| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:55 pm Post subject: Judge hints he could dismiss AIPAC case |
| Judge hints he could dismiss AIPAC case
Another item of proof of AIPAC power n control of our gov't
http://www.washingtonjewishweek.com...=5044&TM=539.37
Thursday, March 30, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3/29/2006 8:59:00 PM
Judge hints he could dismiss AIPAC case
by Ron Kampeas
JTA News and Features
A federal judge has hinted that he might dismiss the classified information case against two former officials of the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Hearing a defense motion for dismissal last Friday in an Alexandria court, District Judge T.S. Ellis III expressed reservations about the breadth of a never-used 1917 statute at the core of the case.
"What I'm really expressing discomfort about is that it's always nice to have a clear precedent to follow," he said. "I think we are in new, uncharted territory, so I'm going to consider this matter very carefully."
Ellis gave the sides until tomorrow to submit additional arguments, but the smiles around the defense table suggested they had fared better than expected at the hearing.
Steve Rosen, AIPAC's former foreign policy director, and Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, were indicted last August on charges that they relayed classified information to fellow AIPAC staffers, journalists and diplomats at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
AIPAC fired Rosen and Weissman last March, saying that information arising out of the investigation suggested they did not comport with AIPAC's standards. Federal prosecutors have made clear that AIPAC is not suspected of wrongdoing.
Free-speech advocates have raised alarms about the World War I-era statute that bans the retention and dissemination of "information relating to the national defense," saying its broadness collides with First Amendment protections because it could criminalize even casual conversations about the armed forces.
Now it is up to Ellis to decide if the statute passes First Amendment muster and should go to trial as planned on April 25.
Last week's vigorous hearing anticipated one of the core arguments to be tested if the case does go to trial: whether the statute, which criminalizes not just the relaying of classified information but its retention, includes oral communications.
The indictment focuses primarily on conversations about U.S. policy on Iran, al-Qaeda and other areas that Rosen and Weissman allegedly conducted with a number of government officials, especially Larry Franklin, a former mid-level Iran analyst at the Pentagon.
Franklin pleaded guilty Jan. 20 to leaking classified information. He was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.
"How do you give back what you heard?" asked Rosen's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, who led defense arguments in last week's hearing, referring to oral exchanges of information.
Ellis picked up the point, asking Kevin DiGregory, who is leading a large prosecution team, "What are they supposed to do, have a lobotomy?"
DiGregory countered that he would prove at trial that Rosen and Weissman conspired to solicit and disseminate the classified information, and that the nature of the information transfer was not at issue. In other words, he argued, the issue was conduct, not speech.
"All speech is conduct," Ellis replied.
DiGregory said that excluding oral exchanges from the statute would tie prosecutors' hands. Dismissing the case would set a precedent that could allow, say, a spy to have a contact read aloud a classified document, as long as he did not physically hand it over, he argued.
Ellis seemed most concerned by the First Amendment implications of the statute, asking Lowell and DiGregory to consider hypothetical cases.
Lowell, who served as chief counsel to Democrats on the U.S. House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee during President Clinton's impeachment hearings, parried the hypothetical case put to him by Ellis, in which a disgruntled government official calls a lobbyist and suggests to him that the United States might take military action against another nation.
To know that he is committing a crime by just listening, Lowell said, the lobbyist would have to know that the government official is reading from a classified document and is not authorized to leak it.
DiGregory would not count out using the statute against journalists, but said prosecutors would probably be more hesitant in going after the press.
"Because of the function the media serves in this country, we would have to carefully scrutinize whether to take action," he said. But he added, "If you look at the statute, it plainly applies to journalists, anyone, whoever."
Ellis said he would rule later on the defense's slate of subpoenas of top Bush administration officials, including Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state; Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser; and David Satterfield, the deputy ambassador in Baghdad. He suggested that he was likely to approve the subpoena of Satterfield, one of the government officials identified in the indictment as leaking information to Rosen.
The defense plans to press the government on why it is charging Rosen with accepting the leak while not prosecuting Satterfield with leaking the information in the first place.
