Clinton is out of touch with Americans, Palestinians: Lawyer

The US homeland is in ruins but, unlike Bernie Sanders and even Donald Trump, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton is almost entirely focused on corporate and Zionist foreign interests, says Barry Grossman, an international lawyer who has years-long interest in political affairs.

While boycotting all of Israel is commendable, Grossman says the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is yet another effort by “soft Zionists” to dominate the narrative and legitimize their “putative state,” while preventing Palestinians from asserting their inalienable rights through legitimate armed resistance.  

If we were to listen to US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Grossman told Press TV on Tuesday,  "then Palestinians would not only be denied their lawful right to armed resistance but would also be denied access to all peaceful avenues of resistance as well as recourse to any legal or diplomatic remedies."   

According to Grossman, the message being sent by the US, Israel and Hillary Clinton is that the only way left to oppose Zionist brutality and the illegal occupation is to embrace armed resistance and use sabotage, much the way the French were lionized for doing during their occupation by Nazis during the Second World War.  

In recent years, the BDS movement against Israel over its apartheid policies toward the Palestinians has gained momentum globally in its quest to end the Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestine.

Clinton on Sunday reaffirmed her commitment to combat the BDS campaign if elected president in November, saying, “I believe that BDS seeks to punish Israel and dictate how the Israelis and Palestinians should resolve the core issues of their conflict.”

The former US secretary of state made the remarks in response to an appeal from the Israel Action Network, an affiliate of the Jewish Federations of North America.

American heartland lies in ruins

“Let’s put this neoconservative Jezebel’s latest comments about Palestine into perspective with a little context,” said Grossman.  “The American heartland lies in ruins after being ravaged by a firestorm of corruption, greed and corporate crime that has changed the face of US politics and fundamentally changed the way government functions.”

“Once thriving cities and entire states teeter on bankruptcy. Law enforcement has embraced the fascist tactics of storm troopers to target ordinary individuals and dissenters, while turning a blind eye to out of control crime and corruption in the corporate sector,” he added.

“The middle classes have been all but wiped out, with many people who did everything ‘right’ nevertheless joining the ranks of the ‘working poor.’  And they are the lucky ones,” he stated.

“Vast swaths of the working class have lost their homes, pension entitlements, and life savings to catastrophic events of political making that were completely beyond their control;  yet -- using still more money grabbed from the working classes --  the government bailed out the perpetrators and sold-out their victims,” the commentator continued.

“Many of those who have lost their jobs wander the urban landscape where their very existence and even just giving them assistance have both now been defined as crimes,” he noted.  

An economy running on credit and spoils of war

“Unemployment – whatever the contrived numbers say – has reached absurd levels in an economy that has effectively been transformed into a war economy that runs on credit and the spoils of war,” Grossman pointed out.

“People who have somehow still managed to hold jobs have been saddled with more and more tax obligations which they must pay from declining incomes.  Meanwhile,  the speculators and bandits who pose as professionals, executives and entrepreneurs  have been ‘gifted’  ever decreasing tax rates by the political apparatus,  and have grown fabulously wealthy using ‘other people’s money,’” the analyst observed.   

“Crime, drugs, and corruption are raging unchecked as the once proud nation which rose to prominence on the strength of massive profits it reaped from leading the allied effort during World War 2, is being dragged into a downward spiral by elite and corporate interests who have hitched their fortunes to more promising international prospects, while abandoning ordinary Americans who they see as high maintenance, too expensive, and ungrateful,” he stated.

 “Against this backdrop, the nascent supremacy of ‘policy’ over the Rule-of-Law stands as irrefutable proof that the political process has been completely corrupted by money from special interests,” the pundit argued.

Clinton trying to counter two ‘outsiders’

“The troglodyte Donald Trump has managed to address the concerns of many Americans and win massive support by saying he will make America great again, by resorting to Cold War tactics and projecting America’s commercial and military power globally.  Bernie Sanders proposes to focus on domestic issues and social justice, while promoting a principled and far less interventionist stance in foreign affairs,” Grossman said.

“So with two ‘outsiders’ who could not be more different overwhelmingly winning the public’s support, what does the ‘progressive’ pretender Hillary Clinton focus on?  Foreign policy and, more to the point, Israel and its agenda,” he stated.

“Just how out of touch is she about such matters?” he wondered.  

