Rep. Eliot Engel: Israel’s Man in Washington

The new Israeli Ambassador to the United States, so it seems, is Eliot L. Engel who is also the Congressional Representative of the Likud Party to the 17th Congressional District of New York.  He is expected by the experts here at Mantiq al-Tayr to keep both positions at the same time, since many Israeli-firsters are allowed to do the same thing, including Jonathan Pollard, an Israeli spy who  was allowed to work at the US Naval Yard for a few years while pretending to be an American. Pollard behaved brazenly as an obvious “kook” who gave all indications of being a spy, but nothing was done that resulted in preventing him from stealing over 1 million documents. Naturally, Eliot L. Engel is an advocate of Pollard’s release from prison. But, once again, I digress.

Engel usurped the Israeli Ambassador (read “Vice-Roy) to the United States’ role brazenly on April 6, 2009 in the Jerusalem Washington New York Times Post’s “Letters to the Editor” section.  We at Mantiq al-Tayr thought this was a cool way of  taking over the job and we congratulate him for his “hutzpah”.

It seems that the JWNYTP published an editorial on March 31st that was ever so mildly critical of the viciously racist government that the people of Israel just elected.  It’s pretty boring, but if you want to read it go here.

Anyway, Eliot  L. (let my Jonahthan go) Engel was outraged and came to the defense of what he admits is a “Jewish state” and accused the JNWNYTP of ignoring all the things the Palestinians have to do to before the Israelis stop stealing their land and butchering their women and children. Normally, as beleaguered former readers of the JWNYTP know all too well, this sort of letter to the editor is what an ambassador writes to the Post after it has published something making his country look bad. But thank God the Israelis have Engel to take on these tasks to free the nominal Israeli ambassador to do only G-d knows what other tasks.

Fortunately, Engel has some good points. He likes Italians as we see from this citation (red text is my emphasis, as usual):

“He was the prime sponsor of the Congressional resolution recognizing Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, and he wrote the bill designating October as Italian American Cultural and Heritage Month.”

He is also clearly against the war in Iraq:

Eliot Engel was a strong supporter of a massive military campaign against Iraq in 2002, refusing to meet with and ultimately rebuffing constituents who asked him to vote against the measure. On October 10, 2002, he was among the 81 House Democrats who voted in favor of authorizing the invasion of Iraq. As the war dragged on, his position changed. He now responds to questions about his support for the war by saying that had he known then what he now knows, he would have acted differently.

For example, he probably would not have taken over $99,000 dollars from pro Israeli outfits in 2007-2008 and instead started a toy drive for hospitalized Palestinian children.  Actually he didn’t offer to do the toy drive, we just suggest it as one possible alternative.

Of course, his sponsorship of the Syrian Accountability Act, has nothing to do with the money he gets from the Jewish Lobby and was balanced by years of his fighting against Israeli’s occupation of Lebanon and its war on Hizballah in 2006.

Understandably, his support of Israel goes back to his childhood when he just couldn’t help but root for a Jewish state.

My strong support of the state of Israel has its roots in my childhood when I first learned about the then-young Jewish state, and, since then, I have never wavered in my belief in a strong and vital U.S.-Israel relationship. I can only say that my support for Israel today in the United States Congress began long before I was elected and will continue long after I leave office. This is a basic, bedrock principle in which I believe.

This of course has nothing to do with Engel being a Muslim fundamentalist.

Of course, it’s nice to stand up for what you believe in. And since Engel seems to think he is the Israeli ambassador to the United States he no longer wishes to be considered a resident of the State of New York. Instead, he wishes to be a resident of Maryland where he, and may other so-called representatives live, as do, no doubt, many other overt Israeli diplomats. Although he wants to be an official Maryland resident, he wants to still “represent” the 17th district in New York.

He continued to claim Maryland as his primary residence and appealed. He lost the appeal last month. He has given no indication of running in Maryland’s 8th district where he has claimed his primary residency for at least the past 6 years. He plans on defending his congressional seat in the 17th district of NY despite his insistence of Maryland residency

Well why not? After all, he is representing Israel no matter where he lives.

It’s time for some serious House cleaning, and I suggest that the 17th district of New York is as good a place to begin as any.