On another motion, Ellis asked Lowell to try one last time to get three Israeli diplomats ‹ to whom Rosen and Weissman allegedly relayed the classified information ‹ to give depositions voluntarily. One of them is Naor Gilon, who until last summer was the chief political officer at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
U.S. Middle East policy CONTROLLED by pro-Israel lobby:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/03/17/u-s-middle-east-policy-motivated-by-pro-israel-lobby.php
Treason at a high level: Pentagon Zionists, AIPAC and Israel:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2004/09/08/treason-in-high-places-pentagon-zionists-aipac-and-israel.php
Israel first Ashcroft lobbies for Israeli company vs. Boeing:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/john-ashcroft-lobbyist-_b_17559.html?p=3#comments | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 6:57 pm Post subject: The Lobby Strikes Back |
| The Lobby Strikes Back
Harvard study of Israeli lobby's influence costs the dean of the Kennedy School his job
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8787 | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2006 6:14 am Post subject: |
| Israel Rules America!
By Ted Lang
Exclusive to Rense.com
3-31-6
Having voiced many times in the past much mental agony and hand wringing in this space as concerns the unbelievable outrages and injustices consistently and increasingly practiced by American government against the people of this once-great nation, the events of just the past week have clearly presented the one and only reason this is happening in America. Our nation's government is no longer our own. Our government is not responsive to the collective will of the American people. Let's look at two readily recognizable opinion segments of present day American society: the people and the military.
Over 75 percent of the American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan want out right now! The majority of American citizens want the troops out of Iraq also. What are "our representatives" in Congress doing? They are ignoring US! That's because Israel, the Israeli Lobby, AIPAC, and the Jewish owned and operated media shilling for Israel, are all wielding a power over this once-great nation grossly disproportionate to their numbers. What the fools in Congress, as well as the American fools classified as dispensationalist Christian fundamentalists, fail to come to grips with, is that the interests and the well-being of America and its people are no longer in the equation that balanced out the United States as the greatest nation on Earth.
What made our nation great was the structure of American government designed to support individual freedom, thereby capitalizing upon each and every individual citizen's creativity, intelligence, and rugged "can do" perseverance. We all know the effectiveness of defeating a captive or prisoner held for interrogation by playing the good cop/bad cop role employed to obtain a confession. This is accomplished by breaking down an individual's emotional and natural instincts for self preservation. Nationally, we have had our instincts for political self-preservation destroyed by a meaningless "two party system," a feigned opposition that has given unlimited license to the destroyers of American freedom. But the single controlling factor in American governmental politics is the rule of Israel in both our domestic and foreign policy.
First, it must be fully understood, that insofar as the Jewish nation-state of Israel is concerned, it is their number one intention not only to rule totally the people of the United States, but all the people of the world. This at first seems to be a statement of astronomical absurdity, but it is nothing of the kind; it follows logically and easily. And it may not necessarily be the intention of each and every Israeli citizen either, but merely that of their current political rulers. Nevertheless, Israel's political power governs both our domestic and foreign policy, and in the latter regard, we are their surrogate as the most powerful nation on Earth.
The prestigious John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University published the Mearsheimer-Walt Report, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," as part of their Faculty Research Working Papers Series. I think that it can readily be concluded that Harvard, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, is a responsible institution capable of producing unbiased essays, papers and other publications generally free of favoritism and/or those of a discriminatory or defamatory nature.
Yet, no sooner did the report air on March 26th
, than organized Jewish pressure was directed full blast at Harvard, the authors, and the report itself. Protesting Jews offered that the report was "anti-Semitic." This smear tactic is always employed by Jews out to ensure Israeli supremacy over anything or any event that even remotely smacks of the truth, and anything that remotely resembles a patriotic commitment on the part of an individual or individuals to our own nation that is beneficial to our own national interests.
How can the small Jewish nation of Israel, a nation of only slightly more than six million in population, a number only three fourths the population of New York City or the tiny state of New Jersey, be considered as having world domination on their agenda? Supported by six to ten million Jews in the United States, the exact number not being available thanks the manipulation of the US Government census by the Jewish lobby, AIPAC, the total therefore uncertain, Israeli citizens are now in charge of and in control of the Pentagon. The Jewish lobby controls our politicians, and the Jewish media protects Bush and spreads Israeli propaganda. But even if we were to stretch the Jewish population to its maximum estimates, their numbers still do not justify their magnified power. Fortune magazine placed AIPAC as the second most powerful lobby in Washington and right behind AARP.
The Mearsheimer-Walt Report attributes Israel's domination over the US in terms of only
Mearsheimer and Walt clearly convey, however, the tremendous influence the MSM has on public opinion in America, and given their stipulation of a pro-Israel leaning, as well as the Rense.com evidence of Jewish ownership and control, the existence of an extremely powerful and influential Zionist MSM propaganda machine is no longer merely prescient speculation.
