“I’m with you, not my president,” House Leader Eric Cantor told Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu

Republican Cantor recants on Israel

Incoming House Majority Leader tries to explain why he pledged allegiance to Israel’s leader over the US President.

Soon-to-be House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is desperately trying to explain away the promise he made to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last Wednesday.

Cantor huddled with Netanyahu just prior to the Prime Minister’s meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Clinton was expected to reaffirm the American commitment to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and opposition to Israeli settlement expansion.

Cantor wanted Netanyahu to know that he had his back.

Cantor’s office itself put out a statement bragging about his pledge to Netanyahu: “Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington,” the readout said.

“He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.”

For now, forget Cantor’s ridiculous assertion that the security of Israel and the United States are “reliant upon the other.”

No, the United States provides Israel with the security assistance to survive - it is not the other way around.

But lay that aside. It is Cantor’s statement of loyalty to Netanyahu that is the shocker. Specifically, it is his promise that he would ensure that Republicans in the US House of Representatives “will serve as a check” on US Middle East policy.

Almost immediately, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s bureau chief in Washington, Ron Kampeas, declared that Cantor’s statement was “extraordinary”.

He wrote that he could not “remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the President.”

Kampeas was clearly shocked, but he was understating the enormity of Cantor’s offense.

Cantor’s pledge of allegiance to a foreign leader would be remarkable, and deeply offensive, even if the foreign country in question were Canada or the United Kingdom, our two closest allies with whom we have few policy differences.

The United States has major policy differences with Israel, and has had them for decades, most notably over settlements, the occupied West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, etc.

Israel is also the largest recipient of US foreign aid in the world, which means that the President of the United States has every right to express those differences firmly and clearly.

On the other hand, no American official – by any stretch of the imagination – has the right to tell the government of Israel, or any foreign government, that he stands with the foreign leader against his own president.

It is one thing to oppose particular US policies; it is quite another to tell a foreign leader, “I’m with you, not my president.” Of course, Cantor was just being honest.

Although he does oppose virtually all of President Obama’s policies – he’s a Republican and that is what Republicans do - he supports 100 per cent of Israel’s policies.

And although an extreme partisan domestically, when it comes to Israel, he supports whichever government is in power.

He believes in the right to criticise this government, just not that one.

Cantor’s mistake was not telling Prime Minister Netanyahu what everyone knows is true anyway, but telling the world what he said.

This is the classic Washington definition of a gaffe (i.e., inadvertently speaking an inconvenient truth).

In this case, the gaffe produced a firestorm.

And this is where I consider the possibility that Cantor simply doesn’t understand what he’s doing.

After all, he has been an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) cutout since he first was elected to office.

He’s been to more AIPAC meetings than he can probably count.

And he should have figured out by now that the lobby is extremely careful, obsessively careful, to always empathise loyalty to the United States while simultaneously endorsing Israeli policies that undermine our foreign policy objectives.

AIPAC officials never, ever, say that when push comes to shove their loyalty is with Israel not the United States. In fact, the accusation that this is the case is the charge AIPAC hates most.

But the soon-to-be Majority Leader came right out and said it: Israel, right or wrong.

It took a few days for Cantor to understand how utterly offensive his statement was. He might have heard from a few Tea Party types who, say what you will about them, tend to take their patriotism seriously.

So Cantor explained that he was misunderstood. His inconvenient truth, his gaffe, was replaced by a laughable untruth.

This is how the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reports it:

Brad Dayspring, Cantor’s press guy, tells me Cantor’s promise that the Republican majority would “serve as a check on the administration” was “not in relation to US/Israel relations.”

Mmmm. So Cantor’s pledge to stand with Netanyahu against Obama was “not in relation to US/Israel relations” despite the context of Cantor’s statement – just before Netanyahu’s meeting with Clinton – and the fact that the person he was talking to was the Prime Minister of Israel.

So, what was Cantor’s pledge “in relation to”?

Was it in relation to either repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” or the Bush tax cuts for millionaires? Maybe it was about farm subsidies.

Come on, Eric. Don’t make us laugh.

It is eminently clear what you said and what you meant.  And this time we will take you at your word.

\\AL JAZEERA

 

German Rail Under Fire for Controversial Israeli Project

Peace activists have strongly criticized a planned high-speed rail line in Israel that will cut through the West Bank and deprive Palestinian communities of land. A subsidiary of Germany’s national rail operator apparently helped plan the line, and critics claim they must have known about the controversial route.

