LT Col Howard writes to Rob Eshman,
While those who have clearly demonstrated their hostility to Israel such as Robert Malley still have their security clearances and their influence.
There is a effort underway to clear out the White House staff of all Pro-Israel staffers
You, Adam Schiff, Jonathan Greenblatt and others from certain wings of the American Jewish community have been calling people such as Sebastian Gorka who have been very firm in their support of Israel , “Nazi supporters”.
Remember, Adam Schiff ,with your support gave, Iran an unrestricted path to nuclear weapons and guided missiles which threaten to destroy Israel and are capable of causing severe damage to western Europe and the United States. Both of you supported an administration which has given Iran the resources to wage war against Israel through Hezbollah and Hamas and to operate terror operations throughout the world.
The Nazis and the Antifa both shout similar slogans and have identical objectives. Attacking Jews everywhere.
Since you have been so full throated in attacking Donald Trump for his “failure” to immediately condemn only the right wing in Charlottesville….. I challenge you:
WHERE IS YOUR OUTRAGE [At the effort underway to clear out the White House staff of all Pro-Israel staffers]?
David Satterfield, who is slated to become assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs next month, played a significant role in US policy and diplomacy concerning Israel and the Palestinians in the late 1990s and early 2000s. A look at some of his comments from that period reveals he repeatedly suggested a moral equivalency between Palestinian terrorism and Israeli counterterrorism.
Consider Satterfield’s remarks at the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine (CPAP) Nov. 2, 2001. The date is important. It was the height of the second intifada. There was Palestinian terrorism on a daily basis. In the weeks prior, suicide bombers had struck at the Sbarro Pizzeria in Jerusalem (15 dead, 130 wounded) and the Nahariya train station (three dead, 94 wounded). In the midst of this bloodshed, Satterfield criticized Palestinian terrorism—and then proceeded to criticize Israel.
Making the aggressor and the victim appear to be equivalent, Satterfield declared (according to The Associated Press): “The intifada, whatever its origin, has become an ongoing process of calculated terror and escalation, reciprocated by actions which all too often by Israel proved inflammatory and provocative. Steps must be taken to bring this to a halt.”
And a brief word about Satterfield’s troubling choice of venue. CPAP is an extreme anti-Israel group that should never be honored with the presence of a US government official. In 2003—just to cite a random example to illustrate the center’s mindset—the CPAP winter conference was titled “Israel’s Policy of Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing.” Why would Satterfield choose to keep that kind of company?
Skewed Moral Equivalency
There was more moral equivalency from Satterfield the following year, at the Weinberg Founders Conference of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in October 2002. Satterfield criticized Yasser Arafat, then blasted Israel for encircling Arafat’s terror headquarters, the “Muqata” compound in Ramallah. The Israeli action “was wholly unhelpful and froze the positive currents of reform and direct pressure placed upon [Arafat] by Palestinian elites,” Satterfield declared.
Once again, Satterfield was incapable of criticizing Palestinian terror leaders without simultaneously haranguing Israel’s self-defense actions.
On March 11, 2004, Satterfield gave the keynote address at the Israel Policy Forum’s conference in Washington, D.C. Again, note the venue. The Israel Policy Forum was established by the Israeli Labor party. The prime minister of Israel in March 2004 was Ariel Sharon, then leader of the Likud party. Satterfield was choosing to address the American wing of the Israeli opposition. Interesting.
Satterfield once again resorted to moral equivalency. “Hope is in very short supply right now,” he asserted, evidently referring to the still-raging intifada. Just two weeks earlier, eight Israelis had been massacred—and more than 60 wounded, including many schoolchildren—in the Liberty Bell Park bus bombing in downtown Jerusalem.
You would think that would be the cause of “hope being in very short supply.” But no—according to Satterfield, there were two reasons that hope was in short supply, not just one. Hope was “evaporating in the understandable rage of Israelis suffering through horrible acts of terror”—but hope also “is being swallowed up in the deep frustrations, daily humiliations and wounded dignity of Palestinians living under occupation.”
Israel’s Defense is ‘Inflammatory’ and ‘Provocative’?
Someone who perceives Israel’s legitimate self-defense actions as “inflammatory,” “provocative” and “unhelpful,” and who thinks that Israel and Palestinian terrorists are equally to blame for the erosion of hope, has a dangerously shallow understanding of Middle East reality. David Satterfield’s record demonstrates that he does not fully appreciate the difference between Palestinian aggressors and Israeli victims. He does not accept Israel’s right to take all necessary defensive actions against the stabbers, snipers and suicide bombers who threaten its citizens daily. Satterfield’s appointment should be rescinded immediately.
Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.
David Satterfield’s record demonstrates fully that he well understands the difference between agressors and victims but chooses to describe it this way to try, like the rest of the left world, to muddy the waters.