Thread: Republican Jewish Coalition - Clinton Accuses Israel of Being Occupying Force

Republican Jewish Coalition

“This should put every American on notice that Hillary Clinton plans to continue Barack Obama’s failed Middle East policy that coddles terrorists and castigates democratic allies”



Clinton Accuses Israel of Being Occupying Force

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accuses Israel of being an occupying force in her new memoir Hard Choices and claims that the Jewish state denies “dignity and self determination” to Pa
Washington Free Beacon

Clinton Accuses Israel of Being Occupying Force

New book takes aim at Israel, angers pro-Israel community


Hillary Clinton on Good Morning America / AP

BY: Adam Kredo
June 10, 2014 1:21 pm

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accuses Israel of being an occupying force in her new memoir Hard Choices and claims that the Jewish state denies “dignity and self determination” to Palestinians in the West Bank.
Clinton recalls being surprised by what she termed “life under occupation for the Palestinians,” according to the book.
Pro-Israel officials and insiders on Capitol Hill have called Clinton’s comments tone deaf and said that her claim that Israel is an occupying force reveals a bias against the Jewish state.
“When we left the city and visited Jericho, in the West Bank, I got my first glimpse of life under occupation for Palestinians, who were denied the dignity and self-determination that Americans take for granted,” Clinton writes.
Clinton’s comments demonstrate that she supports the Obama administration’s efforts to pressure and marginalize Israel, which current Secretary of State John Kerry recently accused of becoming an “apartheid state,” said one senior GOP Senate aide, who worked with Clinton when she was at the State Department.
“What we see here is the true Hillary Clinton, no longer muzzling herself for fear of reelection in New York or Senate confirmation fights—the woman who embraced Suha Arafat after smiling through anti-Semitic tirades,” said the former senior GOP Senate aide who for years battled Clinton’s State Department.
The source referred to a 1999 incident in which Clinton sat by smiling as the wife of former terrorist leader Yasser Arafat went on an anti-Israel tirade.
“This should put every American on notice that Hillary Clinton plans to continue Barack Obama’s failed Middle East policy that coddles terrorists and castigates democratic allies,” said the former official. “Clinton knows she lost to Obama in 2008 because she was outflanked by the left—she won’t make that mistake twice and she knows how much the left hates Israel.”
Clinton goes on to take aim at the Netanyahu government for not returning land to the Palestinians that she claims has been “occupied by Israel since 1967.”
Clinton is referring to territory seized by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, in which Egypt, Jordan, and Syria attacked Israel from every side in a bid to destroy the Jewish state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Clinton claims, is not serious about the peace process.
This claim has been echoed by senior State Department officials, several of whom have sought to blame Israel for the recent failure of peace talks.
“Netanyahu has been deeply skeptical of the Oslo framework of trading land for peace and a two-state solution that would give the Palestinians a country of their won in territory occupied by Israel since 1967,” Clinton writes.
One senior pro-Israel official who reviewed Clinton’s comments dubbed them as “troubling.”
“The quotes, which gives insight into Clinton’s thinking, are troubling,” the official told the Washington Free Beacon. “Most Americans, when they first experience the tiny distance separating average Israelis from enemies pledged to their destruction, immediately think of the difficult security situation that our allies have to negotiate. Not Clinton though.”
Clinton has come under fire from a pro-Israel group for not publicly condemning Kerry’s apartheid remarks about Israel, which were criticized by many Democrats.

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Hillary draws flak for writing that Palestinians are under Jewish 'occupation' as reviewers continue to shred her book

• Hillary Clinton writes that in 1981 when she visited Jericho, Palestinians 'were denied ... dignity and self-determination'
• 'I got my first glimpse of life under occupation for Palestinians,' she writes in her memoir, 'Hard Choices'
• NJ Gov. Chris Christie took heat in March for referring to the West Bank as 'occupied territories' during a speech to wealthy Jewish GOP donors
• Christie apologized, but an adviser to the 'Ready for Hillary' presidential campaign PAC insists Clinton has said nothing she should feel sorry for
• Palestinian partisans see territory on the West Bank of the Jordan River as their land and claim it's 'occupied' by Israel
• Israelis and most American Jews see them as 'disputed,' insisting that there was no Palestinian state to 'occupy' after the Six-Day war of 1967
  
• The contentious issue and its semantics are at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict

By David Martosko, U.s. Political Editor
Published: 01:11 EST, 10 June 2014 | Updated: 12:38 EST, 10 June 2014
285 shares
72 View comments

Hillary Clinton is stepping somewhere between meshuga and chutzpah with a lament in her new book about how Palestinians in Israel's West Bank are living 'under occupation.'

In the memoir, due in stores on Tuesday, Clinton recounts a 1981 trip she took with her husband Bill between his nonconsecutive terms as governor of Arkansas.
'When we left the city and visited Jericho, in the West Bank,' she writes in her book Hard Choices, 'I got my first glimpse of life under occupation for Palestinians, who were denied the dignity and self-determination that Americans take for granted.'
Those are fighting words for any U.S. politician who hopes to court American Jewish voters.
The last elected official to make the same gaffe was Gov. Chris Christie, the constantly embattled New Jersey Republican.



