the same policies with regards to Israel implemented by new faces via different methods will not do.

watch closely in the next two months for the names Jane Harman and Dennis Ross. if they are added to executive positions in the Obama Administration, it will be a very bad sign for real “change” in ME policy.

thanks Eureka Springs. It only makes sense that Rahm Emmanuel had to have dual citizenship when he served in the Israeli Defense Force in the early 90’s. Can anyone do this? Serve in the Polish, Saudi Arabian, French, Army, hold dual citizenship and then run for congress and also be made Chief of Staff of the President of the U.S. This is rather outrageous. Seems rather odd. Why no questions about this.

Obama as a “transformative” President sure does not look good by this first appointment. Rahm supported the war in Iraq, repeats unsubstantiated claims about Iran, supports the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Just who is Obama sending a message here?

hey eureka–i had questions, too, as soon as his name was being mentioned for cos….many questions. maybe barack knows him well enough to keep a handle on him. dunno.

one thing occurred to me, that maybe he is the ‘warm up’ chief of staff, i doubt that he stays many years. i could be wrong.

your ’serving in the military’ question? it’s required there, is not required here.

What message is Obama sending us by choosing Emmanuel for Chief of Staff

Rahm Emmanuel will control who will get Obama’s ear. So all will stay the same in the Israeli Palestinian issue.

Rahm voted for the 2002 war resolution, vocally supports occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and supported Israel’s attack and invasion of Lebanon.

What’s the message here? Unless they are hoping that Rahm will go to far and get bumped for being out of line.

Rahm Emmanuel voted for H.R. 1400 So did many others. Barack has been repeating unsubstantiated claims
about Iran. This is worrisome.
Text of H.R. 1400: Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007
http://www.govtrack.us/congres…..=h110-1400

Rahm co-sponsored this horseshit legislation on Iran.
http://www.govtrack.us/congres…..=h110-1400

Read this legislation and there is no need to know who wrote it
There are so many unsubstantiated claims in this legislation it is frightening. Juan Cole has debunked many of the claims in this legislation.
http://www.aipac.org/Publicati…..HR1400.pdf

“a friend will say tough things to another friend” The Obama administration needs to persuade push, force Israel to stop building, and expanding the illegal settlements, take down the wall that is built on Palestinian land and commit to share Jerusalem.

appointing Rahm Emmanuel to a position that gives him power as to who has access to Obama is not looking good. The message “follow that money that Rahm has been so good at collecting” does not look good for any resolution in the I/P conflict.

I hear lots of talk from folks who will soon be pushing for a one state solution

ES, appreciate the diary as I was waiting to see if any FDL’ers would mention this appointment by their hero.

Leen, you ask the right question: “What message is Obama sending us by choosing Emmanuel for Chief of Staff”

Now if Obama came out in favor of the Arab Peace initiative, I could believe in ‘change’ but between his AIPAC speech and this appointment, it looks like U.S. foreign policy in the middle east will NOT change.

the message to me is that the “transformational” potential for “change” has been short lived. The honeymoon is all ready over. Not that I had much faith in Obama really being a transformational President anyway. His team sure came up with some great slogans that set folks on fire who have been fed up with the last 8 disastrous years. Let’s be honest Obama does not have a courageous record.

The Rahm Emmanuel selection sure confirms that.

Ralph Nader’s recent letter to Obama is a great read
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader11032008.html
“You know quite well that only when the U.S. Government supports the Israeli and Palestinian peace movements, that years ago worked out a detailed two-state solution (which is supported by a majority of Israelis and Palestinians), will there be a chance for a peaceful resolution of this 60-year plus conflict. Yet you align yourself with the hard-liners, so much so that in your infamous, demeaning speech to the AIPAC convention right after you gained the nomination of the Democratic Party, you supported an “undivided Jerusalem,” and opposed negotiations with Hamas– the elected government in Gaza. Once again, you ignored the will of the Israeli people who, in a March 1, 2008 poll by the respected newspaper Haaretz, showed that 64% of Israelis favored “direct negotiations with Hamas.” Siding with the AIPAC hard-liners is what one of the many leading Palestinians advocating dialogue and peace with the Israeli people was describing when he wrote “Anti-semitism today is the persecution of Palestinian society by the Israeli state.”