As the unbelievable power of the Jewish lobby combines with the unbelievable power of the Jewish owned and operated Zionist media, Mearsheimer and Walt have confessed that Jewish control of the publishing industry would have precluded their report from ever seeing the light of day. This view echoes that of renowned American author Truman Capote, who referred to the dominance of Jews in publishing as the "Jewish mafia."
But concentrating on Mearsheimer and Walt's effort with regard only to the Israeli lobby, they conclude in their report: "Can the Lobby's power be curtailed? One would like to think so, given the Iraq debacle, the obvious need to rebuild America's image in the Arab and Islamic world, and the recent revelations about AIPAC officials passing U.S. government secrets to Israel. One might also think that Arafat's death and the election of the more moderate Abu Mazen would cause Washington to press vigorously and evenhandedly for a peace agreement. In short, there are ample grounds for U.S. leaders to distance themselves from the Lobby and adopt a Middle East policy more consistent with broader U.S. interests. In particular, using American power to achieve a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians would help advance the broader goals of fighting extremism and promoting democracy in the Middle East."
That the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is pro-Israel, and therefore Zionist, can of course not be denied. It, along with Israel, represents the greatest threat that the United States of America has ever been faced with. Israel is, therefore, our greatest enemy. Yet, the Zionist MSM insists otherwise offering that Israel is our greatest ally in the Middle East.
But check out the prices at the gas pump, and then reflect upon how and why we're in Iraq. Remember the price of gasoline before Israel and its "dual" citizens in the Pentagon maneuvered US into Iraq. Remember how AIPAC and Israel clamored for American involvement to destroy Iraq and remove Saddam, Israel's former greatest threat. And just look how AIPAC and Israel are pushing for US to invade and destroy Iran now. Do either AIPAC or Israel care that this might ignite World War III? How can they be our "allies?" What is America's interest in initiating such an unwarranted act of mass murder and mayhem?
As Mearsheimer and Walt ask the question whether or not AIPAC's power can be curtailed, this will never happen unless corrupt American government's power can be curtailed. American government, at all its levels, runs on cash, and American government and its corrupt elected politicians don't really give a damn where the cash it runs on comes from. And increasingly, it is beginning to appear that the American people don't give a damn either!
Israel receives more US foreign aid and taxpayer cash than any other nation. Contributions to AIPAC are tax-deductible. Wealthy Jewish professionals contribute millions to both AIPAC and Israel, providing a virtual unlimited cash pool for "contributions" to fund American politician's campaigns as well as to provide the latter with downright payoffs and bribes. And politicians who even remotely suggest an even-handed approach between Israel and the Palestinians, such as Howard Dean, a former frontrunner in the Democratic Party for President of the United States, can be trashed overnight by the Jewish MSM. Political elections here in the United States constitute domestic affairs, yet through both the Jewish Lobby and MSM, American politicians can be made or crushed.
Political correctness, a "philosophy" attributed to "liberalism," should really be attributed to that sector of "American" society that concocts it, communicates it, and actually enforces it. That entity is the Jewish MSM. As Mearsheimer and Walt have pointed out, the MSM controls American public opinion, and Jews control the MSM. It is for this reason that the "liberal" MSM doesn't turn on the criminal regime of Bush As long as G. Bush continues both a domestic and foreign policy favorable to Israel, the Jewish MSM will never expose any of the zillions of crimes engineered and perpetrated by the Bush gang.
This explains the futility members of the American military feel as 75 percent want out of Iraq. Those wanting US there, and then eventually in Iran, have absolutely nothing whatsoever at stake, and absolutely nothing whatsoever to lose. We and we alone, America, we are the only ones who stand to lose big-time. And Bush is the last "American" to care about this.
If we are to get out from under a situation whereby our entire nation, its economy, its natural resources, its wealth, all its people, and our military are available to a tiny nation whose population is only three quarters of our largest city, why wouldn't such a nation, Israel, risk OUR all? What do they have to lose? Can G. Bush, president, ever see this? Can the criminals and traitors in "our" Congress see this? Sure they can, but they don't care. Remember the AIPAC battle cry each of our elected politicians is required to frequently utter in public: "Israel has a right to exist!"
