https://sputnikglobe.com/20240814/democracy-and-its-discontents-pro-israel-lobby-overrides-us-public-opinion-on-gaza-1119764329.html
Democracy and Its Discontents: Pro-Israel Lobby Overrides US Public Opinion on Gaza
Democracy and Its Discontents: Pro-Israel Lobby Overrides US Public Opinion on Gaza
Sputnik International
Independent journalist Dr. Jim Kavanagh joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Tuesday to discuss the Biden administration’s foreign policy and the growing gulf between public opinion in the United States and its actions in Israel.
2024-08-14T04:39+0000
2024-08-14T04:39+0000
2024-08-14T04:59+0000
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The famed French political philosopher was impressed by the still-nascent experiment in self rule underway in the young country, walking away with numerous insights and accolades. But Tocqueville questioned whether the country’s democratic principles could extend to the realm of international affairs, writing, “foreign politics demand scarcely any of those qualities which a democracy possesses; and they require, on the contrary, the perfect use of almost all those faculties in which it is deficient.”Nearly two centuries later questions remain over the extent to which the popular will can dictate matters of foreign relations, which often require rapid and complex decision making. Analysts claim the functioning of the US government has only become more opaque since the mid-twentieth century, with the development of nuclear weapons requiring an unprecedented level of secrecy that informed the creation of the modern-day “deep state.”Independent journalist Dr. Jim Kavanagh joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Tuesday to discuss the Biden administration’s foreign policy and the growing gulf between public opinion in the United States and its actions on the world stage.“Israel has crossed all and everybody’s red lines,” Kavanagh wrote in a recent piece published on the website The Polemicist. “Israel is telling the world it will kill anyone and any number of people, anywhere, at any time of its choosing and it does not give a damn about what anyone in the world thinks of it. It is acting with complete, insouciant, contemptuous disregard for international law, conventions, and common morality, certainly of the people and nations it considers its adversaries and of the countries on whose support it depends.”“They just got to keep the Americans around because the Americans are their patrons,” he continued. “The United States of America is the indispensable patron of Israel. They could not do anything that they’re doing without it. And we are completely complicit in it.”The longtime Israeli Prime Minister once claimed the United States is “a thing you can move very easily” in private comments secretly recorded in 2001. Since then the controversial leader has often publicly waded into US politics, perhaps most famously in 2015 when he gave a speech to a session of the United States Congress denouncing former President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.Israel has used its soft power in other countries as well, with many observers blaming the influence of pro-Israel interests for the defeat of pro-Palestinian UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2019. Corbyn’s French ally Jean-Luc Melenchon identified “networks of influence from Likud,” Netanyahu’s right-wing political party, as having been instrumental in spreading the narrative of an alleged antisemitism crisis under Corbyn’s leadership.“The American people don’t back this move,” said host Wilmer Leon of the United States’ lockstep support for Israel, most recently demonstrated by the approval of another $4.7 billion in funding for the country. “When you look at the numbers, and particularly as we’re in the 2024 presidential season, some would think that candidates would be listening to the electorate. But this is one of the issues that as it relates to those in elected positions or our elected representatives, they’re not listening.”“People are seeing what Zionism is and they don’t really want to go to war for it,” he continued, noting the ample evidence of apparent Israeli war crimes easily found on social media. “They were tired of the forever wars anyway. Everybody knew all of this stuff that we did with Libya and Iraq and Syria was baloney. There was nothing democratic about it. And in fact, they were wars for Israel, and they were wars to get those states, those Arab states, out of the Axis of Resistance and they succeeded. They weren’t mistakes and they weren’t blunders. They had a goal and they achieved that goal.”
