Fig Trees and Vineyards – by Richard Edmondson
It’s kind of one of those pictures that are “worth a thousand words,” don’t you think? What you’re looking at is Obama onstage with media mogul and Israeli dual national Haim Saban, who has stated previously, “I’m a one issue guy, and my issue is Israel.” The photo was taken last weekend at the Saban Forum, held in Washington. During the event Saban and Obama appeared together for what was billed as a “conversation” on the Middle East, but basically it was a one-on-one press conference—with Saban doing the grilling and Obama doing the answering. Do the facial expressions in the photo, the body language, suggest anything to you—like for instance which of the two figures is dominant and which is submissive?
Saban, of course, has lots of money. In 2002 he provided a $13 million grant which established the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, and which is part of the larger Brookings Institution think tank. Today he is a major funder of political candidates, particularly of the Democratic Party. You can go here and watch a 48-minute video of his “conversation” with Obama, which includes a few questions from the audience towards the end (all of the people selected to ask questions in that closing segment, coincidentally, happen to be Israelis). At one point, Saban jokingly remarks upon how “obedient” Obama is. A little later in the video, Obama states the following:
“The one thing I will say to the people of Israel is that you can be assured, whoever is in the office I currently occupy, Democrat or Republican, that your security will be uppermost on our minds. That will not change.”
Does it not strike you as a curious comment? Why would the security of a foreign nation be “uppermost” in the minds of the leaders of a supposedly sovereign country? But then maybe America is no longer a sovereign nation.
Obama indeed proves his “obedience” by never once bringing up Israel’s nuclear weapons. Much of the conversation is dominated by talk about Iran’s domestic nuclear energy program. The president at one point repeats the standard, stock-in-trade “options-on-the-table” remark—which in essence is nothing more than a threat to attack Iran—yet nowhere, in the entire 48-minute video, does the subject of Israel’s nuclear weapons come up.
A report on the Saban Forum was posted recently at the Mondoweiss blog. While the article mentions the “conversation” between Obama and Saban, as well as a speech by Benjamin Netanyahu, who also addressed the audience, much of the piece is devoted to the remarks of John Kerry, who delivered the keynote address for the event. Allison Deger, the author of the report, notes that Kerry expressed the view that Palestinians in the West Bank are deserving of “state institutions” (as opposed to an actual state) of their own, a comment which seems to have prompted Deger to draw the conclusion that “Palestinian statehood is not on the table in the current round of peace talks.” It is a not unreasonable conclusion to draw.
Kerry also referred to Palestinians as a “demographic time bomb” threatening to jeopardize Israel’s “future as a democratic, Jewish state”—apparently the secretary of state’s first public expression of concern over the so-called “demographic threat.” But perhaps most interesting is what Deger reports on comments by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who also attended the event:
Even though Lieberman was amongst a crowd of Washington and Israeli officials familiar with his anti-Arab diatribes, audible gasps could be heard throughout the room when he called to expel Palestinian citizens of Israel. A diplomat from the Russian embassy seated next to me even choked. Another moment of discontent between the plated-dinner audience and Lieberman passed when the foreign minister made a forlorn pun at Sen. Joe Lieberman. Otherwise the foreign minister was amongst allies.
That Lieberman would call for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine at an event like this, at which high-ranking US officials, including the president, are present, is quite significant. If anyone publicly criticized him for making such a statement, it is not reported by Mondoweiss. This too is perhaps significant. Much has been made of the recent bone of contention between Obama and Netanyahu over the negotiations with Iran, with some suggesting that the US president is beginning to assert himself and to defy the Israeli lobby on some key, important issues. Is this simply wishful thinking on the part of some commentators? I don’t pretend to know the answer to that, but if there was any note of defiance struck at last weekend’s Saban Forum, all I can say is it is extremely difficult to detect.
Also worth considering is that Lieberman could be on track to succeed Netanyahu as the next prime minister of Israel
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Update-12/11/13:
The following information on Saban comes from Wikipedia:
In March 2008, Saban was among a group of major Jewish donors to sign a letter to Democratic Party house leader Nancy Pelosi warning her to “keep out of the Democratic presidential primaries.” The donors, who “were strong supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign”, “were incensed by a March 16 interview in which Pelosi said that party ‘superdelegates’ should heed the will of the majority in selecting a candidate.” The letter to Pelosi stated the donors “have been strong supporters of the DCCC” [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] and implied, according to The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, that Pelosi could lose their financial support in important upcoming congressional elections.
And also this:
Regarding Jane Harman AIPAC Controversy, in April 2009, New York Times, quoting anonymous sources, said a caller promised her that Saban would withhold campaign contributions to Representative Nancy Pelosi if she did not select Ms. Harman for the intelligence post.”
