self-abasement. So the challenge is non-interventionism without losing your dignity, insulting your allies or your position of strength. My sense of today’s various statements is that that is the balance he is trying to strike.
Either that or he’s just crazy. We’ll never know.
* Hopefully this speech will get some of the neoconservatives off his back. You can see from their Twitter feeds that they liked his speech.
* AIPAC made it clear to potential protesters that they would be banned from future conferences if they were disrespectful. I’m too lazy to post the link, but it’s true. Some attendees were trying to organize a walkout but an AIPAC guy put the kibosh on the idea. An email was sent instructing attendees that if they didn’t agree with a speaker they should not go to the speech.
* Link to the text of the speech here:
http://www.donaldjtrump.com/media/donald-j-trump-remarks-at-aipac
Just as I predicted more than a week ago, he got to the right of Hillary on Israel in a large number of ways, including moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
He also subtly endorsed the settlements in the West Bank.
You had Camp David in 2000, where Prime Minister Barak made an incredible offer – maybe even too generous.
There you go, the Israeli’s 2000 offer to leave some of the West Bank settlements, keeping East Jerusalem and roughly the best 14% of the West Bank, giving the Pali’s the 86% of the West Bank plus 100% of Gaza, was “maybe even too generous.”
Hillary just can’t go there and has ever endorsed the West Bank settlements. For Trump, even giving up some of the West Bank settlements is “maybe even too generous.” He’s right!
We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem – and we will send a clear signal that there is no daylight between America and our most reliable ally, the state of Israel.
I love it. “No daylight” is a pro-Israel dog whistle. Keep tooting it Don!
* The Sydney Murdoch paper in Oz has been hammering the Trump campaign relentlessly with every one of its neocon shills writing weekly columns of 2-minute hate, all of which culminated in a Grand Denunciation: US election: President Donald Trump would be a ‘disaster’ for Australia, analysts warn.
The article included a poll:
Are you worried about Trump becoming US President?
YES (May God have mercy on us all)
NO (Donald Trump is da man!)
That poll led to a shocked follow up article:
Aussies come out in support of Donald Trump in Daily Telegraph online poll
An online poll on The Daily Telegraph showed a surprising 71 per cent of respondents answered ‘No (Donald Trump is da man!)’ when asked ‘Are you worried about Trump becoming US President?’
There were more than 32,000 votes cast in the poll.
Perhaps if Murdoch’s papers actually got to know their readers they wouldn’t find it so “surprising” when their polls go the other way they were advocating. One gets the impression that if Trump were to declare annexation of Oz as part of his election platform that would go down a treat here in Oz.
* This is very frustrating.
The Clinton/Bush/Obama foreign policy has been an unmitigated catastrophe.
The strategy?
Aggressive economic, proxy, air, and/or ground war for regime change in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Yugoslavia, and various ex-Soviet republics.
The cost?
Thousands of dead and maimed Americans, hundreds of thousands of dead Middle Easterners and S.E. Europeans, and tens of trillions of dollars wasted.
The results?
Ruined nations, the strengthening of our enemy Al-Qaeda, the rise of ISIS, the ethnic cleansing of Middle Eastern Christians and other religious minorities, and the migrant invasion of Europe.
Before today, there seemed to be good reason to hope that President Trump’s foreign policy would be a significant improvement over that of his predecessors.
But if we wage war against Iran, Syria and their allies at the behest of AIPAC, as Trump now seems to want, what will be the likely results?
Death, destruction, waste, the strengthening of radical Sunni jihadists such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS, the ethnic cleansing of the remaining Middle Eastern Christians, and a pretext for another wave of migrant invasion into Europe. In other words, a continuation of the Clinton/Bush/Obama foreign policy.
There doesn’t seem to be much choice but to support Trump anyway. Cruz is worse than Trump. Clinton and Kasich are much worse than even Cruz.
The fact remains, those who convinced Trump to change the thrust of his foreign policy have blood on their hands. They may have cost him the general election by weakening one of his most powerful arguments against Clinton – her dismal foreign policy record as First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State.
Ironically, Israel is supremely secure even without any assistance from America. They have the only first-rate conventional military in the Middle East. They have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East. They have the world’s best border fence. They have a firmly nationalist government and culture, a replacement level birthrate among their core ethnic group, an immigration policy designed to augment their core ethnic group, and a tax base sufficient to maintain all this.
* The centers of power in America are what they are and Trump has to confront them and pick his battles, he can’t fight on every front and expect to win. It took us a long time to become a puppet of Israel and it’ll take a long time to diminish that influence.
TWITTER:
* 2 ways to filter Trump’s anodyne AIPAKKK speech:
1. recognition of an insurmountable power
2. ego stroking to expose the beast’s underbelly
* 1/ What’s most interesting about #Trump and #Israel is that *no one believe him*.
* 2/ The #AltRight doesn’t think #Trump is a Zionist shill.
And the #Cuckservatives and #Neocons think he’s a crypto-anti-Semite.