BDS is yet another ‘soft’ Zionist trick

“Well, to be clear, I am entirely supportive of a movement to boycott Israel and any corporations which support it.  That said, I am fundamentally opposed to BDS which, by virtue of denouncing armed resistance and presuming on behalf of Palestinians to recognize Israel’s legitimacy within borders set by the 1967 Green Line, is in fact yet another effort by soft Zionists to dominate all sides of the issues,” Grossman emphasized.

“But leaving that conundrum aside, what does Clinton’s position tell us about her?” he asked.

“If we were to listen to Clinton who has clearly been bought - lock, stock and barrel -- by Haim Saban and the pro-Israel corporate sector, then Palestinians would not only be denied their lawful right to armed resistance but would also be denied access to  all peaceful avenues of resistance as well as recourse to any legal or diplomatic remedies,” he said.

Clinton’s Palestine policy is unjust, impractical

The analyst said Clinton’s “policy on Israel and Palestine, apart from being fundamentally unjust,  is both impractical and incoherent, while at the same time it reinforces  the broader message that she supports the supremacy of policy over the  Rule-of-Law, as long as the policy making machine is controlled by the same interests she is beholding to.”

“What we know is that it has been the United States’ long standing policy that Zionist settlements in Occupied Territory and the Zionists appropriation of Jerusalem [al-Quds] as the capital of its putative state are illegal,” the lawyer noted.

“The international community, for its part, has always overwhelmingly recognized not only those settlements are illegal but that many of the violent and oppressive tactics employed by the occupiers in Palestine are contrary to international law.  Indeed, even in the US and among its most steadfast, pro-Israel allies, the illegality of settlements and the occupiers war crimes are scarcely contested,” he stated.

“The problem is that the US – supported by its allies – insists that any solution to the problem in Palestine must be agreed through bilateral negotiations, thereby denying Palestinians all recourse to the legal and diplomatic mechanisms the US itself routinely uses to bring foreign sovereign states into line,” he said.  

No judicial forum to hold Israel accountable for its actions

“On the other hand, there is no uncorrupted, international judicial forum which other nations can ask to judge the occupiers’ actions in accordance with international law, custom and convention,” the lawyer stated.

“The United Nations General Assembly is a poor, ineffective cousin to the Security Council in which Palestinians have little or no representation and the US, the UK and France – all pro Israel states - each wields the power to veto any proposed resolution.  The US and Israel, moreover, have made their unqualified opposition to the very existence of the International Criminal Court patently clear,” he observed.  

“Insisting that the issue of Palestine must be resolved only by direct negotiation between Palestinians and their occupiers is no less absurd than suggesting that the plight of European Jews in the 1930’s and 40’s should have been resolved by negotiations between Jews and the Nazis, without outside intervention,” the analyst  pointed out.

“Moreover, the US position on Palestine entirely ignores the unrelenting efforts made by Zionists to de-legitimize, corrupt, eradicate and criminalize any organization that represents the aspirations of Palestinians.  The simple fact is that there is no uncorrupted process or mechanism for holding such negotiations, and the occupiers will not negotiate with any organization that actually represents Palestinians.  Indeed, when they and their US enablers refer to the need for negotiations, what they are really calling for is discussions about terms for nothing less than a complete capitulation by Palestinians,” he stated.

Armed resistance only option for Palestinians?

“All of this should leave Palestinians with no doubt that the only way left to assert their inalienable rights is to stand firm in the face of occupation and exercise their lawful right to resist,” Grossman said.  

“Palestinians gave peace a chance when during the 10 years following the Second Intifada; they reduced the incidence of lethal attacks on their occupiers by more than 90% from that which prevailed during the Intifada itself. The occupiers’ response was to expand illegal settlements at an ever expanding rate, while launching a series of US-backed, brutal military assaults on the civilians of Gaza,” he stated.  

“The message being sent by the US and Israel alike is that the only way left to oppose the Zionist brutality and illegal occupation is to embrace armed resistance and use sabotage, much the way the French were lionized for doing during their occupation by Nazis during WW2,” he noted.  

“Meanwhile, if so-called American progressives are willing to install Hillary Clinton as President and leader of the Empire, then all Americans had best stop moaning about the sorry state of affairs in the homeland,” the international lawyer said in his concluding remarks. 

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