Democracy v lobby power

Ever wondered why European politicians keep backing #Israel even as public opinion turns against its genocidal war in #Gaza? Groups like #ELNET play a huge role - organizing VIP trips to Israel for lawmakers, pushing ready-made talking points that equate criticism with #antisemitism, and even influencing arms deals worth billions. While polls show most Europeans want sanctions, politicians stay silent, fearing backlash or economic ties.

[…] ELNET, whose former CEO, Emmanuel Navon, presented it to the Knesset as the European equivalent of the powerful American lobby #AIPAC, operates six branches in Europe - in Paris, London, Brussels, Rome, Warsaw, and Berlin - in addition to its main headquarters in Israel. Among other activities, ELNET organizes delegations for hundreds of parliamentarians, distributes advocacy materials, promotes arms deals, and acts against pro-Palestinian movements across the continent. In recent months, a group of journalists from Germany, Israel, France, and the U.S. conducted a comprehensive investigation into the organization, aiming to shed light on its activities. The investigation, based on dozens of interviews and thousands of documents, exposes how the organization operates and its close ties with senior officials in #Netanyahu’s government and other right-wing bodies. In the few mentions of ELNET in the Israeli media, it is typically presented as a nonprofit or international/European organization focused on strengthening relations between Europe and Israel.

Hebrew https://www.mekomit.co.il/%D7%97%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%94-%D7%9B%D7%9A-%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%91%D7%93-%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%A0%D7%98-%D7%94%D7%90%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%90%D7%A7-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%90%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A4%D7%94/

ELNET’s “Wall of Questions” (#Fragenmauer https://fragemauer.de) Campaign: In #Germany, ELNET’s public campaign explicitly states that calling Israel’s actions in #Gaza a “genocide” is antisemitic. The campaign provides “answers” that dismiss such claims as baseless and motivated by hatred of Jews, without engaging with the legal or factual basis for the genocide accusation ​⁠

See also

https://theintercept.com/2025/12/15/elnet-aipac-israel-lobby-europe

Photo

ELNET-Germany is the most influential pro-Israel entity in Berlin after the Israeli Embassy. Bomb autographer and gaza genocide poster boy #Herzog at an ELNET event at a security conference in Munich in 2015 (Photo: elnetdeutschland / CC BY-SA 2.0).

@palestine @palstudies
#GazaGenocide #antisemtism #aipac #proisraellobby

"There are two ways to accuse a foreign state of wrongdoing.

One is plain nouns...

The other is the spectral villain. You name a force that feels powerful, hidden, and unaccountable. You imply it is everywhere. You let the public fill in the gaps. ‘#Zionism’ plays that role very well because it can slide between meanings without ever declaring which one it is using.

Sometimes it is meant as ‘the #Israeli government’. Sometimes it is meant as ‘the #proIsraellobby’. Sometimes it is meant as ‘Israel’s intelligence services’. Sometimes it is simply a hiss-word for ‘the West’, ‘the rich’, ‘the press’, ‘global finance’, ‘people who run things’. The flexibility is the feature.

That flexibility is also why it so easily aligns to older #antisemitic patterns. A word that can mean ‘a state’ one moment and ‘a secret global force’ the next will predictably pull people toward the oldest shortcut of all: there is a hidden hand, and it is #Jewish."

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/when-zionist-becomes-a-political-bogeyman/

#RepresentativeDemocracy is looking trash.
#CorporateCapture has #ClimateChange steaming on, #TaxLoopholes for the rich, #WagesTheft not criminalised, #ZeroTaxCorporations, ecological destruction.

And capture by #ProIsraelLobby has the #GazaGenocide ignored, excused, trivialised.

And there are the failures of; #AgedCare, #ChildAbuse in gov institutions, victimising the unemployed, #FOI, #IndigenousHealth, online bullying of children, FoxNews conspiracy propaganda ..
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Publications_and_resources/Papers_and_research/Papers_on_Parliament_and_other_resources/Papers_on_Parliament/66/The_Contemporary_Crisis_of_Representative_Democracy

Kafka comes to CUNY - Democratic governor Kathy Hochul blocks a job ad for a professorship in Palestinian studies because it was hateful and antisemitic. This blog was modified and featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and is written by a Jewish scholar worried about academic freedom. Well, more than worried.

#Palestine
#NewYork
#HunterCollege
#CUNY
#AcademicFreedom
#ProIsraelLobby

https://coreyrobin.com/2025/02/28/kafka-comes-to-cuny/

Quoting Chaim Levinson: "A Jew who votes for the Republican Party is a suicidal Jew"

[...] There is nothing more dangerous to the Jewish people than the rise of fascist populists, even if they are 'pro-Israel'. The entire essence and being of populists is to arouse and encourage crudeness, simplicity, brutishness, and poverty of spirit, hatred between parts of society as a substitute for seriousness and relevance, for complexity and social processes. It is the weapon of the unsophisticated to reach a position of power. And even if for a moment it seems that Jews and Israelis are on the 'right side' of the populists, it's only for a moment. Because Jews are always the stranger, the other and the 'them', the exploitative global elite, and in an instant all this positive energy will turn against the Jewish people. A Jew who votes for the Republican Party is a suicidal Jew, who with his own hands brings to power the most disturbed, extreme, and violent currents in American society. He thinks he's friends with the mafia boss who will take care of him, and doesn't understand that he's next in line to pay protection money.

Hebrew https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/galleryfriday/chaimlevinson/2024-09-11/ty-article/.highlight/00000191-dbf2-dac5-a5b3-dff655d80000 or https://archive.ph/6GVS5

@israel
@histodons
@palestine
#harriswaltz2024
#ProIsraelLobby #ADL #Netanyahu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAZjjJBCw3o

#DemocracyNow

#AIPAC 🤮 v. #JamaalBowman : Rep. #AyannaPressley on #ProIsraelLobby Challenge to #TheSquad

#RejectAIPAC #DumpAIPAC #Election2024 #NYC #NewYorkCity #NewYork #NY #NewYork16

#VoteforJamaalBowman #FreePalestineNow🇵🇸

#JewsForJamaalBowman ✡️ #BritsInSolidarityWithJamaalBowman

#ReElectAndProtectTheSquad #ReElectJamaalBowman

#Election2024

#DUMPAIPAC #RejectAIPAC #GeorgeLatimerTakesRacistAIPACmoney