Germany’s state-owned national rail operator Deutsche Bahn is a world leader in railway technology, and other countries often call on German expertise when planning their networks. But the involvement of a Deutsche Bahn subsidiary in a controversial planned high-speed line in Israel, which cuts through the occupied West Bank, could prove embarrassing for the company.

The high-speed rail link is set to connect Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, reducing travel time between the two cities to just 28 minutes. The planned route would solve one of the country’s biggest transport problems: The current stretch takes 90 minutes and is little used, while highways between the cities often experience massive traffic problems.

Two sections of the line, totalling 6 kilometers (3.75 miles) in length, pass through the West Bank. Much of that stretch will run through tunnels, but Israeli peace activists argue that the route violates international law as Israel will be taking Palestinian land for tunnel portals and access roads.

“By crossing the … border into the West Bank, the … train line is unlawful and unethical,” argues the Coalition of Women for Peace, a group of Israeli feminist peace organizations which has compiled a report on the project. The coalition argues that international law states that an occupier may not use occupied resources solely for the benefit of its own citizens. “This line was planned for the exclusive use of Israeli citizens; it is imposed on the local Palestinian residents by the dictates of a military regime, in which they have no representation; and it would be completely inaccessible to the local residents,” the report argues.

Deutsche Bahn Subsidiary Provided Support

The coalition has called on the European companies that have been involved in the planning and construction of the route — including Deutsche Bahn subsidiary DB International (DBI) — to pull out of the project.

DBI denies involvement in planning the high-speed route, however. DBI spokesman Bernd Weiler told SPIEGEL that the company could not rule out the possibility that German expertise might be used for all of Israel’s rail lines — including the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem route — as DBI had provided general consulting services for Israel Railways, the state-owned national rail company.

A report that has been seen by SPIEGEL provides evidence of concrete support from DBI for the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem route, however. DBI’s predecessor, DE-Consult, prepared several studies for the project on behalf of Israel Railways, including a travel-time comparison of the route through the West Bank with the stretch that was originally proposed, which kept to Israeli territory. The report’s conclusion was that, in terms of travel time, the alternative route through the West Bank was just as suitable as the original plan.

“They had the complete maps in order to make these calculations,” Dalit Baum of the Coalition of Women for Peace told SPIEGEL. “It is impossible that DBI does not know that the route runs through occupied territory.” DBI was also involved in the electrification of the line, Baum said. The Austrian company Alpine Bau, which had been contracted to do the tunneling, had chosen to back out of the project before construction started, according to the organization’s report.

Fears of Losing Land

Residents of the Palestinian villages of Beit Surik and Beit Iksa in the West Bank are particularly concerned about the project. The route runs close to their communities, and locals fear that their fields will be destroyed due to the construction of bridges and tunnels. They also speculate that Israel might later deny them access to the area for security reasons. “The 6 kilometers of the railway route which fall outside the official Israeli state borders are creating devastating effects on the … Palestinian communities in the area,” writes the Coalition of Women for Peace.

Beit Surik has already lost 30 percent of its land through the construction of the Israeli security barrier in the West Bank, which is partially built on Palestinian territory, while Beit Iksa has lost 60 percent of its land as a result. The communities will not, however, benefit from the new train line, as no stations are planned in their villages. The planned train line passes along the Israeli side of the security barrier.

The initial version of the plans foresaw the route passing closer to the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion, which would have meant the line staying well within Israeli territory. Local residents protested against the plans, however, claiming that the train line would have blighted their views and brought down property prices. “It was easier for the planners to move the railway line than to negotiate a compromise with the Israeli citizens,” says Baum.

‘Cynical Ploy’

The route looks set to become another bone of contention between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority will “resort to all legal and possible diplomatic methods to try to end this violation of Palestinian rights,” spokesman Ghassan Khatib recently told the Associated Press. He urged foreign companies to pull out of the project.

The Israeli government insists that the route will in the future also benefit Palestinians, saying that planning has begun on an extension that would connect the West Bank city of Ramallah with the Gaza Strip. The Coalition of Women for Peace describes that argument as a “cynical ploy” to justify the project.

