Protesters blast hawkish prime minister and blind U.S. backing of Israel

By Final Call News | Last updated: Nov 18, 2015 - 2:02:55 PM

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel

WASHINGTON - Dozens of organizations, including the International ANSWER Coalition, American Muslims for Palestine, the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, Code Pink, Jewish Voices for Peace, RootsAction and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, made known their opposition to the recent visit to Washington of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

From the White House, where 150 protested Mr. Netanyahu’s morning meeting with President Obama, to the Center for American Progress, a purportedly “liberal” think tank where 250 demonstrated and presented petitions with 26,300 signatures protesting his appearance, to the American Enterprise Institute where the Israeli leader was honored with an award, the protestors were vigilant.

“I want to be very clear that we condemn in the strongest terms Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens,” Mr. Obama told reporters during a photo opportunity before his meeting with Mr. Netanyahu. The president did not mention the far more considerable violence on behalf of Israel against the Palestinians.

“We had people in Washington, D.C. at the White House and wherever Benjamin Netanyahu appeared, demonstrating, demanding that the Obama, the U.S. government cut all aid to Israel, instead of continuing to be the main patron for Israel. Israel receives the largest amount of U.S. foreign aid of any other government in the world,” Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition told The Final Call.

“And given the war being waged against the Palestinians by the Netanyahu government which has been going on non-stop and intensified in recent months—2,600 Palestinians have been shot in the last month, either with live ammunition or so-called rubber bullets, and 72 have been killed—in spite of this reign of terror against people living under occupation in the West Bank, the U.S. government continues to fund Israel’s aggression. So we were out in front of the White House, saying: ‘No. Enough. Stop All U.S. Aid to Israel,’ ” Mr. Becker said.

Before and after the talks, which come at the time of the worst strain in U.S.-Israeli relations in decades, and icy personal tensions between the two leaders, U.S. officials downplayed the hostility, including gross personal insults against President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. Instead, a massive increase in U.S. financial support of the Israeli security apparatus was the primary agenda item.

“Isn’t that the truth?” Col. Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army officer and member of Code Pink told The Final Call. “If I had been President Obama, I don’t think I would have met with the Israelis for a long time after the stuff they pulled to try to pull the carpet out from under the Iranian nuclear agreement. So we were out there protesting to the top of our lungs.

“And for Netanyahu to show up again, less than a month and a half after he did everything he could to torpedo that agreement, which is our best hope for stopping any attempt, it gives the Iranians even more to try to move their nuclear energy program into a weapons program. The agreement is the best hope that we’ve got, and for Netanyahu to come to the U.S. Congress and be the featured speaker before the right-wing Republican Party which doesn’t want to have anything to do with the peaceful resolution of things but just go to war, and then for the President to allow for Netanyahu to come into the White House and then talk about that massive increase in military aid is just unfathomable to me,” Col. Wright continued.

“Israel is one of the leading weapons exporters of the world. They make lots of weapons. They make lots of money off these weapons, selling them all over the world, and why we, the American taxpayers are giving our money—$3 billion to $5 billion—to the Israelis every year is just an abomination.

“The United States has given more military aid to Israel than to any other country in the world, and we give it on special terms that only the Israeli government has. We top-load the whole thing, it’s given all in one piece, and the Congress has said Israel can use our money to buy from itself its own weapons. The U.S. Congress and the executive department, no matter who’s in power, whether it’s the Republicans or the Democrats, really do give a free ride to the State of Israel, and to my opinion, to the danger of the state of Israel and to the danger for the national security of the United States.

“The rest of the world knows that the U.S. government has been—no matter what Israel does, no matter how many Palestinians they kill each year—the U.S. is going to give them a pass, a free ride. The impunity is something that’s dangerous, very dangerous, I think for our own national security in the United States,” Col. Wright said.

The Final Call