Re: [Salon] NETANYAHU WANTS TRUMP

Answering Warren first, the point I've made repeatedly, and again just 2 days ago to a “Conservative” whom I’ve known for some years and who is associated with the Committee for the Republic, who went too far in supporting Trump’s lies about the election, with me having the same complaint  against a prominent libertarian I’ve always been friends with, it’s “you guys,” here, who demand a monolithic view of each category, with no differentiation or discussion of the distinguishing characteristics they each may or may not have! One, a “Traditional Conservative,” and one representing the “Libertarians.”  And then you turn around and denounce me for using a “broad brush.”  

A. Libertarianism
Warren wrote: “you again conflated Libertarians (me) with Trumpeters and the Bibi coalition with your super broad brush.” Warren, you’re the “exception that proves the rule, though some individual libertarians aren’t all in with the Trump/Bibi coalition. But when do they “count," up against ideological leaders like Charles Koch? Who switched from Trump to Haley only because he saw Trump not beating Biden, but stuck with an equally Zionist candidate!

Recently, a one-time friend, whom I have a lot of respect for, got quite mad at me for my criticism of Charles Koch! Koch; who not only funded anti-BDS legislation throughout the U.S., but turns out he and the Koch Network are now part of the Israeli Military Industrial Complex! That’s in addition to what the Atlas Network he’s a major funder of does in their regime change operations throughout the world in promoting pro-Israel “Libertarians,” like the Uber-Zionist Jaview Milei!

With Koch also backing the most extreme militarists for election in the U.S.! While perhaps dropping a few pennies in the way of an antiwar group along the way to assuage criticism of his Oligarchical update of Mussolini: “Everything for the Oligarchy, nothing outside the Oligarchy, nothing against the Oligarchy.” With Plutocrats like Koch, Thiel, Mercers, and Adelson, atop the Oligarchy, choosing who runs our lives, for the benefit of the Plutocrats. (https://helpfulprofessor.com/plutocracy-vs-oligarchy/)

With it therefore not remarkable then that I’ve heard self-described “Libertarians” be so supportive of organizations like the “free market American Enterprise Institute,” which has a trail worn between it and the Pentagon with all the “cognitive operations” they wage to keep the U.S. in a State of Perpetual War.  And the most bloodthirsty “Experts” ever gathered in one place, except for the Heritage Foundation; both favorite think-tanks here, as AEI boasts: 

With Koch funding this type of “Influence Operation” insanity: 
"The grants, details of which were shared exclusively with POLITICO, are being split among four institutions: the Atlantic Council; the Center for the National Interest; the Chicago Council on Global Affairs; and the RAND Corporation.” “Old wine in different bottles.” 

You can see the “Cognitive War” propaganda memes of the Right in this, with Koch’s funding of these bastions of the Military Industrial Complex: 

"Will Ruger, vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute, the vehicle for the grants, said it’s high time that the concepts of “realism and restraint” got a second look. (So Charles Koch backs Nikki Haley, and before her, Trump, and so many other hyper-militaristic Republicans every election cycle, while running a deception campaign in funding the very think-tanks which keep us at war!) 

“We think that the marketplace of ideas has been too narrow and has not been healthy,” Ruger said. “There are a lot of important ideas that either need to be leveraged in our policy analysis or discovered or re-discovered.” 

"Around $4.5 million will go to the Atlantic Council, which will use it to establish what it is calling the New American Engagement Initiative. The grant will support five scholars and activities related in part to how the U.S. balances its use of diplomacy, international alliances and the military. 

“This is our biggest engagement to date with the Koch Institute, and it’s because we both recognize that the world we’re facing can’t be addressed with the tools we’ve used in the past,” said Fred Kempe, president and CEO of the Atlantic Council. “We just need to be more creative to address a dramatically changed international landscape, including new major power competition.” 

"RAND is receiving $2.9 million over five years to support a new center focused on the concept of grand strategy. The initiative, called the Center for Analysis of U.S. Grand Strategy, will be led by scholar Miranda Priebe. It will look at how various grand strategies are affected by technological change and other global trends."


