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February 2, 2016 7:41 am
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Hillary Clinton’s Advisers Gave Nothing But Anti-Israel Advice

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avatar by Shmuley Boteach

Opinion
Hillary Clinton. Photo: State Department

Hillary Clinton. Photo: State Department

It’s already been established that one of Hillary Clinton’s most trusted advisers, Sid Blumenthal, sent her dozens of anti-Israel articles, ideas and pieces of advice during her time as secretary of state. But the stream of anti-Israel advice received by Hillary was much more comprehensive than that which came from just one adviser. In the entire batch of Hillary’s emails, you will be hard pressed to find a single email that is sympathetic towards the Jewish state, from any of the people on whom she relied.

The negative, poisonous approach towards Israel throughout this cache of emails shows the atmosphere that Hillary had established around herself. These emails seem to demonstrate that a huge segment of her close advisers and confidants were attacking Israel, condemning Netanyahu, and strategizing about how to force Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria at all costs.

Take a look at a sampling of the advice being sent to Hillary from her many advisers.

Sandy Berger was Hillary’s foreign policy adviser during her 2008 presidential campaign. In September 2010, he sent Hillary ideas on how to pressure Israel to make concessions for peace. Berger acknowledged “how fragile Abbas’s political position [is],” and how “Palestinians are in disarray,” and “Failure is a real possibility.” Berger was well aware, and informed Hillary, of the very real possibility that Israel would be placing its national security at grave risk in a deal that would very likely fail and lead to a Hamas takeover. But Berger felt the risks to Israeli lives were worth it. He advised of the need to make Netanyahu feel “uneasy about incurring our displeasure…”

Berger emphasized the need “to convince the prime minister — through various forms of overt persuasion and implicit pressure — to make the necessary compromises” and talks of the “possibility — to turn [Netanyahu’s] position against him.”

Astoundingly, Berger seemed to accuse the Jews in America of racism towards Obama. He writes, “At a political level, the past year has clearly demonstrated the degree to which the US has been hamstrung by its low ratings in Israel and among important segments of the domestic Jewish constituency…” He then added, “domestically, he faces a reservoir of skepticism on this issue which reflects many factors, including inexcusable prejudice.”

Anne Marie Slaughter was Hillary’s director of policy planning from 2009-2011. She wrote Hillary in September of 2010 and devised a scheme to encourage wealthy philanthropists to pledge millions to the Palestinians (which no doubt would have been embezzled by Abbas and his cronies as were other funds).

She wrote to Hillary, “This may be a crazy idea… Suppose we launched a ‘Pledge for Palestine’ campaign… Such a campaign among billionaires/multi-millionaires around the world would reflect a strong vote of confidence in the building of a Palestinian state…”

She added, “there would also be a certain shaming effect re Israelis who, would be building settlements in the face of a pledge for peace.”

Hillary’s response to this email: “I am very interested-pls flesh out. Thx.”

Robert Russo, one of Hillary’s aides and currently her campaign’s “director of correspondence and briefings,” sent an email in April 2012 informing Hillary of Netanyahu’s father’s passing, and advised her to phone him to offer her condolences. Included with Russo’s email is an extremely biased article attacking both Netanyahu and his father, describing them as virulently racist warmongers, and calling the elder Netanyahu “a behind-the-scenes adviser to his son, the most powerful person in Israel.”

The article notes, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly denied that his father was a one-dimensional ideologue. He further emphasized that he himself was a different person from his father.” But then it goes on to say, without providing any proof whatsoever, “Israelis seemed in the dark about the extent of paternal influence on their leader,” and “To understand Bibi, you have to understand the father.”

One might be forgiven, then, for questioning Hillary’s sympathy and sincerity when she later placed the call and extended Netanyahu her condolences.

Thomas Pickering, former US Ambassador to Israel, wrote Hillary on December 18, 2011 and suggested a secret plan to stir up major Palestinian protests in an attempt to force the Israeli government into peace negotiations. He stated that the protests “must be all and only women. Why? On the Palestinian side the male culture is to use force.”

Pickering’s goal was to ignite protests that would engulf the West Bank, “just like Tahrir square.” He added that the Palestinian “leadership has shied away from this idea because they can’t control it,” and they are “afraid of being replaced.”

This idiotic reasoning that somehow only women would participate and things would stay peaceful is obviously absurd. As Pickering himself noted, “Palestinian men will not for long patiently demonstrate — they will be inclined over time and much too soon to be frustrated and use force. Their male culture comes close to requiring it.” Regardless, Pickering wrote that the protests could be used against Israel “to influence the political leadership.”

The idea was as dangerous for the Palestinians as it was for Israel. As Pickering himself admitted, widespread protests could overthrow Abbas’ government, and if Palestinian men joined in, widespread violence would inevitably break out. It would obviously be impossible to prevent men from participating in these demonstrations.

Yet Pickering felt this extreme risk was worth taking, even if it meant replacing Abbas with another Hamas-styled government. And even if it meant the outbreak of violence across the West Bank, leading to a third intifada and the murder of countless Jews. He also emphasized the need to hide all US involvement in this plot. Hillary forwarded this email to Monica Hanley and asked her to “pls print.”

Clandestinely stirring up potentially violent protests in an attempt to try and force Israel to go against its best interests? Advice like this was par for the course when it came to Hillary’s advisers.

In a follow-up column, I will illuminate even more anti-Israel advice that was given to the then-secretary of state. Sadly, there was just so much of it.

Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi,” is the international bestselling author of 30 books including his upcoming The Israel Warriors Handbook. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

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