Clinton-“Pot calls kettle black”

First- I must go on record saying that I believe that the claims by Mrs. Hillary Clinton that Russia interfered in the US elections, to be another of her limp excuses for having lost the Presidential election. There is no indication that the U.S.ballot boxes were tampered with, nor that the computers which tallied the votes were infringed upon… so what is she alluding to?  Perhaps she is aware of some advertising taken out on social media or elsewhere?  After she so conveniently arranged for the Russians to purchase 20 % of the U.S. Uranium reserves under her stewardship, it is hard to understand why the Russians would want to damage the convenient association they had developed with Mrs. Clinton. Her claims that Putin and she had personal animosity, seem childish at best. At worst they may be intended as a deflection to distance herself from the benefits she received from the Uranium deal. It has never been clarified to my satisfaction, why a strong Putin would want a strong Trump as an adversary. Their views of International politics were then and continue to be diametrically opposed. This obsession with Russian intervention in the past election is a Clinton mantra, supported by little.

What makes her claims about Russian intervention so disingenuous, is that it is well known around the world that the United States has frequently attempted to influence the elections of other countries, and has tried to, and often succeeded in, the overthrow of world leaders not to their liking. One case which has slipped from the public’s memory is that of the 1999 Prime Ministerial election in the State of Israel.

Do you remember the election between Ehud Barak and Bibi Netanyahu in May of 1999 when Netanyahu was ultimately deposed?  It was an election which reeked from illegalities and questionable behavior. It was a very emotional contest as it followed a total of six difficult years of the United States trying to force the Oslo Accord (signed in Washington DC in 1993 and followed by Oslo II which was signed in Taba Egypt in 1995), during which no measurable progress was made towards a permanent peace between the PLO and Israel. In spite of Arafat’s unwillingness to compromise on any of the negotiations during the process, and his steadfast refusal to accept that Israel even had a basic right to exist, Netanyahu was singularly blamed   for the lack of progress which the United States, and its State Department, had anticipated. Netanyahu served as Prime Minister of Israel from June 1996 to July of 1999, and these were years during which Bill Clinton was President of the United States.

Some very interesting things happened during the Barak-Netanyahu election. First: a man by the name of James Carvel became the mastermind behind the Ehud Barak campaign. Curiously, he was also the man who was the lead strategist for the successful campaign for Bill Clinton’s 1992 Presidential election.  At the time, I was shocked to see that the Israeli Labor Party… could even consider the fees required to hire the very man who led the Clinton victory. How could they possibly afford him?  Looking at the statistics of those who voted  for Bill Clinton in his 1992 election, the total count was almost 45 million,  The number of Labor supporters who voted for Ehud Barak in 1999 was one 1,800,000.   Hence it is reasonable to estimate that the Clinton campaign had at least twenty-five (25) times more supporters and resources than Ehud Barak had in his campaign. The budgets of the Israeli political parties are miniscule compared to those of the Democratic Party in the U.S.  James Carvel was Clinton’s man. Clearly, Clinton (and the State Department) wanted Ehud Barak to win, not Netanyahu.  How was Carvel paid?  Did anyone ever investigate that?

In the meantime, election day came, and in fact Mr. Barak won the coveted position.  Most of us will remember Prime Minister Barak  driving Yasser Arafat through the Old City to show him the areas which Barak was prepared to concede in order to make peace.  We also remember clearly that Arafat refused the deal. He wanted  “ALL” of the Old City, not just a portion of it . But Mr. Barak was doing what he was elected to do… offering what we now recognize was potential self-destruction as a bargaining chip. This was what the US saw as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse.

What followed was also shocking.  It became public knowledge that the Barak Prime Ministerial campaign was full of illegalities. The front pages of Israel’s newspapers were full of reports of “illegal amoutot”, which translates to – “illegal charities”. These were set up to funnel illegal monies into the Barak campaign. It was a tremendous scandal. Why did they need to set up these illegal entities? Where was the money coming from to pay for the Barak campaign?  Clearly it was not coming from Israelis who could have given through legal means. It was being given by foreign governments… or friends of those governments, who wrote checks to the charities which were then routed to Barak’s party to pay for his campaign. I would suggest (and it is only an opinion) that these funds may have even paid for Carvel’s efforts which were being implemented at the instructions of the United States. No investigative reporter was able to reveal the background to this deception. The goal however, was to unseat Netanyahu. It succeeded.

For those who do not remember the details, the matter of these illegal charities went to police investigations. The heads of these charities turned out to be fourteen family members and friends of Ehud Barak who refused to testify. In the end the courts gave up and assigned a fine of $3.2 million to Barak’s party, for “trampling the law.” In a massive travesty of justice, none of the individuals who were in charge of the fake charities was held accountable.  Ehud Barak was certainly not held responsible. There were a few ironies in this story. First; The amount which they were accused of funneling was $1.2 million dollars. The fine was almost three times that. There is no way of knowing if the fine was ever paid. Secondly; the election was never deemed fraudulent, and Barak was allowed to serve even though his campaign methods were illegal.  Why should anyone be surprised that politicians continue to stretch the limits of the law – when their own Democratic systems make the penalties miniscule or in the case of Barak himself, non-existent- in proportion to the crimes perpetrated?

It has come to my attention that the saying: “It is like the pot, calling the Kettle black,” is not well known to those born out of the United States.  It is similar in spirit to another saying that “People in glass houses should not throw stones.” When one accuses another of misdeeds, one needs to look in the mirror to be sure the reflection is squeaky clean.

Why bring the memory of all of this dirty laundry back to the fore?  Because it was, in my opinion, an example of the United States getting involved in the elections of another nation…where it had no right to do so. And coincidentally the administration which was behind this effort was that of the Bill Clinton’s…whose wife now has the audacity to blame her latest failure on Russian intervention into the recent U.S. presidential campaign.  In Israel we would call this “unmitigated chutzpah.” Elsewhere it is indeed explained as “the pot calling the kettle- black!”