AlterPolitics

This U.S. State Department press briefing exemplifies how the United States’ foreign policy in the Middle East is both nonsensical and indefensible.

State Dept. Spokesperson Victoria Nuland (the wife of Neocon Robert Kagan) could not give a sound and plausible answer to a single question she fielded. The press corp questions continued to come back to one central theme: Why is the U.S. impotent in its ability to influence Israel to stop its illegal settlement expansions, and to engage with the Palestinians for peace, when it gives this tiny country $3 billion per year in military aid — which could clearly be used to pressure them?

Two reporters asked her outright if the Israel Lobby’s influence, as it pertains to President Obama’s 2012 reelection prospects, has made it impossible for the United States to act as an honest broker in the ‘peace process.’  

One reporter, when referring to U.S. legislation which automatically defunded UNESCO this week for accepting Palestine as a member, thus harming America’s own national security interests in the process, asked Nuland about the lobbying required to force Congress to change the two laws:

Does the Administration find it unpalatable that it has to go to another government [Israel], to other government officials, to lobby members of its own legislature?

WATCH:

TRANSCRIPT