March 25, 2015
Hillary Clinton
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As you”ll recall, in 2008 there was angst among Zionist Democrat contributors like Saban about the election of Barack Obama, who grew up with remarkably many Muslim relatives and friends and surprisingly few Jewish acquaintances. But two days after the election, Saban’s worries began to ease when Obama appointed as his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who had volunteered during the Gulf War at an Israeli military base. Rahm’s father, a former member of the Israeli terrorist organization Irgun, explained to the Jerusalem Post:
“Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn”t he be? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floors of the White House.”
In 2011, a grateful Saban donated $400,000 to Rahm’s successful 2011 run to be mayor of Chicago, $300,000 more than the allowed maximum.
Later in November 2008, Hillary was named Secretary of State and Larry Summers became prime economic adviser, reassuring many of the Democrats” biggest donors that there wouldn”t be too much funny business from the untested ex-Muslim.
Saban, the billionaire responsible for unleashing the Mighty Annoyin” Power Rangers on America, puts on an annual gala at the Beverly Hilton hotel to raise money for the Israeli armed forces. Last November’s “Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces“ fundraiser brought in $34 million. The Hollywood Reporter itemized the big givers:
Notable donations made at the event included $10 million from Larry Ellison, co-founder and chairman of Oracle; $5 million from top Republican fundraisers Sheldon and Miriam Adelson (who received a standing ovation from the liberal Westside crowd); $5.2 million from brothers Maurice and Paul Marciano of Guess Jeans; $3.6 million from Saban and wife Cheryl; … In addition, first-time attendees and donors Michael and Susan Dell gave $1.8 million…
These mega-donors are not young. When the anti-Israel student government leaders at UCLA look down Wilshire Boulevard to the Beverly Hilton, they see stale pale males. Newcomer computer tycoon Dell is the youngest on the list above at age fifty.
On the other hand, Dell has $22 billion and the BDS punks at UCLA don”t.
And Jews tend to get more ethnocentric as they age. As Elliott Abrams, whose son is a Reform rabbi, told the Times:
“Fifty-year-olds are always more supportive than 18-year-olds,” he said. “And so give them 30 years, and they will be more supportive. I don”t see any long-term erosion of support.”
For example, Ellison, who has $56 billion (making him America’s third richest man and the world’s richest Jewish man), has always cultivated an image of self-indulgent worldly hedonism. (Heck, Larry’s half-Italian racially, although he’s all-Jewish ethnically.) Only in recent years has Ellison become interested in Israel, not visiting it until 2007. But now he’s 70 and it’s back to blood, so he drops $10 million on Saban’s IDF fundraiser.
Although Saban is a Democrat, he recently discussed with Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson their jointly buying the New York Times from the Sulzberger family and the Arab-Mexican monopolist Carlos Slim in order to ensure that Israel gets great coverage. Average Americans have been indoctrinated to find this kind of Conspiracy Theory thinking absurd, but it’s exactly what billionaires find intriguing. That’s one reason why they”re billionaires and you”re not.
Hillary, of course, is almost as much of a wholly owned subsidiary of Saban Brands as the Power Rangers. The Israeli-American dual citizen told Variety last year that he would contribute “as much as needed” to Hillary’s 2016 campaign because “on issues I care about, she is pristine plus.”
In a poll of 800 self-identified American Jewish voters immediately after the 2014 election by the liberal J Street Jewish lobby, Hillary emerged as the one politician capable of uniting Jews for another traditional go-round with the Democrats.
With Jewish American voters, Barack Obama is less popular than Netanyahu. In the poll by the anti-Bibi J Street, 48 percent of Jews said they were favorable toward Obama and 44 percent were unfavorable, versus 53 percent who liked Netanyahu versus only 24 percent who disliked him.
Hillary, though, was the most popular political figure with a 61-31 favorable to unfavorable ratio. Among these Jewish voters, Hillary in 2016 would beat Jeb Bush 69-24 and Rand Paul 71-22.
So Hillary indeed looks like a useful stopgap solution to the Democrats” growing Jewish problem.
But post-Hillary, the Democrats might well need to run a Jewish nominee to hang on to Jewish support as Jews become ever more ethnocentric. And that would likely outrage the rising Generation BDS of Democratic politicians, as Israeli machinations in UCLA student government affairs have already done in that political testing ground.
In the long run, however, Israel has two main allies in the world: the Jewish diaspora and white conservative American gentiles. The former comprises a sizable chunk of the globe’s billionaires and media moguls, even in surprising places like Sweden, so its power should hardly be discounted.
But the latter, the masses who made Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper the top box office movie of 2014, remains crucial because they volunteer to serve as the pointy end of the spear.
Unfortunately for themselves, idealistic white American gentiles have been enthusiastic to give up their political support to Israel’s backers unconditionally. Not surprisingly, they get treated with contempt for being so sluttishly lacking in self-respect.
In the long run, however, a sustainable system of mutual reciprocity could be worked out. Logic would suggest that white gentile conservatives should instead demand of Israel’s Jewish backers that they use their media power to shift the Overton Window of respectable discourse to allow American citizens to achieve the same protections from excessive immigration that Israeli citizens enjoy.
This notion of bargaining with Zionists no doubt sounds crazy at present to Fox News-watching conservatives who don”t understand the realities of power in modern America. Nor may it make much sense yet to the Adelsons and Sabans who would prefer to continue paying cash on the barrelhead for politicians who will both back Israel and up the flow of cheap immigrant workers to clean their casinos and watch their terrible Spanish language TV.
But there’s some hardheaded sense in my proposed Grand Bargain: We”ll support Israel for you in return for you supporting Israel-like immigration policies for America.
This is a deal that can be struck.