That’s the “Libertarians,” all huddled under the “benevolent” Plutocrat Charles Koch and his personal “Military Industrial Complex” they call “Libertarianism,” with enough allowed, of an “antiwar wing,” to maintain the fiction that our “Military/Libertarian Oligarchy” allows dissent, so long as they also demand tax cuts for the Plutocrats who run the system!

B. Conservatism (Unhyphenated, as the hyper-extreme Militarist Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation characterizes themselves.)

A list of whom can be seen in Project 2025’s Mein Kampf document of proclaiming a “Total War Doctrine” for the next Republican administration, with a necessary “purge” going along with that. Regardless of it being under Haley, Trump, or had our Traditional Conservative got his wish; DeSantis. All the same in basic political theory, which is what I evaluate politics by. 

Here they are: 


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Attachment: Contributors to Total War-Authoritarianism .pdf
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Attachment: Heritage Foundation Total-War Militarization of America Plan.pdf
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Add in the Claremont Institute’s new “Scholars,” John Yoo and Robert Delahunty, and any pretense of “differentiation” between “Conservatives” is blown away. In this list, you have Claremont, Hillsdale, The American Conservative magazine, and the National Association of Scholars, as I am particularly qualified to comment upon as I was instrumental in founding a subsidiary of it in about 1988; the Minnesota Association of Scholars. Which brought together about a dozen prominent professors to include representative Straussians, Heritage Foundation associates, “National Security Conservatives,” and Neoconservatives. 

“The bands back together again!” With the same conglomeration of the type of war maddened Conservatives/Libertarians I knew in Minnesota in a Yale-descended debate society I once belonged to. Which so disgusted me with their almost 100% support for torture, and support for the GWOT, that I shared my contempt for them about the . . . .

So now that they’re all together again, and never were really apart, here’s some light reading for Conservatives that all will enjoy, now under the sponsorship of the Claremont Institute, putting me squarely in opposition to this entire Conservative Movement and its Libertarian allies!

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If anyone can actually make a distinction within each of these two factions of war/torture fanatical Oligarchs/Plutocrats, now doing business as the “New Right,” other than as the exception which proves the rule, I am happy to so concede. In the meantime, the completely legitimate form of analysis, “Network Analysis,” explains the broader outline of what I oppose. That right-wing Democrats are now so closely aligned with this “Network,” only goes to show the validity of the "Overton Window” theory.  

   
One last point. One could say that Willmoore Kendall and his mentor/ideological partner Leo Strauss prove that there is not a single definition of “Conservatism,” as they were both so far to the “Right,” they constituted a separate “fascist” political thought/faction, albeit under the “Big Tent of Conservatism.” With Kendall having denounced on the basis of political theory heresy almost every single one of his fellow Conservatives, with the exceptions of the “mystical” Eric Voegelin,” and Kendall’s fellow “Southern Conservative” Richard Weaver. And most of all, whom Kendall was most devoted to; Leo Strauss. As can be seen in his denunciation of Russell Kirk in the attached file below, and elsewhere of Frank S. Meyer as a “fusionist libertarian.” But none of them defended themselves from Kendall! Conceding to Kendall his fascist political thought as constituting “Conservatism.” 

I’ve shared ample materials of Kendall’s own writings as evidence of his “fascist thought,” and loyalties to Franco and Trujillo. But this panegyric to him by the Heritage Foundation captures him quite well, if one has enough knowledge to see through its fabrications, and their meaning: 

"In his 1963 book, The Conservative Affirmation, republished in 2022 by Regnery Books, Kendall sought to define an American conservatism rooted in our major documents and debates. He looked to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and “above all” the Federalist Papers. Daniel McCarthy’s illuminating Foreword in the new edition argues that Kendall meant for the book to challenge both Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind (1952) and Frank Meyer’s In Defense of Freedom (1962) and serve as the authentic statement of conservatism in America."