Not only does Israel and AIPAC control both domestic and foreign policy through their purchase and disposal of "American" elected politicians, but organized Jewry attacks, terrorizes, smears and intimidates ALL aspects of American society. As some columnists and commentators have already reported on Rense, I too have been threatened by Zionist phone callers, e-mailers and letter writers. This too is a tactic of criminal Zionism: direct threats against anyone who speaks out concerning the horrific condition that places Israeli interests over those of our own.
Several weeks ago, an American theatrical group tried to stage a play in New York City presenting the sacrifice and tragic murder of Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist who tried to protect a Palestinian home from being arbitrarily and unjustly leveled by an Israeli military bulldozer. The bulldozer operator deliberately ran over her, dropped the blade, and backed over her broken body to ensure her death. The theatrical group was bombarded with whining, complaining organized Jews who intimidated the producers and probably threatened to attack them with hoards of Jewish lawyers.
Alan Dershowitz, the Jewish lawyer and Harvard Law professor, and founder of American torture, was first to introduce his warped approach for justice in America thus: "No democracy, other than Israel, has ever employed torture within the law. Until quite recently, Israel recognized the power of its security agencies to employ what it euphemistically called 'moderate physical pressure' to elicit information from terrorists about continuing threats." But now this very Jewish and very pro-Israel Zionist is attacking his own school for authorizing the Mearsheimer-Walt report critical of Jewish influence on our foreign and domestic legal procedures. Wasn't it Israel and Dershowitz's love of torture that has changed both our domestic and foreign policy? Isn't that the influence of Israel and international Jews?
Yet Dershowitz, who was first to point out Israel's penchant for inhumane treatment of prisoners, now calls the open, honest report authored by Mearsheimer and fellow Harvard professor Walt, "trash." He cites "mistakes." He calls the report "absurd." The only absurdity in the report is the way we allow Jews like Dershowitz to smear those who tell the truth about the way minority Jews like him feel their interpretation of the facts is gospel, and any other interpretation "trash" and "anti-Semitic."
A theatrical production reflecting the selfless sacrifice of Rachel Corrie is deprived to the American people by angry Jews. An angry Jewish lawyer who introduced torture to America now is angered by the truth of Jewish influence favoring Israel. And now, Jewish whining, complaints and smear tactics cause Harvard to affix a very noticeable disclaimer onto the report, and even pull its logo from the cover sheet of that truthful and accurate report. Ed Asner, supporting fellow actor Charlie Sheen's contention of a Bush administration and Kean Commission cover-up regarding 9-11, was barred from appearing on CNN's Showbiz Tonight, probably once again attributable to whining, complaining and "anti-Semitic" screaming Jews. I'd just like to know the names of the stupid, ignorant CNN management morons who caved on this, thereby trashing CNN's outstanding opportunity to regain its number one position as a cable news entity. This probably explains Ted Turner's recent lament concerning CNN.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8787
Before I was even able to conclude this piece, yet another disgraceful episode of Jewish Zionist whining and smearing is taking place. Harvard not only placed a disclaimer and lifted its logo from the Mearsheimer and Walt Harvard University JFK School of Government Report, but according to Justin Raimondo in his Antiwar.com article of this very date, March 31st, Harvard has demoted their JFK dean and disgraced him after being attacked by hoards of whining Jews.
Raimondo comments on an article in the New York Sun: "Yesterday's issue of The New York Sun reported that an 'observer' familiar with Harvard said that the University had received calls from 'pro-Israel donors' concerned about the KSG paper. One of the calls, the source told The Sun, was from Robert Belfer, a former Enron director who endowed Walt's professorship when he donated $7.5 million to the Kennedy School's Center for Science and International Affairs in 1997. 'Since the furor, Bob Belfer has called expressing his deep concerns and asked that Stephen not use his professorship title in publicity related to the article,' the source told The Sun."
Raimondo continues: "Now, somebody please tell me that Mearsheimer and Walt have overplayed the power and influence of the Lobby in American political life. The hate campaign directed at Mearsheimer and Walt underscores and validates the study's contention that all attempts to objectively discuss our Israel-centric foreign policy and the pivotal role played by the Lobby are met with outright intimidation. We have O.J. Simpson defender and pro-Israel fanatic Alan Dershowitz claiming that the scholarly duo filched the majority of their sources from 'hate sites' although how Dershowitz knows this, without having looked directly over their shoulders as they wrote, is very far from clear. But don't worry, he assures us, a 'team' of researchers on his staff is looking into the matter. One wonders if this is the same 'team' that looked into the evidence and concluded that Simpson was innocent."
