Breaking: at 9a.m. CT today, the hacker collective Anonymous announced it had taken down the AIPAC website. The pro-Israel lobby group’s conference began today.
President Obama will speak at the conference this morning, where he’s already under fire for being seen to be weak on confronting Iran and on supporting Israel’s hardline leader. Republicans are hoping to make electoral hay at AIPAC and look to split as much as possible of the Jewish vote away from the president. Significantly, Obama’s warm-up act this morning was Liz Cheney. Guardian correspondent Chris McGreal tweets: Applause for Liz Cheney at Aipac when she says Obama done more to “undermine and delegitimise” Israel than any US president in history.
Update The AIPAC website is partly back up and running, with live feed just in time for Obama’s speech.
Update 2 Here’s the text of Obama’s speech to AIPAC as prepared for delivery. On Iran, he’s still using the phrase “nuclear weapon” rather than “nuclear capability” as AIPAC and Bibi want. But he’s also made clear Israel gets to decide on its own, and if it launches a pre-emptive attack over a ‘nuclear capability” then he’ll have it’s back.
Obviously Cheryl, in her post below this one, disagrees.
it is PressTV so who knows.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/229601.html
I read that on Debka this morning, also that we have a military buildup in Turkey.
Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart. ~ Phil Jackson
…is the prime mover: here.
“In combat one should be very suspicious of painless moral choices. When you are confronted with a seemingly painless moral choice, the odds are that you haven’t looked deeply enough.” ~ Karl Marlantes
Avigdor Lieberman: Israel to decide alone on Iran
And:
David Axelrod: Don’t Doubt President’s Resolve on Iran. In which The Atlantic’s Jeff Goldberg talks sense for a change:
The thing is, I believe Obama has now removed the only big stick he had to back down Israel’s hawks with – the possibility the US wouldn’t rush to Israel’s side if it pre-emptively attacks Iran. He keeps saying he has israel’s back, no matter what – so what happens if they take him at his word on that? To me, his AIPAC speech sounded like an extended “I’d rather you didn’t, but…” Cheryl differs strongly on that though.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu immediately responded favorably to US President Barack Obama’s speech on Sunday, highlighting Obama’s remarks about Israel’s right to defend itself as it saw fit.
“I appreciated the fact that he said Israel must be able to defend itself, by itself, against any threat,†Netanyahu told reporters before meeting Canadian Jewish leaders.
“I appreciated the fact that President Obama reiterated his position that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, and that all options are on the table,†Netanyahu said. “I also appreciated the fact that he made clear that when it comes to a nuclear-armed Iran, containment is simply not an option.â€
the little people of the little blue sphere are doomed to the elite thinking, Main Street FY
to Obama is important because he says what he believes. The problem has been all too often the listeners get lulled into believing that Obama has said what they want him to say.
Obama’s words that you get on the net and Yahoo should be parsed carefully by Netanyahu. Just as we have learned to carefully parse Obama’s words, so would it be wise for Israel. When Obama says he has your back, I would keep looking over my shoulder.
I found it better to read what he said
“…net and Yahoo should be parsed carefully by Netanyahu.”
“He keeps saying he has israel’s back”. What is israel’s back exactly?
The above comment by Jeff seemed wrong to me on two levels.
First of all, I do not believe that Obama usually means much of what he says, and he almost always says what he thinks people want him to say.
When I looked at what Ian has posted about Obama, he seemed to agree to a large extent with me.
So I wrote to Ian and gave him the above comment by Jeff, saying that it seemed wrong to me.
Ian responded:
“Yeah, that’s not quite right. With Obama look at what he does. You can get stuff out of his speech, but you have to look for when he’s not pandering–the key is when he starts lecturing in a telling people off way, that’s the real Obama. Also, who his heroes are (Reagan, for example, but not FDR) and who he appoints. Personnel are policy.”
So Ian agrees that there is a mode during which Obama says what he means, when he gets riled up and tells people off. Otherwise, he usually panders.