A. Kendall made a career out of denouncing and attacking those documents I put in Bold! And the Federalist Papers he focused on, were primarily those of Hamilton’s, with his emphasis on "rai·son d’é·tat,” the basis of Leo Strauss’s political thought, Carl Schmitt’s, and Willmoore Kendall’s. What Madison would later turn to,  the Bill of Rights and Free Speech and Press, Kendall made a career of attacking. Being joined in that by George Carey in their joint book, "The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition,” regardless of whatever virtues Carey may have acquired later. 

In fact, a comparative political theory analysis of Kendall, Weaver, and Voegelin, would show their political thought to be the antecedent of Yoram Hazony’s National Conservatism, using the same theory of “Absolute Majoritarianism,” which Hazony puts to use as an Israeli fascist Settler in attacking Palestinians! 

Substitute “Jewish” for Christian in this, paragraph, and you have Yoram Hazony’s political theory down to a T! With the same duplicity of concealing that the “elite,” in either case, will be people like themselves. And Leo Strauss, and Carl Schmitt. 


"In his book Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition (1970), co-authored with George Carey, Kendall contended that the symbol Americans made to represent the truth of their political order was a virtuous people deliberating under God and natural law in order to create laws that would lead to their liberty and good order as a people. Kendall and Carey expressed very little concern over the various and sundry rights of minorities being protected by a gifted and chosen elite acting through the judicial branch or another organ of government. In a review of the constitutional history of the colonists and Americans from the Mayflower Compact through the Constitution of 1787, Kendall and Carey found that the key principle was deliberation of the people’s representatives to build a civilization worthy of a largely Christian people who believed that there was reason, order, and purpose within creation that they could draw on as a lawful and constitutional people.

As is its nature, this Heritage article abounds with duplicity, which I won’t totally break down. But for those upset with the Democrats demanding “consensus,” and suppression of dissent, that originated with the “Traditional Conservatism” of Willmoore Kendall and Leo Strauss, and their fascist antecedents that they both so admired. 

To dissent, "The result will be apathy, anger, and aggression as civilized argument becomes impossible to sustain because the public square is no longer upheld by a consensus about who the “We the people” really are.”

Which is why Kendall was the preeminent “McCarthyite.” But not against “Communists,” but primarily, against “Liberals,” as his writing repetitiously made clear.

As does Hazony, and before him, Joseph Goebbels.







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On Feb 27, 2024, at 1:38 PM, SCOTT MCCONNELL <scottpost@aol.com> wrote:

I admire Clyde’s piece and I agree with most of it. There are people I can think of (me for instance) who would prefer Biden on the Mideast and Trump on Ukraine and the US border and various culture issues, and are as yet undecided. I wonder whether evangelical Protestants are all that in to end time. I do think church attendance in general slighly predisposes people towards Israel, because the ancient Israelites various sagas are talked about constantly, and so they dont seem “the other” the way Muslims do. Granted the Israelites don;t always come across so well. 

On Feb 27, 2024, at 3:15 PM, Warren Coats via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:

Todd,

I definitely agree that Clydes article on Trump was excellent. I sorry that you again conflated Libertarians (me) with Trumpeters and the Bibi coalition with your super broad brush
Warren Coats
1211 S Eads St. #2101
Arlington VA 22202
Mobile 703 608-2975
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On Feb 26, 2024, at 10:45 AM, Todd Pierce via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:

Thanks to Clyde Prestowitz for this excellent analysis in pointing out how Trump is the “Chosen One” of the Israeli PM! And restoring a bit of my past respect for this email list for its analysis. After how that was shattered by the “New Right,” and/or “Libertarian” Trumpites/DeSantisites here, who are part and parcel of Netanyahu’s Coalition, sorry to say. 

On Feb 26, 2024, at 8:30 AM, Chas Freeman via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:

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NETANYAHU WANTS TRUMP

His Post War Gaza Plan Aims to Sink Biden

Feb 26 

Clyde Prestowitz from Clyde’s Newsletter clydeprestowitz@substack.com

 



READ IN APP
 

With his just announced plan for dealing with Gaza once military operations cease, Israeli Prime Minister Binjamin Netanyahu has formally declared war on President Biden and his campaign for re-election.

