Covering Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, a leftist Jewish newspaper, The Forward, claimed that one of Hillary Clinton's next steps is to target Jewish American voters, warning them about Bernie Sanders and Israel. This approach seems a bit cynical because an examination of Hillary Clinton’s public history reflects a lifetime of anti-Israel positions
Except for the time she needed New York’s Jewish voting bloc, Hillary Clinton has never been pro-Israel. Some might even claim that she is also anti-Semitic.
The article in Thursday's Forward reported:
For the Clinton campaign it was a night that made clear that it is time to increase pressure on the Vermont socialist — including a harsher message to Jewish American voters.
“Hillary Clinton has been a very strong friend of Israel and that is something that should not be lost on the American Jewish community,” said Paul Hodes, a former New Hampshire congressman who came to rally for Clinton at her post-primary event. Hodes, who is Jewish and from New Hampshire, told the Forward: “Senator Sanders hasn’t showed himself to be the kind of friend of Israel that Secretary Clinton is.”
As MRCTV reported on Sunday, Bernie Sanders seems to be getting his Middle East advice from anti-Israel sources J Street, and James Zogby, however, that news pales next to Ms. Clinton's history of anti-Israel acts.
Some of the negative reports about Hillary and Israel even predate here marriage to former president Bill Clinton. For example, page 49 of the book American Evita, Christopher Anderson wrote:
At a time when elements of the American Left embraced the Palestinian cause and condemned Israel, Hillary was telling friends that she was "sympathetic" to the terrorist organization and admired its flamboyant leader, Yasser Arafat. When Arafat made his famous appearance before the UN General Assembly in November 1974 wearing his revolutionary uniform and his holster on his hip, Bill "was outraged like everybody else," said a Yale Law School classmate. But not Hillary, who tried to convince Bill that Arafat was a "freedom fighter" trying to free his people from their Israeli "oppressors."
On page 50 of the same book, the author relates a 1973 anti-Semitic incident where she Hillary refused to enter a home because there was menorah on its door.
It was during this trip to his home state that Bill took Hillary to meet a politically well-connected friend. When they drove up to the house, Bill and Hillary noticed that a menorah-the seven branched Hebrew candelabrum (not to be confused with the more common and subtler mezuzah)-has been affixed to the front door. "My daddy was half Jewish," explained Bill's friend. "One day when he came to visit, my daddy placed the menorah on my door because he wanted me to be proud that we were part Jewish. And I wasn't about to say no to my daddy." To his astonishment, as soon as Hillary saw the menorah, she refused to get out of the car. "Bill walked up to me and said that she was hot and tired, but later he explained the real reason." According to the friend and another eyewitness, Bill said, "I'm sorry, but Hillary's really tight with the people in the PLO in New York. They're friends of hers, and she just doesn't feel right about the menorah."
In May 1998 Ms. Clinton became the first person attached to any presidential administration to call for a Palestinian State.
A year and a half later, the first lady went on a State visit to the Middle East. At a public appearance with Yasser Arafat's wife Suha, Hilary Clinton sat and listened to Mrs. Arafat made a slanderous allegation:
"Our [Palestinian] people have been submitted to the daily and intensive use of poisonous gas by the Israeli forces, which has led to an increase in cancer cases among women and children." Suha also accused Israel of contaminating much of the water sources used by Palestinians with "chemical materials" and poisoning Palestinian women and children with toxic gases."
Mrs. Clinton sat by silently listening to a real-time translation, and then gave the terrorist's wife a hug and kiss when she finished speaking.
In 2011. speaking at the at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy (part of the liberal Brookings Institute), Clinton trashed Israel by expressing concern for the Jewish State's social climate in the wake of limitations regarding female singing in the IDF and gender segregation on public transportation.
She was talking about accommodations made to the Orthodox communities in Israel. Clinton referred to the decision of some IDF soldiers to leave an event where female soldiers were singing; she said it reminded her of the situation in Iran. In Iran, those women may have been lashed or worse. But, in Israel, the female soldiers were allowed to sing. The people who felt it was against their religious beliefs were allowed to walk out. That's called religious freedom, just like we are supposed to have here in America.
Clinton also spoke of her shock that some Jerusalem buses had assigned separate seating areas for women. "It's reminiscent of Rosa Parks," she said, taking the typical progressive position that faith should not matter outside a place of worship.
The book Ms. Clinton wrote about her years running the State Department, "Hard Choices,” also includes some passages which seem a bit strange for someone claiming to be a friend of Israel.
When we left the city and visited Jericho, in the West Bank, I got my first glimpse of life under occupation for Palestinians, who were denied the dignity and self-determination that Americans take for granted” (pg. 302).
She says nothing about terrorism, such as blowing up buses with school children, nothing about the fact that during the presidency of her husband Yasser Arafat turned down a deal that would have given him about 97% of what he wanted (at least that's what Bill Clinton said in his autobiography "My Life").
"The sticking point would be Jerusalem. East Jerusalem had been captured along with the West bank in 1967, and Palestinians dreamed of one day establishing the capital of their future state there.” (pg. 317).
But, Israel didn't capture Jerusalem from the Palestinians; Jordan did, in 1948. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as their capital because they don't want Israel to have it. Even ancient Muslim writings recognized Jerusalem as a Jewish City.
In another part of her book, Ms. Clinton writes:
"There has been nearly a decade of terror, arising from the second intifada, which started in September 2000. About a thousand Israelis were killed and eight thousand wounded in terrorist attacks from September 2000 to February 2005. Three times as many Palestinians were killed and thousands more were injured in the same period.” (pg. 308).
Like many who are anti-Israel Hillary, Clinton draws a false equivalency between the terrorist attacks on Israel and the Jewish State's attempts to defend herself. To maintain her ridiculous logic, the U.S. should be chastised because more al Qaeda terrorists died in the war on terror than Americans were killed on 9/11/01.
The second intifada was a horrible period of Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians: busloads of children blown up, pizza places bombed, even a hotel where families were celebrating the Passover Seder in peace. There is no equivalence between the attacks and Israel's attempts to defend herself.
So, given her track record, Clinton could have a tough time selling herself as a supporter of Israel.