\\DER SPIEGEL

Study: Few Afghans know about 9/11, reason for war

92% of 1000 afghan men interviewed in Helmund and Kanhdahar provinces unaware of 9/11 according to UN study

KABUL – Afghans in two crucial southern provinces are almost completely unaware of the September 11 attacks on the United States and don’t know they precipitated the foreign intervention now in its 10th year, a new report showed on Friday.

NATO leaders gathered in Lisbon for a summit on Friday where the transition from foreign forces — now at about 150,000 — to Afghan security responsibility will be at the top of the agenda, with leaders to discuss a 2014 target date set by Kabul.

Few Afghans in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, Taliban strongholds where fighting remains fiercest, know why foreign troops are in Afghanistan, says the “Afghanistan Transition: Missing Variables” report to be released later on Friday.

The report by The International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) policy think-tank showed 92 percent of 1,000 Afghan men surveyed in Helmand and Kandahar know nothing of the hijacked airliner attacks on U.S. targets in 2001.

“The lack of awareness of why we are there contributes to the high levels of negativity toward the NATO military operations and made the job of the Taliban easier,” ICOS President Norine MacDonald told Reuters from Washington.

“We need to explain to the Afghan people why we are here, and both convince them and show them that their future is better with us than the Taliban,” MacDonald said.

The report said there was a continued “relationship gap” between Afghans and the international community, describing the lack of understanding as “dramatic.”

U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Islamist Taliban government in late 2001 for sheltering al-Qaida leaders who plotted the 9/11 attacks that killed about 3,000 people.

The war has now dragged into its 10th year and violence is at its worst, despite a record number of foreign troops, with military and civilian casualties at their highest levels.

Exit timetable
Attention is now focused on an exit timetable. U.S. President Barack Obama, who will review his Afghanistan war strategy next month, wants to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from July 2011.

European NATO leaders, under pressure at home to justify their continued commitment to an increasingly unpopular war, are following a similar timetable. Some are withdrawing troops and others are looking to move from combat to training roles.

While Afghan President Hamid Karzai has set a target of 2014, NATO’s civilian representative in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill, said this week “eye-watering levels of violence by Western standards” might mean the transition spills into 2015.

That throws the emphasis back on the Afghan government — widely seen as so corrupt and inept that it is unable to support itself — and the readiness of Afghan forces to take over.

\\REUTERS

The Man Who Killed The Economy

Ireland’s economic troubles threaten the financial health of Europe and even the U.S. At the heart of the multibillion-dollar crisis are two highflying bankers who some say took the country for a ride.

Ireland was hailed as an economic miracle not so long ago. Now, it’s an economic basket-case that threatens the financial health not just of Europe but of the U.S. as well.

But the outsize role of two men in this financial meltdown is a little-known story offering a salutary lesson about the dangers of greed, groupthink, and lax regulation as anything that has taken place on this side of the Atlantic.

Sean FitzPatrick was the CEO of Anglo Irish Bank from 1986 to 2005. At that point, he assumed the chairmanship, and David Drumm, his protégé, became the bank’s leader.

The two men built the bank from a tiny operation—it had eight employees when FitzPatrick took over—to something that looked like an international powerhouse. Looks were deceptive. The bank would be its nation’s downfall.

During the boom years, Anglo expanded its market share by reckless lending, especially to property developers. More established, conservative Irish banks began to ape some of the same tactics to ward off the new contender. Then, the property bubble popped and the whole house of cards tumbled.

The Irish government took control of Anglo in January 2009. It has been hurling taxpayers’ money into an apparently bottomless pit ever since. Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan originally estimated the cost of propping up the bank at $6.1 billion. He admitted two months ago that it would actually be between $39.8 billion and $46.7 billion.

The price tag has propelled Ireland’s deficit to hitherto unimaginable levels—and this, in turn, now necessitates international intervention.

“The banks are gobbling up the state,” is the verdict of Martina Devlin, an Irish newspaper columnist and the co-author of Banksters, a 2009 book tracing the roots of the collapse.

“He is just considered a scumbag… I would think his life would be in serious danger if he came back here.”

Brian Lucey, a Trinity College, Dublin finance professor, says that the feeling on the streets of the Irish capital is that “the republic has been raped, torn apart” by the bankers and their political friends.

At the heart of the rapaciousness, at least in the public mind, are FitzPatrick and Drumm.

