02-08-2019, 01:05 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-08-2019, 12:29 PM by Eric the Green.)
Tea With Assad, Hugs With Adelson: Tulsi Gabbard's Unique Views on Israel and the Middle East
An Iraq veteran who endorsed Bernie Sanders, Gabbard is hoping to win over progressive Democrats with rare views that even some right-wing evangelicals like
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.pre...-1.6831029
Gabbard has developed some surprising relationships with right-wing supporters of Israel who are affiliated with the Republican Party. Her contacts with such groups took place mostly during President Barack Obama’s time in the White House.
In 2015, she spoke at a conference of Christians United for Israel – an organization whose leader and founder, Pastor John Hagee, is a strong supporter of West Bank settlements. A spokesman for CUFI told Haaretz that while Hagee himself has 'expressed skepticism' towards the two-state solution, that does not represent the organization's official position, which is to 'never oppose Israeli efforts to advance peace.' CUFI had a leading role in fighting Obama’s policies in the Middle East; Hagee, for example, is an outspoken supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump; Hagee was invited by the Trump administration to speak at last year's ceremony marking the transfer of the US. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
In 2016, Gabbard received an award from Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a New Jersey-based rabbi with close ties to casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson (the largest donor to the Republican Party). A year before Gabbard attended Boteach’s gala dinner and received his “Champion of Freedom” Award, Boteach published full-page ads in leading U.S. newspapers in which he accused Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, of being responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. (Leading Jewish groups denounced the ads, and Boteach later apologized.)
A picture from the 2016 gala dinner, which Boteach uploaded to his Twitter account, shows him and Gabbard together with Miriam Adelson, the Israeli-born wife of Sheldon Adelson and a partner to his political donations to many GOP politicians.
The most unique – and controversial – step Gabbard has taken when it comes to the Middle East was her January 2017 trip to Syria, during which she met with President Bashar Assad, who has emerged victorious from the country’s devastating civil war. Gabbard didn’t inform her party’s congressional leadership about the meeting with Assad, which she claimed was part of an attempt to “bring peace” to Syria. She was harshly criticized by politicians from both parties for taking the meeting.
Even before her trip to Syria, Gabbard expressed non-mainstream views on Syria. In November 2015, she introduced a bipartisan bill to "end the illegal war" against Syria. “The U.S. is waging two wars in Syria. The first is the war against ISIS and other Islamic extremists, which Congress authorized after the terrorist attacks on 9/11,” she stated. The second war, she said, "is the illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad.
"The war to overthrow Assad is counter-productive because it actually helps ISIS and other Islamic extremists achieve their goal of overthrowing the Syrian government of Assad and taking control of all of Syria – which will simply increase human suffering in the region, exacerbate the refugee crisis, and pose a greater threat to the world," she continued. "Also, the war to overthrow Assad is illegal because Congress never authorized it.”
In 2016, Gabbard said, “There is no doubt that Assad is a brutal dictator, but common sense tells us that if we want to defeat ISIS and other Islamist extremist groups, we need to immediately end the illegal and counterproductive war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad.”
Note: this is the key delusion Tulsi propagates, that the USA is waging a war against Syria. The war to overthrow Assad in Syria was waged by the Syrian people. Anyone who doesn't recognize this fact, and who doesn't stand behind the Syrian people who have been so brutally attacked, is not only deluded, but stands against any ideal or value of freedom and democracy, and supports human massacre and terror instead. The Syrian people had no alternative but to fight to defend themselves. This self defense is not "illegal;" it is Assad who is illegal. To recognize the Syrian Arab Spring Revolution of 2011 is not to support an American war against Syria. There is no such war.-- Eric the Green
An Iraq veteran who endorsed Bernie Sanders, Gabbard is hoping to win over progressive Democrats with rare views that even some right-wing evangelicals like
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.pre...-1.6831029
Gabbard has developed some surprising relationships with right-wing supporters of Israel who are affiliated with the Republican Party. Her contacts with such groups took place mostly during President Barack Obama’s time in the White House.
In 2015, she spoke at a conference of Christians United for Israel – an organization whose leader and founder, Pastor John Hagee, is a strong supporter of West Bank settlements. A spokesman for CUFI told Haaretz that while Hagee himself has 'expressed skepticism' towards the two-state solution, that does not represent the organization's official position, which is to 'never oppose Israeli efforts to advance peace.' CUFI had a leading role in fighting Obama’s policies in the Middle East; Hagee, for example, is an outspoken supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump; Hagee was invited by the Trump administration to speak at last year's ceremony marking the transfer of the US. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
In 2016, Gabbard received an award from Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a New Jersey-based rabbi with close ties to casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson (the largest donor to the Republican Party). A year before Gabbard attended Boteach’s gala dinner and received his “Champion of Freedom” Award, Boteach published full-page ads in leading U.S. newspapers in which he accused Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, of being responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. (Leading Jewish groups denounced the ads, and Boteach later apologized.)
A picture from the 2016 gala dinner, which Boteach uploaded to his Twitter account, shows him and Gabbard together with Miriam Adelson, the Israeli-born wife of Sheldon Adelson and a partner to his political donations to many GOP politicians.
The most unique – and controversial – step Gabbard has taken when it comes to the Middle East was her January 2017 trip to Syria, during which she met with President Bashar Assad, who has emerged victorious from the country’s devastating civil war. Gabbard didn’t inform her party’s congressional leadership about the meeting with Assad, which she claimed was part of an attempt to “bring peace” to Syria. She was harshly criticized by politicians from both parties for taking the meeting.
Even before her trip to Syria, Gabbard expressed non-mainstream views on Syria. In November 2015, she introduced a bipartisan bill to "end the illegal war" against Syria. “The U.S. is waging two wars in Syria. The first is the war against ISIS and other Islamic extremists, which Congress authorized after the terrorist attacks on 9/11,” she stated. The second war, she said, "is the illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad.
"The war to overthrow Assad is counter-productive because it actually helps ISIS and other Islamic extremists achieve their goal of overthrowing the Syrian government of Assad and taking control of all of Syria – which will simply increase human suffering in the region, exacerbate the refugee crisis, and pose a greater threat to the world," she continued. "Also, the war to overthrow Assad is illegal because Congress never authorized it.”
In 2016, Gabbard said, “There is no doubt that Assad is a brutal dictator, but common sense tells us that if we want to defeat ISIS and other Islamist extremist groups, we need to immediately end the illegal and counterproductive war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad.”
Note: this is the key delusion Tulsi propagates, that the USA is waging a war against Syria. The war to overthrow Assad in Syria was waged by the Syrian people. Anyone who doesn't recognize this fact, and who doesn't stand behind the Syrian people who have been so brutally attacked, is not only deluded, but stands against any ideal or value of freedom and democracy, and supports human massacre and terror instead. The Syrian people had no alternative but to fight to defend themselves. This self defense is not "illegal;" it is Assad who is illegal. To recognize the Syrian Arab Spring Revolution of 2011 is not to support an American war against Syria. There is no such war.-- Eric the Green