The Kennedy hall of shame on Palestine

Kennedy continues to deny Israeli crimes against Palestinians without conscience

This is so bad, it's almost parody but unfortunately it demonstrates Kennedy is no different to Biden, Harris and bi-partisan associates when it comes to Foreign policy and the ‘security’ of Israel. He can't pronounce Chechnya. He calls the hijab "habib". It's a genuinely embarrassing display of ignorance and orientalism.

Kennedy once again erases Israeli crimes against Palestinians - Jenin is a “bomb factory” full of “terrorists” and is therefore a legitimate target for Zionist ethnic cleansing. As a lawyer Kennedy should at least know that under international law, Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against a brutal, aggressive, genocidal occupier.

Max Blumenthal wrote on Twitter:

"Watch Robert Kennedy Jr demolish his credibility as a peace candidate in 4.5 minutes

A campaign that began as a defiant broadside against the war state and censorship industrial complex has suddenly pivoted to a bellicose exercise in pandering to rich Likudniks who seek war with Iran, the permanent violent warehousing of Palestinians and the criminalization of activism that challenges Israeli apartheid.

RFK Jr's host was Shmuley Boteach, a professional race hustler and alleged financial fraudster who owes the existence of his one-man political operation to the fortune of Sheldon Adelson, the late ultra-Zionist oligarch who called for dropping a nuclear weapon on Iran.

If RFK was not handed a massive wad of Benjamins to suck up to Shmuley, he was embarrassing himself for free, because he was clearly out of his depth.

During a rambling, militaristic diatribe, he referred to hijabs as "habibs," pronounced Chechnya as though he hadn't heard of the place until twenty minutes before the event, and offered a history of Israel's creation so cartoonishly propagandistic, it made Alan Dershowitz look like Ilan Pappe.

RFK Jr took it upon himself – or was taken on – to defend the Israeli army's brigade-sized invasion of Jenin, during which it bombed buildings with fighter jets and ran bulldozers through the middle of a refugee camp. He referred to the entire city as "a bomb factory," justifying the invasion because, in his words, "virtually one hundred percent of the people there are supporting terrorism." According to RFK, "everybody [in Jenin] is involved in bomb making" – there are no civilians there at all, therefore all are legitimate targets.

He did not seem to know that the Palestinian campaign of suicide bombing ended well over 15 years ago, or that the Palestinian Authority is legally forbidden from defending Palestinians from Israeli violence – its primary function is to act as an occupation subcontractor. According to RFK Jr, the PA has an official "pay-to-slay policy," in which "if you kill any Jew, you are going to get awarded with pay for life." Even professional AIPAC lobbyists shy away from this kind of baseless invective.

The half-baked hasbara escalated from there as RFK Jr cited Richard Kemp, a former British army officer who subsists on Israel lobby speaking fees, to claim "the conduct of the IDF, the Israeli defense forces when they go into Palestinian territories, is beyond anything in the world."

While Israeli army commanders openly adhere to the Dahiya Doctrine, named for the Beirut neighborhood Israel leveled in 2006, and which calls for targeting Arab civilians in order to turn them against their leadership, RFK Jr insisted that Israel's policy is to "avoid civilian casualties" – it exclusively attacks military targets.

It is hard to believe RFK Jr's ahistorical, belligerent line on Israel-Palestine was not bought and paid for by some pro-Israel billionaire. Which means he's just as corruptible as any Democrat or GOP hack. But if he actually believes what he's saying, he's also at least as pro-war as they are."

Watch:

It only gets worse. Kennedy takes a question from a Jewish Voice for Peace activist ( “a Jewish woman who believes in justice”) filmed by Indie News Network - credits here and here.

Kennedy is asked (as a lawyer) for his opinion on the assassination of US/Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May 2022. Akleh was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper while she was covering an Israeli raid on Jenin Camp that Kennedy has described as a terrorist bomb factory:

'They were shooting directly at journalists.' These are the words of one eyewitness to the shooting of veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin Camp, in the West Bank.

Kennedy remains seated during the heated exchange between Shmuley Boteach and the JVP activist. He allows Shmuley to answer questions directed to Kennedy and does not prevent the shouting down of the question.

She is asked for her name half way through the discussion by a belligerent Shmuley who informs her that “Israel is a democracy with a free press” - the activist reminds him that she is not addressing her question to him. Shmuley dismisses the claim of targeting Abu Akleh as a lie, repeats that Jenin is a “terrorist” enclave. Kennedy sits in silence.

Finally more than half way through the exchange Kennedy finally interjects when asked to respond about Abu Akleh and if he would be prepared to sit down and speak to JVP “or do those Jewish voices not count at all?”.

Kennedy claims to not know enough about the case - of the deliberate killing of a US Citizen. He is then seen laughing. He does not even have the courtesy to decline or accept the invitation to speak with JVP.

At this point I really don’t care how good Kennedy is on U.S internal policies, mandates or vaccines. I find his performance abhorrent. His role appears to be to make the U.S. even more isolationist, to divide the anti-imperialist/globalist factions and to turn them against each other while effectively maintaining the support for the US military outpost in the Middle East - a genocidal settler state with a history of illegal occupation, torture, child abuse and regional war crimes, land and resource theft including the almost weekly aggression against Syria and destruction of civilian infrastructure.

If this is the best the U.S. has then it is the worst for nations that have suffered decades of oppression and savagery from the Zionist entity.

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