Israel’s stranglehold on US politics
By: Jamal Kanj (http://www.arabnews.com/israel%E2%80%99s-stranglehold-us-politics)

.The US State Department has sent a confidential letter urging European Union members and other “friendly” countries to help block Palestinian attempts to secure non-member Observer State status at the United Nations General Assembly.
The memorandum, seen by this writer, falsely asserts that the US and the Quartet on the Middle East are working toward a two-state solution that envisages “a secure, democratic Jewish state of Israel and a Palestinian state as a homeland for the Palestinian people.”
While the Quartet has endorsed the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, it never agreed on defining Israel as a “Jewish state.” In fact, this issue was a sticking point leading to the failure of the Quartet’s meeting in July last year.
The US is conspicuously treating Palestinian diplomatic efforts at the UN as more serious than Israel’s interminable breaches of the 20-year-old Oslo Accords. The State Department communiqué also claims the US continues “to urge both parties to avoid provocative one-sided actions that could undermine trust.”
Phlegmatic on Israeli violations, the US State Department is mobilizing its own diplomatic corps on behalf of Israel to undermine the basic right of Palestinians to a state of their own.
In the private US document, the administration cautioned that “a General Assembly resolution on Palestinian statehood could also open the door to Palestinian participation as a state in other international forums, including at the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
UN Observer State status will only grant the ICC jurisdiction over war crimes committed within the geographical area of the state.
In the absence of war crimes, the ICC’s jurisdiction becomes immaterial. Perhaps US apprehension over Palestinian entry into the UN — with power to adjudicate on matters related to war crimes — is an implicit admission of Israeli culpability in such crimes.
The letter carried an oblique warning to European countries that Palestine joining the UN will have “significant negative consequences,” including “our ability to maintain our significant financial support for the Palestinian Authority” — implying that EU countries will be left with the burden of supporting a Palestinian economy strangled by the Israeli occupation.
Last month, US President Barack Obama cancelled a 20-year-old tradition of meeting world leaders present for the opening of the UN General Assembly session because the Israeli prime minister was not there. Israel’s grip on US foreign policy is bizarre.
To avoid the appearance of meeting world leaders but not Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama called off his meetings altogether.
This measure of Israel’s hold over American foreign policy was investigated at length in a book called The Israeli Lobby and US Foreign Lobby by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who argued: “It is time for the United States to treat Israel not as a special case but as a normal state, and to deal with it much as it deals with any other country.” In his farewell speech in 1796, the founding father and first American president, George Washington, presaged these type of relations and forewarned about the danger of “the insidious wiles of foreign influence.”
“The jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican government,” he said.
Indeed, the Israeli lobby’s diabolic “influence” over elected American officials is the most destructive threat to US democracy.

Netanyahu’s hard-right alliance could backfire
By: Dan Williams (http://www.arabnews.com/netanyahu%E2%80%99s-hard-right-alliance-could-backfire)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tie-up with far-right coalition partner Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman could backfire by eroding their lead ahead of Israel’s Jan. 22 ballot, a poll said on Friday.
The findings flew in the face of Netanyahu’s prediction that, by merging with his fiery rival for nationalist votes, he would muster a “big, cohesive force” of support to win a third term as premier.
They also suggested that opposition parties, long dawdling thanks to Israel’s stable economy and disillusionment with the deadlocked Palestinian peace process, would be reenergized by the conservative incumbent’s tack toward the Lieberman tent.
According to a survey published by top-rated television station Channel Two, the joint candidate list of Netanyahu’s Likud and Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu parties, announced on Thursday, would take just 33 of the 120 seats in parliament.
Though that still puts them ahead of rival parties, it represented a drop-off from Monday, before the unexpected alliance was unveiled, when a poll for parliament’s television station Knesset 99 gave them a combined 39 seats.
“Unifying lists usually shrinks them,” commented Nahum Barnea of the biggest-selling newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
“Anyone who did not tolerate Lieberman and voted for Netanyahu will think twice, and the same is true for those who did not tolerate Netanyahu and voted for Lieberman.”
Friday’s poll also found boosted support for Israel’s strongest opposition parties, left-leaning Labour and the new, centrist Yesh Atid. They were seen taking 27 and 18 seats, respectively, up from the 19 and 15 predicted on Monday.
Reasons analysts gave for that shift included worry among wavering Israelis about the rise of the Soviet-born Lieberman, an often undiplomatic diplomat who faces possible indictment on graft charges — though he denies wrongdoing.
His party has questioned the loyalty of Israel’s Arab minority and promoted legislation that critics denounced as an undemocratic targeting of liberal causes, such as a move to slap a 45 percent tax on foreign donations to human rights groups.
“The strong Russian accent, the police probes and the old left’s fear of the man who doesn’t believe in peace painted him in one stripe,” said Netanyahu ex-spokesman Yoaz Hendel, adding that he believed much of the public had misjudged Lieberman.
The foreign minister brushed off Friday’s poll, telling reporters Israel Beiteinu’s own surveys anticipated it would win 16 seats in the next Knesset — up from today’s 15.
“We are setting up the broad-based, traditional, historic nationalist camp that will lead the country for many years,” he said. A Likud spokeswoman declined to comment on poll figures.
Netanyahu and Lieberman said their partnership will ditch some of the fractious small-party wrangling typical of Israeli politics and help the country attend to security challenges like Iran’s nuclear program, as well as domestic problems.
The secularist Lieberman is also pushing to end en masse exemptions granted to Israeli Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews from compulsory national service.
While Channel Two projected an even 60-60 seat split between coalition and opposition in the next Parliament, most commentators agreed that the latter were unlikely to build on that strength by uniting to offset the Netanyahu-Lieberman list.
“There is no agreed-upon (opposition) leader and no consensus, and almost no union seems possible there,” wrote Shalom Yerushalmi of Maariv daily.
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