Clinton says she opposes boycott effort against Israel

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By KEN THOMAS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton says in a letter to American Jewish organizations that she opposes a grassroots protest movement promoting boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel over policies involving the Palestinian territories.

Clinton said in the letter released Monday that she agreed on the need to make countering the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement, or BDS movement, a priority. The July 2 letter sought advice on how to "fight back against further attempts to isolate and delegitimize Israel."

"As you know, BDS seeks to punish Israel and dictate how the Israelis and Palestinians should resolve the core issues of their conflict. That is not the path to peace," Clinton wrote.

The BDS movement has gained strength on U.S. college campuses and in Europe. The Israeli government and many Jewish leaders have called the movement anti-Semitic and an attempt to discredit Israel. BDS advocates say it is based on the campaign against South African apartheid and is aimed at Israeli policy, not Jews, following two decades of failed peace talks and expanded Israeli settlement of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

FULL story at link.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/64185eef83064b70a65c4814b2363c78/clinton-says-she-opposes-boycott-effort-against-israel

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. I'd be surprised if any of the candidates is actually pro-BDS.

It doesn't seem to be popular at all with American politicians.

[PoliticAverse]

2. Not the ones that want to actually get elected, anyway. n/t

[starroute]

15. But have any others said that countering it is a priority for them?

Or claimed that it's attempting to "dictate how the Israelis and Palestinians should resolve the core issues of their conflict."

Sure, the Palestinians have their demands, which the Israelis are unlikely ever to meet in full. But as BDS has become more widely popular, it's largely turned into an effort to just get the Israelis to negotiate honestly and stop the land grabs and other tactics designed to make a Palestinian state impossible.

And though I wouldn't expect any US candidate to support that outright, they might be advised not to treat it as a threat to be crushed.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-losing-democrats-cant-claim-bipartisan-us-support-top-pollster-warns/

Three quarters of highly educated, high income, publicly active US Democrats — the so-called “opinion elites” — believe Israel has too much influence on US foreign policy, almost half of them consider Israel to be a racist country, and fewer than half of them believe that Israel wants peace with its neighbors. These are among the findings of a new survey carried out by US political consultant Frank Luntz.

Detailing the survey results to The Times of Israel on Sunday, Luntz called the findings “a disaster” for Israel. He summed them up by saying that the Democratic opinion elites are converting to the Palestinians, and “Israel can no longer claim to have the bipartisan support of America.”

He said he “knew there was a shift” in attitudes to Israel among US Democrats “and I have been seeing it get worse” in his ongoing polls. But the new findings surprised and shocked him, nonetheless. “I didn’t expect it to become this blatant and this deep.”

A prominent US political consultant known best for his work with Republicans, Luntz is meeting with a series of high-level Israeli officials this week to discuss the survey and consult on how to grapple with the trends it exposes.

[onenote]

16. So now we're citing Frank Luntz, Repub pollster and winner of the lie of the year award in 2010?

WTF has happened to DU?

[starroute]

21. If Luntz is telling the Israelis they're losing the Democratic Party ...

...that's worthy of note. Any time a GOP pollster acts as the bearer of bad news for his fellow conservatives, it has to be taken seriously.

[onenote]

22. Luntz is trying to sow discord amongst Democrats.

and if you can't see that you don't know squat about Luntz.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

23. He does in general, yes.

But in this case, his audience was RW Israelis, and he was telling them what the numbers are with American Dems, and how to 'message' to regain lost ground with American Dems. The article is actually worth reading as 'oppo research' as it were, so we know when they're simply being disingenuous and using 'Luntzian talking points'.

The “words that work best” among Republicans, he said, are those along the lines of, “Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East, and attempts to destroy the country economically and politically could do direct harm to the United States.” By contrast, the “words that work best” among Democrats are those to the effect that, “We should be encouraging more communication and cooperation, not less. We should be encouraging more diplomacy and discussion, not less.”

So when you hear Israeli leaders talking about 'encouraging more communication' and 'more diplomacy and discussion', you know they're simply talking BS provided to them by Luntz.

