Koch brothers give a megaphone to Anti-Israel fringe

[ericson00]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-declassified-koch-3817ffdc-1d01-11e6-82c2-a7dcb313287d-20160518-story.html

On Wednesday, the Charles Koch Institute, a think tank funded by one of the conservative movement's most generous donors, will host a conference featuring some of the academy's most virulent foes of Israel.

Charles and David Koch, scions of the Koch Industries fortune, have always leaned libertarian in their political giving and nonprofit work. The two brothers have supported criminal-justice reform and other free-market initiatives in education and labor. In foreign policy, the Kochs have stayed away from the uglier fringes that blame Israel and its supporters for hijacking U.S. foreign policy. That is, until now.

The institute's conference scheduled for Wednesday will feature separate panels with Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, co-authors of the 2006 book "The Israel Lobby."

While Walt and Mearsheimer are hardly household names, they are known in U.S. policy circles. Their book prompted Abe Foxman, who was then national director of the Anti-Defamation League, to write a response, "The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control."

[ericson00]

1. great company you Israel-haters have

Bernie Sanders, Pat Buchanan, Koch Brothers, etc.

[King_David]

2. From both sides

Extreme left /BDS anti Gay anti Women anti Jew and extreme right David Duke / BDS meet at Israel .

[shira]

6. Horseshoe theory...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

The horseshoe theory in political science asserts that rather than the far left and the far right being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear political continuum, they in fact closely resemble one another, much like the ends of a horseshoe. The theory is attributed to French writer Jean-Pierre Faye.[1]

[Little Tich]

3. Neocon-Bashers Headline Koch Event as Political Realignment on Foreign Policy Continues

Source: The Intercept, May 19 2016

IN THE LATEST example of how foreign policy no longer neatly aligns with party politics, the Charles Koch Institute — the think tank founded and funded by energy billionaire Charles Koch — hosted an all-day event Wednesday featuring a set of speakers you would be more likely to associate with a left-wing anti-war rally than a gathering hosted by a longtime right-wing institution.

At the event, titled “Advancing American Security: The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy,” prominent realist and liberal foreign policy scholars took turns trashing the neoconservative worldview that has dominated the foreign policy thinking of the Republican Party — which the Koch brothers have been allied with for decades.

Most of the speakers assailed the Iraq War, nation building, and regime change. During a panel event also featuring former Obama Pentagon official Kathleen Hicks, foreign policy scholar John Mearsheimer brought the crowd to applause by denouncing American military overreach.

“We need to pull back, stop fighting all these wars. Stop defending rich people who are fully capable of defending themselves, and instead spend the money at home. Period. End of story!” he said, in remarks that began with a denunciation of the dilapidated state of the Washington Metrorail system.

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Mearshiemer, Walt, and Freeman are particularly despised by neocons, and not simply for their starkly different policy prescriptions. Walt and Mearsheimer’s 2006 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy was critical of the U.S.-Israel relationship, arguing that it was overly influenced by domestic interest groups. Freeman’s nomination to an intelligence post in the Obama White House was derailed by behind-the-scenes accusations that he wasn’t sufficiently pro-Israel.

Bloomberg View columnist Eli Lake, a hawkish supporter of Israeli government policies, expressed horror at their appearance on institute panels in a column on Wednesday, writing that “the Kochs have stayed away from the uglier fringes that blame Israel and its supporters for hijacking U.S. foreign policy. That is, until now.”

Read more: https://theintercept.com/2016/05/18/neocon-bashers-headline-koch-event-as-political-realignment-on-foreign-policy-continues/

I'm not a conservative Republican, nor am I a Chicago Tribune reader, but the OP is a good reminder why I keep staying away from Republicans and their reality-averse thinking.

[bemildred]

4. I'm glad you guys finally noticed this. nt

[shira]

5. The Alt Right can suck it, along with their neo-nazi white supremacist friends. n/t