As can now readily be seen in this effort, sensitivity to accusations involving "Jews" as opposed to "Zionists," the latter term having always been used by this writer to include dispensationalist Christian fundamentalists, has degenerated to only the former classification. For me to devolve back to my original usage of the terms, I need to see, and very quickly I might add, an apologetic and honest assessment of this egregious Jewish "hate crime" against Americans perpetrated by the Jewish population against the oldest institution of higher learning in America, as well as this blatant assault upon the time-honored principle of free speech articulated in our First Amendment. This not forthcoming, and in a prominent and aggressive manner, then the efforts of this writer to separate the good, the bad and the ugly in separating pro-Semitic, anti-Christian and anti-American Jews, from patriotic and Christian-tolerant Jews, will be forever suspended. | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:54 am Post subject: MIDEAST POLICY: Criticism of U.S ties to Israel draws fire |
| From: BGJDAVID
Subject: Criticism of U.S ties to Israel draws fire
Sent: Sunday, April 2, 2006 9:08 AM
The media have been trying to keep this study as quiet as possible but, no matter how much they try, it is bound to make its way to the american public. Let's just hope it makes wider publication. The American people need to know the root of the problems we face today. This passionate attachement to Israel has come to hurt America's security and the Israeli Lobby deserves much of the blame. Our leaders and our representatives are under the control of a foreign lobby and it's not a healthy situation for the American people. It has cost the loss of too many American lives and billions of wasted money. I wrote an article similar to this situation three years ago. Passionate attachment to Israel (by James J. David) - Media Monitors Network http://www.mediamonitors.net/jamesjdavid17.html The following Washington Post article appeared in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution with an Illustration of the U.S. flag with a Star of David in the union. My hats off to the AJC for the courage to publish it. I encourage all to read the the study written by Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard University. It is one of the best I have ever read. LRB | John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt : The Israel Lobby:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/print/mear01_.html
http://www.ajc.com/sunday/content/epaper/editions/sunday/issue_44f2475c61f20199005a.html
MIDEAST POLICY: Criticism of U.S ties to Israel draws fire
Washington Post
Sunday, April 2, 2006
International relations scholars John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University ignited a furious debate recently with their essay "The Israel Lobby," appearing in the London Review of Books. Their argument --- that the influence of a powerful pro-Israel lobby in the United States threatens U.S. national security --- has reverberated through academic and policy circles, the media and the blogosphere. A sampling of their article and the ongoing controversy:
The essay
"Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War II, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. . . .
"Other recipients get their money in quarterly installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year and can thus earn interest on it. Most recipients of aid given for military purposes are required to spend all of it in the United States, but Israel is allowed to use roughly 25 percent of its allocation to subsidize its own defense industry. It is the only recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, which makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the U.S. opposes, such as building settlements on the West Bank.
"Moreover, the U.S. has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and given it access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters and F-16 jets. Finally, the U.S. gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its NATO allies and has turned a blind eye to Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons. . . .
"Since 1982, the U.S. has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. . . .
"Saying that Israel and the U.S. are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: The U.S. has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around. . . .
"The Lobby's campaign for regime change in Iran and Syria could lead the U.S. to attack those countries, with potentially disastrous effects. We don't need another Iraq."
The blowback
Harvard Law professor Alan M. Dershowitz: "These are two serious scholars and you need to expose what they have done as ignorant propaganda." (Jerusalem Post)
University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole: "Political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt bravely take on the issue of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington and the way it distorts U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Most American Jews deeply disagree with the policies advocated by the American Enterprise Institute, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, etc., but a sliver of the political spectrum, falsely insisting that it represents all American Jews, manages to skew U.S. politics and reporting on the issue of Palestine." (juancole.com)
Dennis Ross, President Clinton's Middle East envoy: "It is basically a series of assertions. They quote only those people who basically have this point of view and don't take a serious look at anything in a more profound way. It is masquerading as scholarship." (New York Sun)
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, whose Web site says that he "has dedicated his life to the freedom and heritage of European American peoples": "It is quite satisfying to see a body in the premier American university essentially come out and validate every major point I have been making since even before the war even started." (New York Sun)
Daniel Drezner, assistant professor of political science, University of Chicago (Mearsheimer's department): "Walt and Mearsheimer should not be criticized as anti-Semites, because that's patently false. They should be criticized for doing [expletive]-poor, monocausal social science." (danieldrezner.com)
Editorial on Forward.com headlined "In Dark Times, Blame the Jews": "What is new and startling is the document's provenance. Its authors are not fringe gadflies but two of America's most respected foreign-affairs theorists. One, Mearsheimer, is a distinguished professor at the University of Chicago. The other, Walt, is academic dean of the nation's most prestigious center of political studies, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Though it's tempting, they can't be dismissed as cranks outside the mainstream. They are the mainstream. Even more startling, given who they are, is the flimsiness of their work. Countless facts are simply wrong. Long stretches of argument are implausible, at times almost comically so. . . . An undergraduate submitting work like this would be laughed out of class. A dean apparently gets to see it posted on Harvard's Web site."