Dumb choices? 'Crossfire' co-host S.E. Cupp read aloud a passage from Hillary Clinton's new book on Monday, which describes the former secretary of state's feelings about Israel's alleged 'occupation' of Palestinian lands



Politically correct: Israel has built Jewish settlements on a little more than 1 per cent of the disputed West Bank territories, but it has become commonplace for politicians to refer to Tel Aviv as a wholesale 'occupier' of Palestinian lands

Christie recalled during a March 29 speech before the Republican Jewish Coalition that he had taken 'a helicopter ride from the occupied territories across' in 2012 'and just felt personally how extraordinary that was to understand, the military risk that Israel faces every day.'
With the third-rail of Middle Eastern politics sparking, Christie made a hat-in-hand apology the following day to Sheldon Adelson, the über-wealthy conservative casino owner and serial campaign financier who had organizer the meeting.
But Clinton isn't expected to follow suit.
During a broadcast of CNN's 'Crossfire' program on Monday, a senior adviser to the Ready For Hillary political action committee, which is laying the groundwork for a 2016 presidential campaign, insisted that Clinton won't be falling on her sword.


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• Hillary Clinton's memoirs: Obama admitted that slamming Bill as a racist during presidential campaign was 'not a real thing'
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'Does she owe Israel an apology for using the same language that Chris Christie used and then had to apologize to pro-Israel voters and pro-Israel groups?' asked S.E. Cupp, the conservative half of the show's left-right anchor desk.
'Hillary Clinton is going to stand by the words in her book,' said Tracy Sefl, the Clinton supporter. 'She is not going to apologize for something she need not apologize for.'

Cupp wasn't impressed.
'Then you think that she believes that the Palestinian territory is "occupied"?' Cupp asked. 'She's not going to apologize for that, and she asserted that on purpose?'
'I'm sure that when we all actually read the book and listen to her give these interviews, her words will stand for themselves,' Sefl shot back.
'She said it twice in the book,' chimed in Tim Miller, executive director of the conservative America Rising PAC.
Miller co-authored an opposition-research-heavy book for his organization, and released it to coincide with Clinton's.

The title: Failed Choices



Trump card: Clinton counts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among her public supporters, with Bibi saying in a 2012 tribute video that she 'is a strong and determined leader; she's principled and pragmatic'

Co-host Paul Begala, a veteran strategist from Bill Clinton's White House days, insisted that the former first lady 'is very, very strong on' Israel.
'If that's the tree you guys want to bark up, I wish you luck,' he said.
Cupp asked Sefl, 'Does (Hillary Clinton) owe Israel an apology for using the same language that Chris Christie used, then he had to apologize to pro-Israel voters and pro-Israel groups?”

On Middle Eastern issues, Secretary of State Clinton painted a centrist self-portrait during her 2009-2013 time in office, and avoided clinging tightly either to Israel or to the Palestinian Authority.
But on the thorny issue of West Bank settlements, she wore President Barack Obama's policy like a shield.
In a May 2009 joint press conference with Egypt's foreign minister, she said the White House wanted 'to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions. ... And we intend to press that point.'
Palestinians living in West Bank cities like Hebron, Jericho and Nablus believe they have a sovereign claim to landlocked territories west of the Jordan river, saying that Israel is 'occupying' Palestinian lands.
Israel's position is that 'Palestine' hasn't existed as a geopolitical entity since the British government ended its civil administration there in 1948. At most, Tel Aviv says, the land is 'disputed,' not occupied.
And that, Israel insists, means the land's status must be negotiated, not mandated at the barrel of a gun or handed over under threats from Hamas and other anti-Israel organizations that the U.S. sees as terror groups.



Tracey Sefl, a senior advisor to the Ready For Hillary PAC, insisted that Clinton 'is not going to apologize for something she need not apologize for'



Palestinians threw stones and burned tires on Friday as they clashed with Israeli security forces about Jewish 'occupation' of Palestinian-claimed land in the West Bank

In 1948 the West Bank was declared part of Jordan, but that country relinquished control of it 40 years later, stripping West Bank Arabs of Jordanian citizenship.

Israel has built settlements on just over 1 per cent of the West Bank and maintains civilian and military control of about 7 per cent of the territory overall.
Armed clashes between Israeli soldiers and pro-Palestinian protesters are common in other areas of the West Bank where Israel and the Palestinian Authority share control.
Clinton, Begala pointed out Monday, won praise from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a 2012 tribute video prepared for a public forum on Middle Eastern issues.
'I've just had the opportunity to work with her to achieve a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas,' Netanyahu says in the video.
'Hillary Clinton is a strong and determined leader, she's principled and pragmatic. ... As someone who knows a thing or two about political comebacks, I can tell you that I don't think we've heard the last of Hillary Clinton.'
But the maybe-running Hillary's book has already become more of a liability than an asset, with news networks procuring advance copies and interviewers leaning on her for news.
In one embarrassing interview with ABC News, she complained that she and President Clinton were 'dead broke' when they left the White House in 2000.

