Massachusetts Candidates Differ Only Slightly on MidEast

By Karin Friedemann, TMO

While President Barack Obama and former Governor Mitt Romney have dominated presidential election coverage, the Massachusetts Senate race may be the second-most important race in the country. The Senate elections are crucial for President Obama. A return of a Democratic majority may unite the divided government he has had to work with the past two years.

Harvard Law School professor and consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren has prided herself on going after Wall Street banks and being “for the people.” The Democratic candidate, who enjoys a slight lead over Republican Scott Brown, made a splash in the most recent televised debate when she said, “I want to be blunt; we should not be fighting about equal pay for equal work and access to birth control in 2012.”

When it comes to Israel, one could hope that Brown’s Republican values of lower taxation and less government spending – or Warren’s 99% values – would end our forced taxation by Israel. Sadly, not only do both candidates support Israel unconditionally, but they maintain a racist position encouraging and sponsoring the violent policing of non-Jews in the region.

Brown brags that he supported the Senate’s resolution which “reiterated Israel’s right to defend itself during Operation Cast Lead.” He writes, “I also firmly support the security barrier erected by Israel.” Brown states:

“I unequivocally support the recently executed ten-year memorandum of understanding between the US and Israel which will provide $30 billion in military aid to Israel until 2017. Since the vast majority of that aid is spent on American products, it is good for both American employment and the American economy.”

Aren’t Republicans supposed to support free enterprise? Using taxpayer money to support specific businesses, most likely Jewish or Zionist-owned corporations like Starbucks and Home Depot to supply Israeli settlements and cities would certainly not help the average American small business owner.

Warren is less clear on exactly how much of American taxpayers’ money she is willing to fork over to Israel but makes it clear that she will be spending US money to protect apartheid in the Holy Land: “To me, it is a moral imperative to support and defend Israel, and I am committed to ensuring its long-term security by maintaining its qualitative military edge. Israel must be able to defend itself from the serious threats it faces from terrorist organizations to hostile states, including Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others…”

Warren claims that Massachusetts benefits from high tech businesses owned by dual citizen Israelis. “There are approximately 100 companies in Massachusetts with Israeli founders or based on Israeli technologies – creating $2.4 billion in value and thousands of jobs for our economy.” However, Israeli companies, indirectly subsidized by US taxpayers, suck money away from the very working class citizen base that Warren appeals to. American high tech companies, which are not Jewish-owned, have a harder time competing for contracts when the US government practices such favoritism.

Scott Brown’s foreign policy statement relies heavily on racist soundbites obviously borrowed from some unnamed “Talking Points Memo,” even maligning the Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes. Elizabeth Warren phrases her own foreign policy statement in a more pleasantly ambiguous way but clearly accepts behavior that is violently racist in favor of Jews against Arabs and Muslims, and appears to draw from the same “Talking Points Memo.”

For example, regarding Palestine, Brown emphasizes that his support for a two-state solution for peace is “premised on security for Israel and is not imposed by outside parties,” while Warren clarifies, “I do not believe that a lasting peace can be imposed from the outside.” What does this mean, other than that Israel’s decision to stop committing genocide against Palestinians must be purely voluntary? That the US has an obligation to arm Israel but no other country or group may arm Palestine? Both candidates clearly view Israel’s security as more important than the security of the United States by keeping us involved in this conflict.

Warren openly opposes the Palestinians’ application for UN membership. She claims to believe in a two-state solution but opposes the recognition of Palestine as a country. How can two countries negotiate when only one country is recognized as a country? This is one of many bizarre mental cliff leaps Warren’s political position takes. Brown’s logic also ventures into bizarro-land as he sloppily copies “Israel’s unconditional right to live in peace is equal to that of all other nations of the world” from the same “Talking Points Memo” – as if any other nation on earth enjoyed any “unconditional right to live in peace!” The racist tyrade continues as Brown reiterates the age old anti-Palestinian canard that there are no leaders to negotiate peace with:

“I stand with Israel and the majority of leaders in support of a two-sate solution… However, with the Palestinian leadership now divided by a terrorist entity (Hamas) and the Palestinian authority, we do not yet have the fundamental requirements in place to begin negotiations… Until there is a non-terrorist entity on the other side of the table, negotiations cannot start.”

Both Brown and Warren also oppose the non-existent Iranian nuclear bomb threat. Warren supports economic sanctions against Iran: “Like the President, I believe that the careless talk of rushing to war is unhelpful, and, like the President, I believe the United States must take the necessary steps to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.” When a blogger recently mentioned to her that Iran is not even working on a nuclear weapon according to US official sources, Warren answered that she would have to “look into it.” Warren’s ignorance and arrogance against Iran seems almost palatable compared to the nearly psychotic ranting on Brown’s website:

“Iran, the brutal theocracy run by a cabal of mullahs and President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, represents an existential threat to Israel and a menace to United States interests. With visions of regional domination and international troublemaking, Ahmedinejad has stated with great clarity that the Holocaust did not occur and that Israel should be ‘wiped off the map.’”

Not only does Scott support divestment from Iran but he would make it illegal to do business with any country that does business with Iran. He continues: “I also would work to restore funding for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC ) which was recently cut by the Obama administration and support continued intelligence sharing by the Mossad and the CIA.”

Regarding both Massachusetts Senatorial candidates, it would seem that they are largely struggling over who can agree with the same positions more forcefully, except that Warren prefers to starve Iranians rather than kill them with bombs, and that Scott seems to enjoy personal ties with the Mossad.

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