Hail to the Chief of Staff

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

“Emanuel, as Ralph Nader points out in my interview with him below, represents the worst of the Clinton years. His profile as regards Israel is explored well on this site by lawyer John Whitbeck. He’s a former Israeli citizen, who volunteered to serve in Israel in 1991 and who made brisk millions in Wall Street. He is a super-Likudnik hawk, whose father was in the fascist Irgun in the late Forties, responsible for cold-blooded massacres of Palestinians. Dad’s unreconstructed ethnic outlook has been memorably embodied in his recent remark to the Ma’ariv newspaper that “Obviously he [Rahm] will influence the president to be pro-Israel… Why wouldn’t he be [influential]? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floors of the White House.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11072008.html

—————————————————————
Remember when John Edwards was the only candidate in the real running who said “no lobbyist in my administration, no lobbyist who have lobbied for a foreign nation”.

Now Obama has a Chief of Staff who was not only a former citizen of Israel but an individual who served in the Israeli Defense force, supports the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, supports horseshit legislation directed towards Iran, raises massive amounts of money from hedge funders and Wall Street.

The Obama honeymoon was so short I can’t even remember it.

And now Raw Story is reporting that Obama has told the Polish President that the ‘missile shield’ will be going ahead with deployment.

Sail on sail on sailor.

follow that defense money

Thanks ES, yesterday I had occasion to watch the rebroadcast of a charity roast of Rahm from 2005 put on by the Axelrods (yes Obama’s campaign manager, David Axelrod.) The cause was CURE, Citizens United for the Research of Epilepsy, a disease that struck the Axelrod’s daughter when she was 7 months old. Many political figures were in attendance including Barack Obama.

At the dinner, Rahm says getting the famous handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in 1993 was his greatest accomplishment; yet one of the bigger laughs of the evening came when Sen. Chris Dodd joked that Rahm “cared” about what the Palestinians thought. I recoiled.

I also wonder if Israel is the reason why so many are willing to forgive and forget the treachery of Joe Lieberman.

Israel is our achilles heel. They freely spy on us and the MSM does little reporting on the actions of that government or the influence of AIPAC. I, too, fear the implications of Rahm as COS.

digg this and upvote on reddit.

I saw that. What I heard Senator Dodd say was that one thing you would never hear Rahm Emmanuel say is that “Palestinians have a good idea or a perspective that should be considered”

How is it that Obama chose to have a man who has served in the Israel Defense Force, was a former dual citizen, supported the war in Iraq, repeats hogwash about Iran, supports the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza etc etc. The message from Obama is clear…Aipac still driving our foreign policy in the middle east.

There has not been a peep(no Israeli lobby influence in our media there) in the MSM about the Aipac Rosen Espionage trial. Good interview by about the five time delayed Espionage trial

http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/10/25/grant-f-smith/

What is happening with the Aipac Rosen Weissman investigation and trial?

August 20, 2008
Why Bush Will Pardon AIPAC for Espionage
by Grant F. Smith
” In 1962, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigated foreign lobbyists active in the United States. The committee hired tough investigators, including Walter Haskell Pincus, now the Washington Post’s national security journalist. These investigators played hardball with the American Zionist Council (AZC) by going after its hidden financial flows. The Senate investigators rifled through the filing cabinets of the Israeli government’s colonization and charitable fundraising partner, the Jewish Agency, American Section, based in New York. This raised howls of protest from Isaiah L. Kenen, then editor of a lobbying newsletter, the Near East Report.