Ruth R. Wisse, professor of comparative literature and of Yiddish literature at Harvard: "It would be a mistake to treat this article on the 'Israel Lobby' as an attack on Israel alone, or on its Jewish defenders, or on the organizations and individuals it singles out for condemnation. Its true target is the American public, which now supports Israel with higher levels of confidence than ever before." (Wall Street Journal)
Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America: "Even a cursory examination of 'The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy' reveals that it is riddled with errors of fact, logic and omission, has inaccurate citations, displays extremely poor judgment regarding sources, and, contrary to basic scholarly standards, ignores previous serious work on the subject."
The fallout
Mearsheimer and Walt's study appeared in March as an 83-page "Faculty Research Working Paper" on the Web site of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where Walt serves as academic dean.
Following the uproar, the Kennedy School discreetly removed its logo from the paper.
The Harvard Crimson reported that "according to a statement released yesterday by Kennedy School Dean David T. Ellwood, the university's logo was removed after some news agencies 'were mistakenly reporting the paper as a "Harvard study" written by "two Harvard researchers." ' " And the Boston Globe quoted Ellwood as saying that the Kennedy School would now open faculty members' working papers to rebuttal and discussion by other Harvard faculty. This came in response to a request from Dershowitz that his rebuttal of the paper be placed alongside it.
The original document also features a more detailed and prominent disclaimer: "The two authors of this Working Paper are solely responsible for the views expressed in it. As academic institutions, Harvard University and the University of Chicago do not take positions on the scholarship of individual faculty, and this article should not be interpreted or portrayed as reflecting the official position of either institution."
LECTURE
David Newman, the British-born and -educated professor of political geography at Ben Gurion University in Israel, will speak at Georgia State University this week on "Prospects for the Israel-Palestinian Peace Process after the Israeli Elections." Newman is also chief editor of the quarterly journal Geopolitics. He will speak at 11 a.m. Thursday, 500 General Classroom Building, Georgia State. Information: 404-651-4239.
CHRIS van ES / NewsArt
Illustration of the U.S. flag with a Star of David in the union.
Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/sunday/content/epaper/editions/sunday/issue_44f2475c61f20199005a.html
Keeping It Quiet: The Israel Lobby's Crushing of Dissent:
http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=8791
U.S. Middle East policy motivated by pro-Israel lobby:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/03/17/u-s-middle-east-policy-motivated-by-pro-israel-lobby.php | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:41 pm Post subject: The Israel lobby is bringing out the big guns |
| April 3, 2006
Israel and Moral Blackmail
The Israel lobby is bringing out the big guns
by Justin Raimondo
The reaction to a pathbreaking – or, rather, taboo-busting – study of how and why Israel's interests came to be substituted for America's national interests in Washington policymaking circles, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," [.pdf] by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, has confirmed, in part, its thesis.
"The Lobby," as the authors call it, effectively works to control the debate over our Israel-centric policy in the Middle East by ensuring that there is no debate. Congress has been captured through their exemplary use of pressure tactics, and the editorial pages of the nation's newspapers and magazines are also dominated by the Israel-Firsters, where the same imbalance prevails. In a hint of what these two distinguished scholars had to go through to get their study published, they aver: "It is hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States publishing a piece like this one."
It turns out that, before turning to Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government – where Walt is academic dean (albeit not for long) – they attempted to get a version of their study published in an American magazine:
"John Mearsheimer says that the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful that he and co-author Stephen Walt would never have been able to place their report in a American-based scientific publication. 'I do not believe that we could have gotten it published in the United States,' Mearsheimer told the Forward. He said that the paper was originally commissioned in the fall of 2002 by one of America's leading magazines, 'but the publishers told us that it was virtually impossible to get the piece published in the United States.' Most scholars, policymakers and journalists know that 'the whole subject of the Israel lobby and American foreign policy is a third-rail issue,' he said. 'Publishers understand that if they publish a piece like ours it would cause them all sorts of problems.'"