[onenote]

26. In this case, his audience was rank and file Democrats, particularly US Jews.

Don't be fooled.

His goal is to convey the message that "Democratic elites" don't like or support Israel and, thus, rank and file Democrats that support Israel, and particularly Jews that support israel, should be shifting their support from the Democratic party to the Republicans.

It is interesting to note that none of the articles reporting this "poll" provide any description of the methodology and underlying data. Just exactly who are these "Democratic elites," how did Luntz identify them? The absence of such information, particularly given the source, should send any objective observer's BS meter off the charts.

Sorry, but you are, presumably unintentionally, furthering Luntz' pro-Republican agenda (the only agenda he cares about).

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

27. Yeah, because rank and file Democrats always read the Times of Israel.

Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

[onenote]

30. Yeah, because this is the Times of Israel

You can't seriously think that Luntz didn't know and intend for reports of his study to be widely circulated, via the Internet and otherwise, beyond the readership of the Times of Israel. No one could be that naieve.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

31. The vast majority of rank and file Democrats still haven't heard of BDS, and the last thing

Luntz wants is for them to hear about it and thus create far more people who support it.

So yeah, you're still spinning paranoid fantasies about super-Luntz and his Machiavellian machinations.

[candelista]

3. Of course she does.

Her whole strategy is to not offend anyone.

[HFRN]

4. i wonder how she arrived at that

http://www1.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Clinton+Obama+Address+AIPAC+Annual+Policy+3D6jneZdcY7l.jpg

[mpcamb]

20. Pander, Hillary, pander.

It's pathetic.

[BillZBubb]

5. That seals it for me. I'm not voting for Clinton in the primary.

This smells of neocon policy.

Maybe she can tell us what exactly is the path to peace? Israel isn't going to budge unless a lot of external pressure is brought to bear. BDS is the only way to do that at present.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

8. Bernie supports Israel as well...

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/sanders-leftwing-economic

[still_one]

10. Bernie has always been supportive of Israel. He is not crazy about Netenyahu, believes in a 2 state

solution, prefers Labor over Likud, and believes in supporting Israel

[hack89]

12. Do you think he supports BDS? Nt

[still_one]

13. I don't. I do believe that he would want to exert more pressure to bring all parties to the

negotiating table, but I cannot see him being for the boycott.

I also think in regard to Israel, all the Democratic candidates' position is pretty similar

[still_one]

9. Obviously you don't know Bernie's policy on Israel do you?

[BillZBubb]

19. Nope, not on BDS.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

24. You might want to read the article in reply 15.

It offers some surprising numbers on American feelings towards BDS, and shows that despite the growing power of BDS, it's still mostly unknown to Americans, so has a lot of room to grow. It also lets you enjoy a bit of Frank Luntz' discomfort with his findings.

[First Speaker]

6. Her campaign would be over had she said anything else, so I don't exactly begrudge her this...

[betterdemsonly]

7. MLK boycotted Southern institutions. Gandhi boycotted the British Empire.

Look, apologist for Israel used to criticize Palestinians for using terror instead of imitating MLK, and Gandhi then when they do that, they claim the tacitics of MLK and Gandhi are the same as terrorism.

I call hypocricy on Clinton. Frankly I am deeply skeptical that centrists like her would really have supported MLK and Gandhi. Separate but Equal might be viewed as a centrist policy. Segregationists could have openly advocated for just being Separate.

[Comrade Grumpy]

14. Not a surprise. n/t

[blackspade]

17. Clinton again sides with the power brokers over people.

[Freddie Stubbs]

25. Israel has a population of over 8 million 'people'

[blackspade]

28. And?

What are you saying? That some people are more entitled to freedom and autonomy than others?
Divestment is a winning strategy to change government behavior.

[jalan48]

18. At least she didn't support Netanyahu speaking to Congress.

[tularetom]

29. Didn't she? I don't remember her commenting on it

I was hoping she'd be asked, just to watch her squirm, but I never heard about it.