A former aide to President Bill Clinton regularly sent articles decrying Israeli leadership to Hillary Clinton when she served as secretary of state, a new batch of emails released by the State Department revealed Monday evening.
Sidney Blumenthal, who appears to have served as an unofficial adviser to Clinton during her tenure at the State Department, sent the former secretary of state an assortment of articles, many of them penned by his son, Max, regarding Middle Eastern politics.
Max Blumenthal has not only accused Israel of committing war crimes, but he has also described the nation as an apartheid state.
In 2010, Clinton received a handful of Max Blumenthal's articles, including "The Great Fear," "Days of Rage — The Noxious Transformation of the Conservative Movement into a Rabid Fringe," "The Flotilla Raid Was Not 'Bungled.' The IDF Detailed Its Violent Strategy In Advance," "Netanyahu and Pastor Hagee's Lovefest on Eve of Biden's Arrival in Israel" and "The Israeli Media's Flotilla Fail."
Referring to Israel's break up the 2010 "Gaza Freedom Flotilla," the elder Blumenthal wrote of his son's work, "Max Blumenthal, who is now reporting from Israel, writing a book on the crisis of democracy there, details from the Israeli press how the raid was long planned and who approved it, how the Netanyahu government is stirring up support, and the internal consequences."
Sidney Blumenthal, who appears to be none too fond of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, referred to Israeli leadership and the Jewish community in the United States as "hysterical" for opposing efforts by the international community to encroach on the country's sovereignty. He also suggested that Clinton use a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as an opportunity to, "Hold Bibi's feet to the fire" and to promote the liberal group J Street, which is critical of the Israeli government.
That same year, Blumenthal sent Clinton a blog post penned by Uri Avnery titled "The Doomsday Weapon," wherein the author accused the "ultra-right government in Jerusalem" of treating President Obama with "thinly veiled contempt."
The column also contains extremely charged language, such as: "Obama, it seems, has crossed the Rubicon, much as the Egyptian army had crossed the Suez Canal in 1973."
"Netanyahu gave the order to mobilize all the reserves in America and to move forward all the diplomatic tanks. All Jewish organizations in the US were commanded to join the campaign. AIPAC blew the shofar and ordered its soldiers, the Senators and Congressmen, to storm the White House," the column added.
The Obama administration specifically barred the elder Blumenthal from being granted a job at the State Department because the president's team had not forgotten the role he played advising Clinton's failed 2008 presidential bid. Nevertheless, the longtime Clinton ally appears to have fed the then-secretary of state a stream of literature and supposed intelligence on major moves in the Middle East.
And based on Clinton's replies to his emails – frequently asking her aides to print copies – she listened.
"Without an effort, the two state solution is dead; if failed, on the other hand, also dead. Another idea, don't know if it can be made to work: How to introduce Israel entering the [Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty] and ending its nuclear ambiguity, which is its state policy, but which itself is the model for Iran now," he wrote in a note addressed to one of Clinton's many personal email addresses.
"Can this issue be used profitably in negotiations, a wild card, as it were? Can options be developed on whether it can, how it might work, potential effect on peace process? Israel's nuclear ambiguity policy is certainly a big issue coming given Iran," he added.
His ended his note by attaching a Haaretz article titled, "Why Israel should end its policy of nuclear ambiguity."
The emails to Clinton varied, with the supposed non-advisor regularly advising Clinton on State Department-related issues.
In 2010, Blumenthal forwarded Clinton a Foreign Policy article titled, "Will David Axelrod please be quiet, please?" In additional notes to Clinton, Blumenthal said that "Axelrod should not be a foreign policy spokesman on any issue or area," suggesting also that they needed to "rein" in Obama's former senior adviser.
"Axelrod has enough to do fixing the domestic messes he's made," Blumenthal wrote.
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