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240813/iran-says-retaliation-on-israel-will-guarantee-regional-stability-as-media-talks-potential-targets-1119754989.html
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240310/with-us-backing-israel-is-starving-22-million-palestinians-in-gaza-1117237324.html
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240428/world-central-kitchen-to-resume-work-in-gaza-as-hunger-malnutrition-still-stalk-enclave-1118167268.html
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Democracy and Its Discontents: Pro-Israel Lobby Overrides US Public Opinion on Gaza
04:39 GMT 14.08.2024 (Updated: 04:59 GMT 14.08.2024) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has often publicly waded into US politics, perhaps most famously in 2015 when he gave a speech to a session of the United States Congress denouncing former President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.
“It is most especially in the conduct of foreign relations that democratic governments appear to me to be decidedly inferior to governments carried on upon different principles,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835 after his famous visit to the United States.
The famed French political philosopher was impressed by the still-nascent experiment in self rule underway in the young country, walking away with numerous insights and accolades. But Tocqueville questioned whether the country’s democratic principles could extend to the realm of international affairs, writing, “foreign politics demand scarcely any of those qualities which a democracy possesses; and they require, on the contrary, the perfect use of almost all those faculties in which it is deficient.”
Nearly two centuries later questions remain over the extent to which the popular will can dictate matters of foreign relations, which often require rapid and complex decision making. Analysts claim the functioning of the US government has only become more opaque since the mid-twentieth century, with the development of nuclear weapons
requiring an unprecedented level of secrecy that informed the creation of the modern-day “deep state.”
Independent journalist Dr. Jim Kavanagh joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Tuesday to discuss the Biden administration’s foreign policy and the growing gulf between public opinion in the United States and its actions on the world stage.
“Israel has crossed all and everybody’s red lines,” Kavanagh wrote in
a recent piece published on the website The Polemicist. “Israel is telling the world it will kill anyone and any number of people, anywhere, at any time of its choosing and it does not give a damn about what anyone in the world thinks of it. It is acting with complete, insouciant, contemptuous disregard for international law, conventions, and common morality, certainly of the people and nations it considers its adversaries and of the countries on whose support it depends.”
“Israel is only slightly less contemptuous of Americans than the Palestinians,” the journalist claimed, noting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
skill in manipulating the United States to serve his interests. “Palestinians they consider subhuman and dispensable persons versus the Americans they consider necessary fools whom they have to pretend they’re interested in ceasefires and two-state solutions for because the Americans are stupid enough to believe it.”
“They just got to keep the Americans around because the Americans are their patrons,” he continued. “The United States of America is the indispensable patron of Israel. They could not do anything that they’re doing without it. And we are completely complicit in it.”
The longtime Israeli Prime Minister once claimed the United States is “a thing you can move very easily” in private comments secretly recorded in 2001. Since then the controversial leader has often publicly waded into US politics, perhaps most famously in 2015 when he gave a speech to a session of the United States Congress denouncing former President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.
Israel has used its soft power in other countries as well, with many observers blaming the influence of pro-Israel interests for the defeat of pro-Palestinian UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2019. Corbyn’s French ally Jean-Luc Melenchon
identified “networks of influence from Likud,” Netanyahu’s right-wing political party, as having been instrumental in spreading the narrative of an alleged antisemitism crisis under Corbyn’s leadership.
“The American people don’t back this move,” said host Wilmer Leon of the United States’ lockstep support for Israel, most recently demonstrated by the approval of another $4.7 billion in funding for the country. “When you look at the numbers, and particularly as we’re in the 2024 presidential season, some would think that candidates would be listening to the electorate. But this is one of the issues that as it relates to those in elected positions or our elected representatives, they’re not listening.”
“It’s not a democracy, it’s an oligarchy,” insisted Kavanagh. “The donor class gets what it wants.”
“People are seeing what Zionism is and they don’t really want to go to war for it,” he continued, noting the ample evidence of apparent Israeli war crimes easily found on social media. “They were tired of the forever wars anyway. Everybody knew all of this stuff that we did with Libya and Iraq and Syria was baloney. There was nothing democratic about it. And in fact, they were wars for Israel, and they were wars to get those states, those Arab states, out of the Axis of Resistance and they succeeded. They weren’t mistakes and they weren’t blunders. They had a goal and they achieved that goal.”
