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The future direction, strategy and policies of Israel, AIPAC and the US Govt.

MJ Rosenberg, writing on AlJazeera, apart from pointing out that the Israeli PM has never ever expressed even any contrition for the killing of Palestinian children by the IDF, highlights the new direction and strategy of Israel....and that means AIPAC and the US Government dutifully falling in line behind Israel.

"Prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu is being heavily criticised in Israel for his blatant exploitation of the murder of five members of one family (including three children) at the Itamar settlement near Nablus. Particularly egregious has been Netanyahu's demand that president Mahmoud Abbas personally appear on Palestinian radio and television to condemn the killings, although Abbas had issued an unusually strong statement as soon as he heard of the tragedy.

Forget for a minute that no one knows who committed the crime and that certainly no one believes that the killer was associated with Abbas. Also, lay aside the fact that Netanyahu has never condemned or even expressed remorse over the killing of 300 plus Palestinian children by the IDF during the Gaza war. (In fact, one would be hard pressed to find any Israeli government that ever even criticised the killing of Palestinian children by the IDF, although many hundreds have been killed over the last decade).

None of that is anything new. What is new is Israel's decision to libel the Palestinian Authority (and not just Hamas) which until very recently has been praised by Israel as its partner. That change became evident during the last month when AIPAC (Israel's lobby in America) started attacking Abbas and the PA, returning to the style of the bad old days when the lobby viewed all Palestinians as one and the same: as enemies of Israel.

There are three reasons why monitoring AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is a valuable use of time for anyone following events in the Middle East.

The first is that AIPAC faithfully reflects the positions of the Netanyahu government (actually it often telegraphs them before Netanyahu does)."

The second is that AIPAC's policies provide advance notice of the positions that will, not by coincidence, be taken by the United States Congress.

And third, AIPAC provides a reliable indicator of future policies of the Obama administration, which gets its "guidance" both from AIPAC itself and from Dennis Ross, former head of AIPAC's think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and now the president's top adviser on Middle East issues."

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