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On 2016-11-06 08:47, Ken Hiebert via Marxism wrote:
http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/new/?p=4221
It is sickening to see much of the American left playing out the anti-Clinton theme as if they can't figure out that this is the way you increase the vote for the (near-) fascist Trump. After all, no one has much nice to say about either viable candidate, so the way you support the one is by trashing the other so they will lose the "unpopularity contest" that the US election has become.
But it's not hard to imagine that an ex-CIA official (also the executive director of the CNI) would lean in that direction. And from all that I had learned about her, I wouldn't have expected Alison Weir to be voting for any other than the fascist. But I wouldn't really have predicted that she'd go so far as to do so blatantly on the webpage of her organization.
To refresh your memory, Alison Weir is the president of the so-called Council for the National Interest (CNI) and the founder of If Americans Knew, both right-wing anti-Israel organizations trying to exploit the success and prestige of the Palestine solidarity movement, as has been previously discussed on this list. Although you wouldn't think that an organization with a rather narrow focus (advising the American state against support for Israel) would support a canidate in a general election campaign, one can also see that by doing so she's hardly likely to cause anyone to quit that outfit. I'm sure the rightist membership of that group would already be voting 20:1 in favor of Trump. I didn't bother to look at her other organization, If Americans Knew, where that group's non-profit status would make such blatent electoral intervention problematic.
Yes, I know that Amith wrote a very contrary post. He is very much in denial, which is why he came out screaming that the presence of this article on the CNI site was NOT an endorsement of Trump, even when no one had even posed that question! And I guess he could hold up the disclaimer at the bottom of the page. But I'm talking about what everyone can see if they are not in denial. For Alison Weir to post a vehemently anti-Clinton article (one not even directly addressing the issue of concern to the CNI, namely Israel) just 18 days before the election, cannot be viewed as anything other than motivation for the reader to vote for Trump.
Also, as an aside, let me just be clear about one thing. For all the awful things I have pointed out about Alison Weir and her organizations, I have never said or believed that she or these groups need to be "smashed" or "taken on." The growth of non-left organizations opposing Israel and American aid to Israel is a sign of the success of our movement in support of Palestine. The more successful we are in projecting the voices of Palestine, the more will cracks emerge within the ruling class and mainstream politics over the issue of American ties with and support to Israel. I want to see two, three, many CNI's. The reason Alison Weir and her right-wing groups became controversial within the solidarity movement (and on this list, mainly through Amith) was the importance of differentiating ourselves, and the Palestinians, from right-wing opposition to Israel. We support the freedom struggle for Palestine regardless of what "foreign policy" is deemed optimum for imperialism. And above all, we shall not allow the rightist politics (and frequently accompanying anti-semitism) of those anti-Israel forces to tar the image of the Palestinians and their supporters, and in particular we take care to avoid providing fuel for the "Anti-zionism is anti-semitism" mantra spewed by Israel.
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