Far from moving toward the two -state solution being promulgated by Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Netanyahu is calling for an increased and time unlimited Israeli occupation not only of Gaza but also of the West Bank and all other areas of what otherwise would constitute an independent Palestinian state. In effect, Netanyahu is calling for the total conquest by Israel of the remains of Palestine - the exact opposite of what Biden and the rest of the world are suggesting.

By taking this position, Netanyahu is putting Biden between the devil and the deep blue sea. He knows that Biden is heavily dependent on not only the Jewish vote in the United States, but even more importantly, on Jewish money for his potential re-election. He knows also that Trump’s son-in-law is Jewish, and that Trump enjoys strong support from some of the richest Jewish-Americans. He further knows that evangelical Americans strongly believe in the notion that God promised the land that is now Israel/Palestine to the Jews and that the Israelis thus have every right to drive out the mostly Islamic Palestinians.

Netanyahu is betting that if he can just play tough for the next eight months or so, he may well have a much more supportive and compliant Trump administration with which to deal. Keep in mind also that Netanyahu has his own peculiar status with which to wrestle. Were he not Prime Minister there is reason to believe that he would be behind bars and certainly not a key leader of Israel. At the moment, hanging tough on Gaza and the Palestinians is close to the only thing keeping him in office.

Indeed, one might even ask if he is somehow secretly in cahoots with Hamas. Remember that it has been he who has supported the notion of keeping the Palestinians divided by enabling Hamas to govern Gaza while the Palestinian Authority (PA) governs the West Bank. One might even suggest that he, perhaps inadvertently, caused the Hamas October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the present genocidal conflict in Gaza. After all, it keeps him in office and very likely out of jail.

In fact, Netanyahu also owes a great deal to Biden as well. When Biden flew to Israel in the immediate wake of the Hamas October 7 attack, I actually thought the visit would be not only to comfort Netanyahu and Israel, but also to persuade them that an in-kind, vicious response would be counter-productive and very difficult for America to support. You, gentle reader, might rightly ask how anyone could be so naive. But I was.

In any case, it is clear that the rest of the world does not at all agree with the U.S. support of how Israel under Netanyahu has been responding. When close allies like Australia and the UK do not vote with the U.S. in the UN and other bodies, let alone the vast majority of other countries, it is obvious that far from leading the free world, the United States is collaborating with Israel in what increasingly is obviously a genocidal policy approach.

The more Biden goes along with Netanyahu on this, the more respect and leadership authority the United States will lose.

WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE

There are three alternatives. One is for Washington to support Netanyahu across the board and effectively support the complete Israelization of the former Palestine complete with possible expulsion of Arab Palestinians or, at the least, subordination of Arab Palestinians to Jewish rule in a region in which the population is roughly half Arab/Palestinian and half Jewish. This has, effectively, been U.S. policy for quite a long time, and, clearly, it has not worked and is not working.

The second alternative would be the creation of a unified state that would be roughly half Jewish and half Palestinian Arab by population. Such a state would be a democracy in which the rights and responsibilities of all would be the same under a rule of law. One might think of Belgium (roughly half Walloon speaking French and half Flemish speaking Dutch) or of Canada (French and English), Switzerland (French, German, Italian, Romanch), India (Hindi, English, Bengali, etc.), and Singapore (Mandarin, English, Tamil, Malay)

Having lived in Belgium for many years, I can say that appealing as this option may appear, it can be quite difficult to operate in reality. Were it not for the creation of the EU with Belgium as its capital, I am not sure that the Belgium of today would exist - so great is the enmity between the Flemish and the Walloons. Singapore may be a promising example in that its native languages are all official and strict ethnic equality is the rule of the day, but its working language is the foreign tongue of English. In this way, no ethnicity is favored. We must remember, however, that to date, Singapore has been ruled by only one political party while its press has been careful in how it treats political issues. In theory, maybe an Israel/Palestine could do something similar, but, given all the enmity of the past hundred and forty odd years, we should not kid ourselves that it would be truly possible in real life.