The Senate investigation forced the Jewish Agency, American Section, regulated since 1938 under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), to file more detailed biannual activity declarations.[i] FARA is a disclosure law requiring all agents of foreign principals to detail their activities in reports filed at a public office within the U.S. Department of Justice. The Jewish Agency functioned as a quasi-governmental organization whose executive board was composed of Israelis (including government officials) and Americans. It not only received government funding, but had influence over internal policy and legal matters before they went to the Knesset under a 1953 “covenant” agreement with the Israeli government.

Sen. Fulbright, who led the investigation, was outraged at the idea that U.S. foreign aid and tax-preferential charitable funds were being funneled back into the U.S. to multiply foreign aid through lobbying and a massive stealth public relations campaign. At the time, Israel was far from the only violator. The Senate committee also caught the Philippines playing the same game through Washington lobbyists doling out campaign contributions in exchange for enormous WWII reparations payments funded by U.S. taxpayers. But Israel’s covert lobbying and public relations venture was truly massive. By the time Fulbright’s public Senate hearings ended in 1963, it had been established that the Jewish Agency laundered over $5 million (around $35 million today) into U.S. public relations and lobbying initiatives over a two-year period. The true scope of the campaign was never revealed, in spite of diligent attempts at law enforcement.”

NOT EVEN A WHISPER IN THE MSM ABOUT THIS FIVE TIME DELAYED TRIAL. NOT MUCH IN THE PROGRESSIVE BLOGOSPHERE

This is a great article by Grant Smith
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/gs…..leid=13327

A New False Dawn
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comm…..arackobama

Great interview about the silent Aipac Rosen Espionage trial
http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/10/25/grant-f-smith/

Sarah Palin had the neocons mad at her for supporting Buchanan for President, In response she put a little Israeli Flag on her desk, making some Democrats accuse her of being a pro-Israeli fanatic. She never dreamed of a Christian-Jewish Armageddon War like Pat Robertson does, and ex-Senator Rick Santorum did.

There is no anticommunist fanaticism in her history. But she condemned a former Black Panther professor because McCain told her to, but didn’t know how to be discreet when she did so.

Let’s us who have a lot of intelligence give her the respect she gives to her mentally challenged child she is so proud of.

As for real intelligence in the peace movement, In 2006, John Murtha was stopped from becoming Majority Whip because of his stance on abortion and guns, even though he was more liberal on those issues than most of his constituent.

Then people derided him for being a supposed unindicted co-conspirator for telling a phony Arab Sheik “Later,” rather than insulting him with a “No”!

This let Nancy Pelosi (and the other representatives) know that the movement would abandon her skeletons were exposed.

She is a lot smarter than her mentally challenged child who fortunately has a parent who is proud of him, and the rest of us are smarter than her, but not as much as we may think.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com…..com…
http://www.dailykos.com/user/RichardKanePA

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/blog/2419
RichardKanePA

Good diary. Of course in addition to his service in the Israeli military, war hawkism, etc., Rahm has been promoted to COS after championing the failed 50 state strategy and supporting all of the wrong kinds of candidates for Congress. So there are many, many reasons that he should not serve as COS. His selection sends a message about the new administration, indeed.

thanks for all the links Leen

i’m not ready to give up on BO yet (i’ve too much invested in him this year) but strictly in terms of ME policy, his first two major decisions/appointments (Biden, Rahm) are two strikes against him, to me.

i might feel better if Samantha Power becomes NSA.

Rahm Emmanuel “Designated Asshole”
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/11/07/rahm/

The legend of Rahm
http://www.salon.com/books/fea…..index.html

I really do not understand how it is legal to serve in a foreign countries military (Israel) and then step into the Clinton administration, run for congress and now become the Chief of Staff. Can anyone do this who has served in a foreign military?

Me neither…but we need to apply lots of pressure especially with the prospect of Dennis Ross becoming the middle east envoy again. Bad Bad signals