Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin on Iranian TV: Israel Controls Congress, U.S. Foreign Policy by ‘Force’

Press TV, the English language propaganda outlet of the state sponsor of terrorism Iran, featured Islamist terrorist supporter Code Pink co-founder Susan “Medea” Benjamin in a 25 minute broadcast interview recorded this week in Tehran. In the interview Benjamin accused Israel of controlling Congress and U.S. foreign policy against the interests of the American people.

Benjamin was in Iran to participate in the Iranian regime’s anti-U.S.-Israel conference called, New Horizon. The interview was posted to YouTube in two parts by Press TV.

Part One is here:

Here is Part Two.

As The Gateway Pundit reported previously, the Iranian government’s conference was attended by anti-U.S., anti-Israel activists from the West. The conference’s opening speaker was Mohsen Ghomi, the personal advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Benjamin’s comments about Israel controlling Congress and U.S. foreign policy echoed a similar statement by Ghomi at the conference who said “American officials are puppets of the Zionist lobby who are taking advantage of American ignorance.”

The interview opened with footage of Benjamin in action protesting in the United States, culminating in video of her famous (in the Islamist world) confrontation with President Barack Obama last year over his failure to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and his policy of killing Islamist terrorists by drone warfare. The intro had the feel of a jihadi video.

What the introduction (and interview) didn’t say is that Benjamin and Code Pink are players at top levels in the Democratic party and the U.S. government–and that Benjamin’s outburst against Obama was political theater straight out of the inside/outside game.

The interview focused on America’s alleged sins in the world fighting the war on terror, with a special focus on Israel and that nation’s alleged control of U.S. foreign policy. The subject of Iran was not brought up at all in the nearly half-hour sit-down interview with Benjamin.

Benjamin dismissed the outrage about Americans being beheaded by ISIS as the product of media “hype”, saying that Americans are being “manipulated” in to supporting war on ISIS. Benjamin also criticized Americans for allegedly valuing American lives more than those of Muslims. Benjamin said the United States has been “killing people in the Muslim world with such ease.” Benjamin went on to criticize the American people for being “out for blood, out for revenge” over the beheading of Westerners by ISIS.

Benjamin (a Jewish-American who became a Castro-jihadist toady) and the interviewer, Marzieh Hashemi (an African-American who became an Iranian regime toady) both covered themselves in Iranian government dictated Islamic headscarves. Benjamin wore a pink headscarf with black peace symbols.

NPR described Hashemi in a 2009 article about an interview with her about the Green Revolution in Iran:

“Iranian-American Marzieh Hashemi was born in New Orleans but moved to Iran a year ago and reports for Iran’s Press TV. As one of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad supporters, Hashemi tells host Scott Simon that that much of the world has a distorted view of what has happened in Iran in the aftermath of the disputed election.”

Benjamin markets herself as a feminist, but she has allied herself with Islamist regimes and groups that treat women like chattel. In the 1980s she lived in communist Cuba and was married to a Cuban. She claims she was deported (along with her husband, they’ve since divorced) for criticizing the regime. Yet Benjamin is on good terms with Fidel Castro and has since worked in Cuba with the Castro government against the U.S.

It would appear likely that Benjamin, like many American leftists of a certain age (she just turned 62), was trained by Cuba in Marxist, pro-terrorist, anti-American agit-prop that she employs to this day in direct contacts at the highest levels of governments around the world—including those of Iran and the United States. (Earlier this year Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson personally met with Benjamin and Code Pink at DHS headquarters. Johnson reportedly asked Benjamin for her autograph.)

Hashemi asked Benjamin about Israel’s influence over the United States government. Both seemed tentative about the subject with Benjamin at first giving a silent nod of agreement and then answering by saying that other people get in trouble for saying that, but then she warmed up and expounded on the subject at length.

The set-up to the question was Benjamin speaking about the recent Israel-Hamas war and her criticizing American elected officials for saying “we support Israel’s right to self-defense.” Benjamin said, “That sends a message to the American people that ‘Israel equals good–Palestinians equal terrorists, equal bad…’”

Hashemi: “Do you feel that eh, um…the strength or the effect of Israeli policy on, on American politicians, their ‘influence’ if we want to use that word, eh, seems to be of more importance than even the needs of the American people themselves?”

Benjamin: “I, I think there are people even within our military who have said it and then have been attacked, uh, saying that we have been, uh, conducting foreign policy often times in the interest of Israel against the interests of the United States.”

Hashemi: “How dangerous is that for a sovereign country?”

Benjamin: “Well, it, it’s terrible. I mean people are elected to represent the American people not to represent a foreign country. And the fact that just about every single new Congressman is forced, uh, by pressure to go on a trip to Israel paid for by a lobby group, uh, to see a one-sided propagandistic view of, uh, the situation in Israel and Palestine–and then to come back and be a cheerleader for the Israeli government is a very, very dangerous thing. The fact that any time a Congressperson might make their way, uh, to the West Bank or even to Gaza to get their own firsthand look and then come back and say something about the brutality of the Israeli government, that Congressperson is not going to have much of a future. So it’s very dangerous. It totally affects U.S. policy and I would say that it distorts, uh, what a democracy is supposed to be where the elected officials are supposed to represent the best interests of their constituents.”

(Transcription by Kristinn Taylor.)

 

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Kristinn Taylor has contributed to The Gateway Pundit for over ten years. Mr. Taylor previously wrote for Breitbart, worked for Judicial Watch and was co-leader of the D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com. He studied journalism in high school, visited the Newseum and once met David Brinkley.

You can email Kristinn Taylor here, and read more of Kristinn Taylor's articles here.

 

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