Here's a hint: His words this week will leave his words of a month ago about "neutrality" between Israel and the "Palestinians" nowhere to be found.
The con, in other words, will be on:
As America's leading pro-Israel group prepares to hear from nearly all the presidential candidates, most eyes in the crowd of thousands of participants will be on GOP front-runner Donald Trump.
He's the wild card whose previous comments about Israel have created some anxiety among many who will attend the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference this week in Washington....
Much like the American electorate at large, the pro-Israel community in the United States is anything but monolithic, and this year's conference appears set to highlight those different constituencies, including socially liberal Democrat Jews, establishment Republican Jews, and conservative evangelical Christians.
In a broad sense, all the candidates confirmed to speak on Monday fall into one of those categories. Except Trump — and therein lies the angst.
"Trump has said a lot of things about Israel over the years, most of it favorable but some of it more ambiguous," said Josh Block, a former AIPAC official who now heads The Israel Project. "This will be an opportunity to address the ambiguity before a serious foreign policy audience."
It would be if you could rely on Trump being candid about what, if anything, he really believes on the subject. Is he pro-Israel? Anti-Israel? Neutral between the two, which is functionally the same as option #2? Like any amoral huckster, "ambiguity" is part of the game, because if the potential sucker doesn't know where you're coming from, he'll be more likely to swallow the hook. It expands the "market" for whatever you're trying to unload.
When asked about this topic at the aforelinked MSNBC town hall event, an at least theoretically neutral setting, Trump abstained from taking a side. Now he'll be addressing the biggest pro-Israel lobbying group in America. What do you think he's going to say? He'll tell them he's a YUUUUUUGE supporter of the Jews, the biggest booster they've got and friend in the White House they could ever have, and he'll "get a GREAT deal" on a "two-state solution," and that, of course, "some of my best friends are kikes". He's not, in other words, going to limit his market. Just like he won't limit his market on any issue. He wants to keep as many suckers in play as he possible can.
Here's a topical example:
AIPAC bills itself as nonpartisan and has never endorsed a candidate. Yet the organization has delved into highly partisan political debates over issues of interest to Israel, most recently and notably the Iran nuclear deal, which it vehemently opposed. In that, it is at odds with ardent deal supporters [Hillary] Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and to a certain degree, with Kasich, the lone Republican who has not said he would automatically rescind the pact.
Trump and Cruz have promised, if elected, to rip up the agreement.
Cruz has; Trump since might have. But seven months ago, Trump also said this:
GOP presidential [candidate Donald Trump] says he has taken over some bad contracts in his years as a businessman, and, as president, he would make the best of the nuclear deal recently negotiated by the Obama administration.
"The people that negotiated that deal, mainly [Commissar of State John] Kerry and his friends, are incompetent," Trump said Sunday on Meet the Press.
But Trump told moderator Chuck Todd in an interview taped Saturday in Iowa that he is accustomed to looking over bad deals negotiated by others and finding ways to work them to his own advantage. He said he would do the same for the United States with the Iran deal if it is passed by Congress.
Rather than rip the deal up, as some of his opponents have suggested they'd do, Trump said, "I would police that contract so tough that they don't have a chance." [emphases added]
Which, of course, the "deal" does not permit us to do when Iran is specifically empowered to inspect itself and no "inspectors" (Gadget? Clouseau?) can go anyplace with out explicit Iranian permission.
Would Trump rip up the "deal" or wouldn't he? It depends on his sucker audience. At AIPAC, expect him to claim that he'll also feed it through a shredder and a confetti-maker, jump up and down on the confetti, piss on it, (have his people) dig a hole and bury it, pave it over, and salt and piss on THAT. And then next week, or whenever, when he's addressing the Council on American Islamic Relations, expect him to disavow everything he said this week. Because that's what a conman does.
Oh, and never forget this Trump follower....
Do you think the "GO BACK TO AUSCHWITZ!" guy is confident that his cult leader will be shoveling to the Jews with both hands? I would be.
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