That leaves the third option of two independent states. At first glance, this seems to be and probably is the easier and most obvious solution. But be careful. A relatively rich, nuclear weapon holding, highly educated Israel interacting intimately with a relatively poor, militarily weak, and less educated Palestine is not necessarily the answer to prayer whether to God or Allah. Still, for the United States and the rest of the world, it is probably the only possible answer.

WHAT IS BIDEN’S SITUATION

President Biden has been a staunch supporter of Israel from the time of his entry into politics fifty -two years ago. This no doubt has had something to do both with his Christian view of the Israelis as the Biblical Chosen People as well as with the fact that he is one of the all- time biggest cumulative recipients of political donations from pro- Israel American organizations and citizens such as AIPAC (America Israel Political Action Committee). He will want more of that money in this election year, but if it appears that he is bowing to Netanyahu while also proving unable to provide more help for Ukraine, he will rightly be perceived as a weak, unprincipled President, a perception that could well result in his loss of the election in November. Given that Donald Trump and his Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have proven to be great pals to Netanyahu in the past, this is undoubtedly what Netanyahu is wishing for.

A new factor is also complicating Biden’s political life and strategy. Since its declaration of statehood in 1948, Israel has dealt with an America in which there are more Jews than in Israel and in which the Jewish population has wealth and influence far beyond what its number might suggest. Take just one organization that is highly influential in U.S. foreign policy. The Council on Foreign Relations is the central non-governmental American body that studies and advises on U.S. foreign policy. Three fourths of its directors are of Jewish ethnicity. They are directors because they are smart, highly educated and wealthy and run some of the most important business, academic, journalistic, financial, and political organizations in the country. From President Harry Truman’s May 15,1948 speech welcoming Israel’s declaration of independence until now, American policy on the Middle East has been strictly pro-Israel.

Another important factor in this regard has been the influence of the American, Protestant Evangelical community. It accounts for about 24 percent of the U.S. population and has always been strongly pro-Israel because of its belief that the modern gathering of Jews in Palestine is an indication of the approach of the Second Coming of Christ and the end of time as we know it.

Heretofore the combined political might of the American Jewish population and the evangelicals has assured that U.S. policy in the middle east would be strongly favorable to Israel. But new figures have arrived on the scene - immigrants to America from among the Palestinian and other middle Eastern Arab communities. They are now numerous enough in some American cities and states to have a potentially decisive impact on elections. Example A is the state of Michigan which Biden desperately needs to win if he is to hold the Presidency, but which he may well not hold if he is seen to be kowtowing to Netanyahu and Israel. Biden, essentially, already has the American Jewish vote, but that won’t necessarily win Michigan for him. Ironically, he needs the Palestinian vote to hold the state. Thus, obviously, he needs to prove himself to the American Palestinian/Arab community and he cannot do that by licking Netanyahu’s boots.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE

The White House might respond to Netanyahu by announcing that since the Israeli Prime Minister does not seem prepared to halt the genocide in Gaza over which he is presiding, the United States will no longer provide any weapons or military equipment to Israel. Nor will America provide further funding of any kind to Israel. It will also carefully monitor flows of Israeli origin funds to political activities of any kind in the United States. Word might also be passed to the Israelis that the United States will not veto any further proposals in the United Nations or elsewhere on genocide or other infractions by Israel of internationally agreed rules.

Secretary of State Blinken might be sent back to the Middle East to meet with the leaders of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, perhaps Turkey, and the Palestine Authority to discuss a realistic plan for rebuilding Gaza, integrating it into a new state of Palestine that would include Gaza, the West Bank, and parts of Jerusalem, and the means of financing the project. Of course, this new state will need money for rebuilding and security from inroads by Israel or by hard -line Israeli settlers who are sometimes well armed. A coalition force of U.S. and Arab nation soldiers might be necessary to defend the independence of the new Palestinian state.

I could go on at length, but the bottom line is that American policy regarding Israel and the Middle East and the UN must be made and must be seen to be being made by and for America and its allies rather than by and for Israel and its lobbyists.

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