#DealMeIn #ImWith Her #ImWithHillaryClinton Why Hillary is the Most pro-Israel Democratic Candidate for President Ever ( save perhaps for Bill Clinton-during PM Rabins Government)

Why Hillary is the Most pro-Israel Democratic Candidate  for President Ever ( save perhaps for Bill Clinton-during Yitschak Rabin's Reign of Confusion and Olso Apocalypse ) by Elana Maryles Sztokman ( reprinted with permission of the author and the Jerusalem Post  where the article first appeared)  

Clinton is very vocal about fighting terrorism and protecting Israel’s security, and is known to be pro armed forces when needed – in fact, she is considered too war-hawkish by her critics.

Clinton AIPAC ; Hillary Clinton addresses AIPAC in Washington DC.

Last week, I registered to vote in the American elections. It is the first time in my nearly 25 years in Israel that I plan to vote as an American. I am doing it because I love the prospect of Hillary Clinton as president of the United States, and am excited about helping her get into office. She is an outstanding candidate and would likely be one of the best presidents America has ever had. And also, it would be an amazing thing for women everywhere.

Sadly, however, I realize that I am in a minority among Americans living in Israel. I heard some strange things at the registration event. “I don’t know much about the candidates,” one women admitted, “but I think I’ll vote for Trump.” Another woman said, “Trump is a good businessman.” I guess news about his 3,500 lawsuits, four bankruptcies and habit of cheating his suppliers hasn’t reached Tel Aviv.

I have been having a hard time finding a strong cadre of support for Hillary in Israel. An online group of olim for Hillary has only a handful of members. And two weeks ago, I was trying to find someone to go with to attend a pro-Hillary meeting in Jerusalem, and I could not get one person in my entire city of Modi’in to come with me. The apathy was palpable.

Meanwhile Trump seems to have a base of support in Israel that, while mind-blowing in some ways, is not entirely surprising. The idea that Trump is “good for Israel” while Hillary is “bad for Israel” has been filling up my Facebook feed for a while. In the previous presidential election, 85 percent of eligible US voters living in Israel supported the Republican nominee, according to the supposedly non-partisan iVote Israel, and the organization Republicans Overseas assumes this to still be true. In fact, Trump announced that he is opening up a campaign headquarters here to connect with his voter base.

The Trump support among olim reflects some troubling realities about what it means to be “pro-Israel.” Trump is a misogynistic, racist, xenophobic reality television show performer and conspiracy theory aficionado. His voters, a group dominated by what Professor Michael Kimmel terms “Angry White Men,” seem to like that about him. Yet among Americans here in Israel, none of that seems to even matter – because here, the only thing that matters is his stance on Israel. Which means the candidate with the most right-wing, militaristic and unilateral approach to the Palestinian-Israel conflict is considered the most pro-Israel. It is why Trump received an astounding standing ovation at the AIPAC convention. Some Jews are willing to ignore everything about him as long as he says that the Jews are right and the Palestinians are wrong.

For the record, Clinton is very vocal about fighting terrorism and protecting Israel’s security, and is known to be pro armed forces when needed – in fact, she is considered too war-hawkish by her critics.

Yet, any mention of Clinton’s name among olim elicits a knee-jerk response that she is anti-Israel. Why? Because she is not only in favor of Israel’s security, she is also in favor of listening to Palestinians and striving for peace. This complex and dynamic stance, in which she sees the conflict not as a simplistic “I’m right and you’re wrong” but rather as a complicated network of truths, narratives and real needs, is anathema to so many so-called “pro-Israel” groups. As if to say, a person who gives any legitimacy to the real lives of Palestinians must be an anti-Zionist, Jew-hating bigot. The second anyone expresses sympathy for the plight of Palestinians, they are immediately labeled as anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic.

This is the perfect opportunity for American Jews – here and stateside – to rethink what it means to be pro-Israel. Because if being pro-Israel means being so single-mindedly obsessive about delegitimizing anything a Palestinian has to say, if it means being so reflexively reactive toward policy positions as to be unable to see nuance, if it means ignoring everything else about a public person other than how militaristic they are about Israel, then we need to ask ourselves what it means to support Israel. Put differently, if being pro-Israel means liking a guy like Trump, who says that in his mind war is a good thing, then we really need to ask ourselves what it means to be pro-Israel. If being pro-Israel means being in the same camp as Trump, we are doing something very wrong.

I love Hillary’s stance on Israel. She is an outstanding listener and mediator. I love that she is able to hold together seemingly opposing positions – one that says that Israel needs security and another that says that Palestinians need to be heard and heeded. To me, the ability to hear all sides, combined with the desire to make everyone’s lives better, makes for a great leader. And I think that this is what being pro-Israel really means. It is not about violence, militarism and an unrelenting and tone deaf adherence to only part of the story. It is about trying to create a state in which everyone can find a place and live peacefully. That is the essence of being pro-Israel. I hope that Hillary gets that chance to implement a peaceful vision in our fragile little country.

After all, what’s good for humanity is what’s good for Israel.

The author is an award-winning author, educator and consultant, and the founder of The Center for Jewish Feminism. She blogs at A Jewish Feminist www.jewfem.com.