FitzPatrick was once one of the heroes of Celtic Tiger Ireland. An ebullient former accountant with a fondness for bowties, he was known as “Seanie Fitz” to his many social acquaintances. For those on the way up, FitzPatrick was someone to whom it was useful to pay obeisance.

Devlin recalls seeing the banker’s aura in full effect at a 2007 charity function.

“It really was like the parting of the Red Sea,” she tells The Daily Beast. “People actually did step aside for him.”

FitzPatrick knew some things that the general public did not—notably, that he held personal loans amounting to well over $110 million from the bank. He used the money to finance a host of exotic ventures: a share in a Nigerian oil well; an interest in a casino in Macau; a property investment in Budapest. There were even plans to get into the movie-financing business.

The eventual discovery of these loans precipitated FitzPatrick’s departure from the company in December 2008. David Drumm followed him out the door the next day.

Prior to becoming CEO, Drumm had made his name at Anglo by expanding its U.S. business. Drumm did not share FitzPatrick’s taste for the limelight but he was just as aggressive about growing the business.

The attitude was apparently widespread at Anglo. During a court case in April, an Irish property developer, Michael Daly, described how the company was “extremely anxious” to lend him money during the boom years, in the process allegedly dismissing the need to secure large loans as “a formality.”

The duo’s downfall has had its share of drama. Irish police arrested FitzPatrick in March this year, though he was released without charge soon afterward. In July, a Dublin court took 12 minutes to declare him bankrupt. Around $95 million of the loans he took from the bank have never been repaid. (Calls and emails to a lawyer identified in previous media reports as representing FitzPatrick were not returned.)

Drumm has embarked on a more circuitous path. Anglo says that it is owed around $11.5 million by him. When negotiations over a settlement broke down in Ireland, he filed for bankruptcy in Massachusetts, a move widely seen as an attempt to frustrate the bank.

Drumm has considerable assets in the area, though at least one residence in Wellesley, a tony Boston suburb, is owned by a trust, thus shielding it from repossession. He also owns a home in Chatham on Cape Cod, which is valued at around $3 million.

Drumm’s pushback against the bank received a boost this week, when a court-appointed official in charge of overseeing the bankruptcy process claimed that Anglo acted fraudulently in its dealings with him. Still, many Irish people look askance at Drumm’s efforts, which include an attempt to countersue Anglo for causing him mental distress.

“It shows an extraordinarily brass neck,” says Martina Devlin.

The imminent international bailout, meanwhile, is a source of real desolation to the citizens of a nation that, not so long ago, seemed to have finally transcended its impoverished history.

Killian Forde, a Dublin city councilman and a member of the opposition Labor Party, described the scene in one quintessential Irish setting on Wednesday evening.

“I went to the pub and there were only about 10 or 15 people there, because people don’t have the money to go to the pub anymore,” he said. “But the ones who were there were hopping mad. And behind the anger, there was just this sense of failure—total and utter failure. People kept saying: ‘This is pathetic.’”

Forde is among those who note that every scintilla of blame cannot be put on FitzPatrick and Drumm. He says that the banking crisis has shined a light upon “just how small Ireland is, and how interconnected the bankers are with the politicians.”

Brian Lucey, the Trinity College professor, also wonders if part of the anger directed at FitzPatrick is rooted in a kind of national self-disgust about the way avarice took hold in the boom years.

“When we hold a mirror up to ourselves, we see Sean FitzPatrick’s face looking back,” he says.

Still, there is no mistaking the depth of public rage. In May, an effigy of FitzPatrick was burned on the streets of Dublin. Forde says he believes that David Drumm is now held in even greater opprobrium—if such a thing is possible—because of his departure to the U.S.

“He is just considered a scumbag,” he says. “I would think his life would be in serious danger if he came back here.”

In 2007, Sean FitzPatrick, then seen as a leading captain of industry, complained publicly about governmental interference and “McCarthyism.”

“The tide of regulation has gone far enough,” he protested. “Our wealth creators should be rewarded and admired, not subjected to levels of scrutiny which convicted criminals would rightly find intrusive.”

In Ireland, as in the U.S., the debate about who the real criminals are may be only just beginning.

Niall Stanage is a New York-based, Irish-born journalist and the author of Redemption Song: An Irish Reporter Inside the Obama Campaign (Liberties Press, Dublin).

\\DAILY BEAST