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SMEARING CEASEFIRE PROTESTERS, PELOSI COMBINES DEVOTION TO ISRAEL
WITH COLD-WAR MANIA  
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Norman Solomon
January 29, 2024
Counterpunch
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_ Smearing Ceasefire Protesters, Pelosi Combines Devotion to Israel
with Cold-War Mania _

Representative Nancy Pelosi in May 2023. On Sunday, she suggested
that some pro-Palestinian protesters had ties to Russia., Kenny
Holston/The New York Times

 

Sometimes there’s a thin line between vile demagoguery and pure
idiocy. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi straddled both during a Sunday
appearance on CNN, when she smeared protesters who’ve been demanding
a ceasefire to end Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian people in Gaza.

“The former House speaker said, without offering evidence, that she
believed some protesters are connected to Russian President Vladimir
Putin,” NPR reported
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“For them to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin’s message,”
Pelosi said [[link removed]].
“Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like
to see. Same thing with Ukraine. It’s about Putin’s message. I
think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and
sincere. Some, I think, are connected to Russia. And I say that having
looked at this for a long time now.”

Like Congress as a whole, Pelosi refuses to acknowledge that so many
Americans are protesting because the Israeli armed forces have been
engaged in mass murder in Gaza for more than three and a half months.
And an inconvenient truth is that polling shows a large majority
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of people in the United States favor a ceasefire.

Pelosi is hardly unusual on Capitol Hill. Bipartisan loyalty to Israel
has been the political reflex, with few exceptions. But Pelosi is
notably servile to Israel.

Shortly before starting her second stint as House speaker in January
2019, Pelosi was recorded on video
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the Israeli American Council as she declared: “I have said to people
when they ask me – if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one
thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid, I don’t even
call it aid – our _cooperation_ – with Israel. That’s
fundamental to who we are.”

Such attitudes have fueled the massive
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of U.S. weaponry and other military aid to Israel, which has been
greatly boosted since Israeli forces began methodically killing
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hundreds of civilians per day
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immediately after the Hamas attack on October 7.

“All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs,
all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S.,” retired IDF
Major General Yitzhak Brick said
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late November. He added: “Everyone understands that we can’t fight
this war without the United States. Period.”

When Pelosi smears people who are expressing their moral objections to
the continuing carnage financed by U.S. taxpayers, she is tacitly
echoing what then-Vice President Joe Biden said
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2015 at the Annual Israeli Independence Day Celebration in Washington:
“As many of you heard me say before, were there no Israel, America
would have to invent one. We’d have to invent one because Ron
[Dermer, Israel’s ambassador] is right, you protect our interests
like we protect yours.”

The interlocking interests of powerful [[link removed]] pro-Israel
forces like AIPAC [[link removed]] and overall U.S. foreign
policy have led, most recently, to the extreme rhetorical and military
support for Israel’s ongoing mass murder in Gaza from the Democrat
in the White House and both parties in Congress. In this context,
Pelosi’s channeling of tactics honed by the likes of Joe McCarthy
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and Roy Cohn
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should not be too surprising. And Pelosi seemed to be channeling
Richard Nixon
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told CNN that she wants the FBI to investigate the financing of
ceasefire protesters.

But there’s also another key aspect of Pelosi’s nonsensical yet
calculated smear effort. Biden’s poll numbers have kept dropping
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most recently while so many Americans – especially those whose votes
he’ll need this fall – find his support for the Gaza slaughter
repugnant.

Grasping at straws, Pelosi evidently hopes for some political benefit
by casting blame on Russia for how Biden’s deference to Israel has
met with strong public opposition and erosion of support for
re-election. Yes, her gambit is ridiculous – but at a time when the
administration is revving up the cold war with Russia instead of
genuinely seeking diplomatic solutions for the Ukraine war and the
rampant nuclear arms race, Pelosi decided to throw down a handy
demagogic gauntlet to tar ceasefire protesters.

Like President Biden and so many others in the political
establishment, Nancy Pelosi cannot imagine breaking with the murderous
Israeli government and pursuing a foreign policy of peace instead of
nonstop U.S. efforts to dominate as much of the world as possible.

_Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org
[[link removed]] and executive director of the Institute for
Public Accuracy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America
Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, is published by The New
Press._

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* Nancy Pelosi; US and Israel; Russia;
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