Hillary Clinton in 2016 is clearly the best bet for Zion

HILLARY CLINTON MAKES HISTORY

As Hillary Clinton’s strong primary showing essentially clinched the Democratic Presidential nomination for her, she urged Bernie Sanders supporters to remember their shared enemy

Eight years to the day after she delivered a poignant concession speech to Barack Obama, in which she talked of having made “eighteen million cracks” in the glass ceiling, Hillary Clinton walked onto a stage at the Brooklyn Navy Yard last night under very different circumstances. Like most modern campaign events, this one had been carefully choreographed. The Duggal Greenhouse, an upscale event space, had been converted into an elaborate television set, with huge American flags for the cameras to dwell on and much smaller flags for people in the crowd to hold.

For about three minutes, to the strains of Sara Bareilles’s “Brave,” Clinton basked in the cheers of her supporters. She was obviously pleased, but she appeared to be calm and keeping it together. Then, suddenly, she exhaled, lifted her arms to the sky in a victory salute, and beamed with delight—a moment of release aftermonths, years, decades, even, of struggling and striving to get where she now stood: on the cusp of becoming the first woman to be nominated as a Presidential candidate for a big American political party.

To some extent, the Associated Press and the networks had stepped on the story by declaring Clinton the presumptive nominee a day earlier, based on a count of superdelegates. But this was still a huge night for her, for the Democratic Party, and for the country. With New Jersey already called in her favor and the early returns from New Mexico and South Dakota looking promising, she was getting very close to being in the unassailable position of having won a majority of elected delegates, a majority of superdelegates, and the popular vote. “Tonight we go over the top against any measure,” John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, told CNN shortly before she spoke. (Not long after she took the stage, the networks projected that she would get enough elected delegates to secure a majority of them, and, a bit later, President Obama called her and congratulated her on her victory.)

She began her speech by acknowledging her predecessors in the struggle for gender equality, some of whom were featured in a video that was shown before she took the stage. “Tonight’s victory is not about one person. It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible,” she said. Before long, she pivoted to her first political mission of the night: appealing to Bernie Sanders supporters, and uniting her party behind her. “I want to congratulate Senator Sanders for the extraordinary campaign he has run,” Clinton declared. “He’s excited millions of voters, especially young people. And let there be no mistake: Senator Sanders, his campaign, and the vigorous debate that we’ve had—about how to raise incomes, reduce inequality, increase upward mobility—have been very good for the Democratic Party and for America.”

It is easy to be gracious in victory, but Clinton was clearly signalling that she was willing to work toward satisfying Sanders’s demand that she and her campaign reach out to the many new voters that he has attracted, and welcome them into the Democratic Party. Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, talked with Jeff Weaver, his counterpart in the Sanders campaign, on the phone yesterday, and Clinton directly addressed embittered Sanders supporters, reminding them that she has been in their position. “Now, I know it never feels good to put your heart into a cause or a candidate you believe in and to come up short. I know that feeling well,” she said, to laughs and cheers. “But, as we look ahead to the battle that awaits, let’s remember all that unites us.”

The “all that unites us” turned out to include a desire to forge an economy with “more opportunity and less inequality, where Wall Street can never wreck Main Street again,” to get “unaccountable money out of politics,” and to create “a society that is tolerant, inclusive, and fair.” “We believe that coöperation is better than conflict, unity is better than division, empowerment is better than resentment, and bridges are better than walls,” she said.

The phrase “bridges are better than walls,” which Clinton has used before, was her pivot to the factor that she and her campaign are really relying on to bring the Democratic Party and its supporters together: Donald Trump’s position at the top of the Republican ticket. Repeating a charge that she made last week, in a big foreign-policy speech, Clinton declared, “Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit to be President and Commander-in-Chief.” On this occasion, though, Clinton extended her indictment of Trump to the impact that his election would have on America at home, and on the values the country espouses. “He’s not just trying to build a wall between America and Mexico; he’s trying to wall off Americans from each other,” she said. “When he says, ‘Let’s make America great again,’ that is code for ‘Let’s take America backwards.’ Back to a time when opportunity and dignity were reserved for some, not all.”

With her voice and body language indicating horror, she listed some of Trump’s verbal atrocities: claiming that a federal judge couldn’t do his job properly because of his Mexican heritage, mocking a reporter with a disability, and calling women pigs. “It goes against everything we stand for,” Clinton said. “Because we want an America where everyone is treated with respect, and where their work is valued.”

The crowd cheered. And Clinton wasn’t done with her soon-to-be opponent. “It’s clear that Donald Trump doesn’t believe we are stronger together,” she went on. “He has abused his primary opponents and their families, attacked the press for asking tough questions, denigrated Muslims and immigrants.” At this point, Clinton’s voice grew especially disdainful. “He wants to win by stoking fear and rubbing salt in the wounds, and reminding us daily just how great he is.” Then, taking in the crowd’s laughter, she smiled broadly.

If the address that she gave last week suggested that she and her speechwriters are relishing the prospect of taking on an offensive, motor-mouthed New York billionaire, this speech confirmed it. For Clinton, who is often accused of lacking communication skills and an overarching vision, Trump’s presence in the race has provided an edge and a theme: Stop the bully. She didn’t use that exact phrase, but after bringing up her mother, Dorothy Howell Rodham, who died in 2011, she said, “My mother believed that life is about serving others. And she taught me never to back down from a bully, which it turns out was pretty good advice.”

Bully-fighting isn’t the mission that Clinton thought she would be executing when she entered the Presidential race, in the spring of 2015. But it fits the moment, it serves the national interest, and, from America’s first female presumptive nominee, it sends a powerful subliminal message: You think Trump’s tough? Just watch me take him down.