The Post-Partisan Emporium

  PATRICK LAWRENCE: AIPAC’s Anxieties The Israel lobbies’ grip on U.S. politics has slipped beyond restoration since Oct. 7, 2023 due to the Zionist army’s own savagery in Gaza.   Charlie Kirk speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). (Gage Skidmore/ Flickr/ CC BY-SA 2.0) By  Patrick Lawrence I f Charlies Kirk’s well-documented defection from the Zionist cause confirmed one thing above all others, it is that the Israeli lobbies’ grip on American politics has slipped—measurably, and I would say beyond any kind of restoration—since the events of Oct. 7, 2023. It would take more hasbara than the Israelis could ever produce to persuade me Kirk did not pay for his abandonment of the Christian– Zionist orthodoxy when he was assassinated before a crowd of conservative youth last Sept. 10. Andrew Cockburn  has an excellent piece on this question  in the current edition of  Harper’s , published under the headline “Turning Point.” And...

  I’m still not sure which was more outrageous- the home invasion/kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and his wife, or the subsequent declaration by US President Donald Trump that we would “run” the country and hand over the nation’s oil reserves (the world’s largest) and infrastructure to Exxon Mobil. How quickly we moved on from those “drug boats”. Interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez said the kidnapping had a “Zionist tint” to it. If the Trump Administration thinks she will now hand over her nation’s oil to the Four Horsemen they will be sorely disappointed. They have no clue as to the depth of the working class support for the twice democratically-elected Maduro and his cabinet. Meanwhile Trump has embarrassed our country in much the same way that his regular house guest Bibi Netanyahu has destroyed the international reputation of his. It’s not the first time the US has tried to derail the Bolivarian socialist revolution underway in Venezuela. And judging...