That Saban would use his wealth essentially to intimidate elected representatives should be regarded as repugnant to all Americans.
Wikipedia also has this:
Saban says his greatest concern is to protect Israel. At a conference in Israel, Saban described his formula. His three ways to influence American politics were: make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets.
Saban’s support for Hillary Clinton is also mentioned in the Mondoweiss article. Hillary quite likely will be running for president in 2016. In fact, at last year’s Saban Forum, she seems very much to have been the guest of honor:
Friday night, however, was on the record—and surprisingly revealing. Hillary Clinton was the main speaker. In a packed ballroom of the Willard Hotel, she was greeted with a standing ovation and then a short, adoring film, a video Festschrift testifying to her years as First Lady, senator, and, above all, Secretary of State. The film, an expensive-looking production, went to the trouble of collecting interviews with Israeli politicians—Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni—and American colleagues, like John Kerry. Tony Blair, striking the moony futuristic note that was general in the hall, said, “I just have an instinct that the best is yet to come.”
The film was like an international endorsement four years in advance of the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. The tone was so reverential that it resembled the sort of film that the Central Committee of the Communist Party might have produced for Leonid Brezhnev’s retirement party if Leonid Brezhnev would only have retired and the Soviets had been in possession of advanced video technology. After it was over there was a separate video from the President. Looking straight into the camera, Obama kvelled at length: “You’ve been at my side at some of the most important moments of my Administration.”
Additional Update-12/12/13
The Jewish Daily Forward has also published a report on the Saban Forum containing the following rather arresting disclosure:
A former top Israeli political figure, stepping out of the room after Netanyahu’s speech, called the attempt to focus on Palestinian recognition “a mere distraction.” Speaking on condition of anonymity, the former official pulled out his smartphone and brought up a Youtube video showing the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat stating in 1974 that he will recognize a Jewish state. “You see, and this was Arafat who said it, so what does Bibi want now?” the former official asked.
And also this regarding a view of Saban expressed by Atlantic columnist and former Israeli prison guard Jeffrey Goldberg:
Jeffrey Goldberg, a columnist for The Atlantic who participated in the forum discussions, marveled at Saban’s ability to draw the stellar retinue of top leaders from the two sides to his conference: “Everybody wants to be the king of the Jews, but I think he might be the king of the Jews,” Goldberg said. “When he picks up the phone people answer and they do him favors.”
Of course. Look at the photo once more. Obama is simply paying homage to the “king of the Jews.” Maybe the picture is worth even more than a thousand words.
If Goldberg views Saban as the king of the Jews, how, in turn, does Saban look upon Lieberman? Apparently quite benevolently:
“When there is a terrorist attack, I am [Avigdor] Lieberman. Sometimes to the right of Lieberman,” Saban says. “For two days I really love Lieberman. But afterward I come back to reality. Look, I don’t see a solution today.”
Several days ago I wrote and posted an article entitled Gaza: Out of Fuel, Out of Air, and Running Out of Time, in which I quoted remarks made recently by Alan Hart on a radio program with Kevin Barrett. Here is what Hart said:
On present form, I think there will be a final Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Because the whole Zionist game plan has been to make life hell for the Palestinians of the occupied territories. But they’ve nowhere to go and they aren’t going to pack up and go. So when it dawns on Israel’s leaders, as it will, that the demographic time bomb is ticking, and they can’t bring on-stream a puppet Palestinian government that will accept crumbs from Zionism’s table, then there will be the final ethnic cleansing. And it can happen very easily. You get six Mossad agents dressed as Palestinian terrorists and kill thirty, forty, fifty Jews or whatever. And that’s it. Away you go… an internal Israel-Palestine false flag operation.
I went on to add my own thoughts on the matter:
I find Hart’s scenario eminently plausible. In fact, given what we know of the Israelis’ ruthlessness, and their propensity for false flag operations, the real question is not whether they would be morally capable of undertaking such an action, or whether they would gauge the risk acceptable. The only question really up in the air worth worth asking here is whether or not the rest of the world would let them get away with it.
But actually there is another question worth considering, and that is the possibility than an “internal Israel-Palestine” attack may not be the only false flag operation we could be facing. If the final ethnic cleansing of Palestine is in the offing, the final cementing and nailing down of the US police state is bound to be high on certain agendas as well. All that is needed is the right pretext. One thing is for sure, if the 2016 election comes down to a race between Hillary Clinton and a Republican such as Marco Rubio of Florida, it will be one of the bleakest choices Americans have ever had to face.
http://richardedmondson.net/2013/12/11/who-is-the-boss-and-who-is-the-servant-in-this-photo/