Since then she has raked in $8 million in book earnings, and now charges $200,000 for public speeches.

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Republican Jewish Coalition

"[S]he is attempting to distance herself from the administration's record by downgrading her involvement in its Israel policy. There is too much evidence to the contrary for her to get away with it."

Hillary Rewrites Her History on Israel
She would have us believe that her role in the administration's campaign of criticism, pressure, and crisis-creation against Israel was one of reluctant participant, a loyal official carrying out her duties despite having tried to dissuade the president from a mistaken policy.
The Weekly Standard

Hillary Rewrites Her History on Israel

7:01 AM, Jun 9, 2014 By NOAH POLLAK

In her new book, Hillary Clinton picks out a few foreign policy topics on which she thinks it now safe, even helpful, to express disagreement with the course taken by the Obama administration. She wanted to arm and train the Syria rebels, while Obama did not. She thought it unwise to call for Hosni Mubarak to step down immediately, while Obama wanted him gone.



She acknowledges that the Obama administration's demand for a settlement freeze from Israel as a precondition to talks with the Palestinians “didn’t work.” Yet she also seeks to exculpate herself from this failure by claiming that she was against the policy from the beginning. According to the Washington Post, she "disagreed with Obama and then-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel on a demand that Israel halt all new settlement construction. 'I was worried that we would be locking ourselves into a confrontation we didn’t need,' she writes."
A confrontation indeed ensued – a long and nasty one that continues to this day and has been perhaps the most consistent feature of the administration’s foreign policy. Yet for all her alleged opposition to the policy that launched the confrontation, no one save President Obama himself played such a prominent role in provoking it, amplifying it, and prolonging it.
Immediately after Obama first issued the demand for a freeze, Clinton took the lead in making indignant, confrontational public statements that were clearly intended to intimidate the Israelis and gratify the Palestinians. The freeze, Clinton said, was the only way to get Abbas and the Palestinians to talk.

Yet as we now know, they never had any intention of talking, were never pressured by the Obama administration to talk, and instead sat back and enjoyed the spectacle of Obama and Clinton beating up on Netanyahu in public. And what a spectacle it was.
Clinton used an appearance on Al Jazeera on May 19, 2009 to continue the public lecturing of Netanyahu that Obama had commenced the day before – Al Jazeera being a TV station owned by a regime that doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist and that has a sordid history of championing Israel's terrorist enemies and propagandizing against the Jewish state. Said Hillary:
"We want to see a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth – any kind of settlement activity. That is what the president has called for."
She reiterated her comments a few days later at a press conference alongside the Egyptian foreign minister:
"With respect to settlements, the president was very clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here. He wants to see a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions."
When Netanyahu eventually announced the imposition of a settlement freeze he remarked, referencing the Obama administration, that “We have been told by many of our friends that once Israel takes the first meaningful steps toward peace, the Palestinians and Arab states would respond.” The Palestinians and Arab states did not respond – and yet Clinton, so vocal about the Israelis, issued no public criticism of the Palestinians for refusing to talk after the freeze took effect. She was in full compliance with an unwritten administration policy: No public criticism of the Palestinians – ever.
Her role in all of this was not confined to being Obama's lead enforcer on the settlement freeze. After an ill-timed construction planning announcement by the Jerusalem municipality during Vice President Biden's visit to Israel in March 2010, Clinton made a now-infamous phone call to Netanyahu in which she berated and threatened the prime minister for 45 minutes, issued a list of demands he would have to meet to salvage the U.S.-Israel relationship, and then instructed the State Department press secretary to boast to the press of just how harshly she had treated Netanyahu.

After the Clinton phone call, then-Israeli ambassador Michael Oren commented that relations between the two countries had hit their lowest ebb in 35 years.
A few weeks later, in April 2010, Clinton gave a speech at a dinner that was attended by Ambassador Oren and several ambassadors from Arab countries, and once again attacked Israel. She accused Israel of engaging in “unilateral statements and actions” that had undermined the peace process and she laid blame for humanitarian problems in Gaza on Israel, rather than the terrorist group Hamas that controls the territory and uses it to launch attacks on Israel. She even claimed that the lack of progress in the peace process – Israel’s fault, naturally – was strengthening Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. She offered no criticism of the Palestinians.
Clinton today is attempting to recast herself as a more sensitive and evenhanded figure on these matters. She would have us believe that her role in the administration's campaign of criticism, pressure, and crisis-creation against Israel was one of reluctant participant, a loyal official carrying out her duties despite having tried to dissuade the president from a mistaken policy.

It is very difficult, looking at her record during this period, to conclude that the presentation of her role in her book is accurate. There is a simple and likely explanation for this revisionist history: She knows that her prominent role in the past five years of acrimony between the Obama administration and Israel is unhelpful to her presidential ambitions, and so she is attempting to distance herself from the administration's record by downgrading her involvement in its Israel policy. There is too much evidence to the contrary for her to get away with it.

Video at the page link:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/...el_794511.html