Given all the prominent Democratic leaders who have endorsed Andrew Cuomo despite multiple credible charges of sexual harassment, you have to wonder if they were actually bothered by what Trump has done.
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Just completed this one-hour interview on the Santita Jackson Show on the Israel, Iran, and the United States:
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Despite being funded by the Qatari government, Al-Jazeera is given editorial independence, much like the BBC and PBS. It provides the best coverage of the Middle East of any media outlet I'm aware of. (I regularly appear as a guest analyst.) According to their Minister of National Security, Israel is now ready to imprison anybody who dares to watch it. Meanwhile, U.S. politicians of both parties insist that we must support Israel because it's supposedly a democracy.
Itamar Ben-Gvir:
“We will not allow Al Jazeera to broadcast from Israel. I call upon everyone who watches Al Jazeera, all citizens, to be reported to the police. Shabak [Israel’s internal security service] is dealing with this matter. Al Jazeera poses a threat to state security.”
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I was on Al Jazeera English last night with an Israeli analyst, who shared my strong opposition to Trump's bombing and my worry about how it might lead to a wider war. He also noted (and I agree) that even though this was 100% the decision of Trump and his non-Jewish national security team, Israel--and (for some people) by extension Jews as a whole--will be blamed, following the pattern of antisemitic scapegoating for wars gone wrong, from the Dreyfus Affair to Iraq.
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Unlike the Bush administration and its allies in the media, who put great effort into convincing Americans to support the war on Iraq, Trump has put little effort into convincing Americans to support war on Iran. I guess the U.S. has become so deindustrialized they can't even manufacture consent anymore.
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Some Democrats, such as Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, are speaking out:
Chis Murphy on X:
“I was briefed on the intelligence last week.
“Iran posed no imminent threat of attack to the United States. Iran was not close to building a deliverable nuclear weapon. The negotiations Israel scuttled with their strikes held the potential for success.”
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Given how most Congressional Democrats had no problem with Netanyahu's criminal warmaking, I supposed it's not surprising that Trump thought he could get away with it as well.
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Let's remember that Trump was never really antiwar, he just opposed other people’s wars. He has always believed in war making to advance U.S. hegemony. And, while other presidents at least pretended to care about international law, Trump clearly does not.
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My thoughts on possible Iranian targets for retaliation are included in this analysis.
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