Mary-Kay Wilmers, editor of the London Review of Books – which published a shortened version – tells the Guardian that the piece "was originally written for, but rejected by, the Atlantic Monthly and picked up by the LRB, when Wilmers 'became aware of its existence.'"
In an important sense, then, it appears that, like Palestine, the American literary and political scene is Israeli-occupied territory. As Mearsheimer and Walt point out, academia, too, suffers from the pro-Israel version of the Inquisition, suffering extensive efforts to "police" campuses for evidence of "anti-Israel" sentiments. As if to verify this charge, the authors have run smack up against the campus Thought Police, with Harvard University taking the unusual step of pulling its logo from their piece, altering and making a boilerplate disclaimer more prominent, and finally announcing that Walt would be resigning shortly from his post as academic dean.
This question of Walt's resignation has aroused some interest – especially since it was made shortly after major Harvard contributor Robert Belfer (who gave $7.5 million to the Kennedy School in 1997) expressed his displeasure. This concatenation of events has occasioned a denial by Walt, who says that his stepping down had nothing to do with the controversy surrounding his work. This echoes the official statement put out by Harvard, as well as an e-mail to me by Melodie Jackson, the Kennedy School's director of communications and public affairs:
"There is no connection between the conclusion of Professor Walt's term as academic dean and the discussion around his recent paper. As agreed a year ago, professor Walt's term as academic dean will expire at the end of this academic year and has absolutely no connection to the current conversation around his paper."
Well, then, that's that – right? Move along, nothing to see here. But not quite. As the Harvard Crimsonreports:
"[Kennedy School Dean David T.] Ellwood said that he sent an e-mail to Kennedy School faculty members on Feb. 21 – before the uproar over the article – informing them that Walt would end his term as academic dean in June. Ellwood said he also asked professors for recommendations regarding the search for the next academic dean.
"When asked to provide the Feb. 21 e-mail to The Crimson, Kennedy School spokeswoman Melodie Jackson declined to do so. …
"Walt's term as academic dean will be one year shorter than that of his predecessor, Frederick Schauer, who held the post from 1997 to 2002. Though Ellwood's statement made reference to a 'normal three-year cycle' of academic deans, three-year terms have not been the norm for administrators who have held that post in recent years.
"Ellwood himself held the post for a year before joining the Clinton administration in 1993, and he returned to the school in 1995 to serve a two-year term as academic dean. Alan A. Altshuler held the post for two years during Ellwood's absence. And before that, Albert Carnesale was the school's academic dean for a decade."
It seems clear that Walt, loyal to Harvard, and understandably not wanting to widen the breach between himself and the university administration, is stretching the truth, to put it charitably. He says the decision to alter the disclaimer and remove the Harvard logo from his work was made to correct a misimpression that the study was the work of "two Harvard researchers," and that their work constituted an "official report." However, I can't find a single news story about this brouhaha that falsely reports Professor Mearsheimer as resident at Harvard: all correctly describe him as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.
Furthermore, it is difficult to define what would constitute an "official report." Universities publish all sorts of research on a wide variety of topics, written from any number of perspectives: the decision to publish implies that the university has held the work to a high academic standard and found it at least acceptable, if not exemplary. It never constitutes "official" agreement with the views expressed therein.
It is undeniable that the Mearsheimer-Walt study was singled out for special treatment: out of all the "working papers" published by Harvard, only this one now lacks the university's logo. Only this one has special language appended to it putting the reader on notice that neither Harvard nor the University of Chicago "take positions on the scholarship of individual faculty." Ouch! If that isn't a slap in the face – impugning their scholarship – then I don't know what is. (Go here to see the difference between the treatment afforded the Mearsheimer-Walt "working paper" and others recently published.)
The controversy has certainly been as instructive as it's been ugly. Not only has the Lobby revealed itself by such a visible and vocal baring of its very pointed teeth, but we have also seen some remarkable alliances forged in its defense. Who would have thought that Christopher Hitchens would be on the same side of the barricades as Noam Chomsky? Not since the days of the Hitler-Stalin pact have we seen such a mind-blowing convergence.
Like that previous rapprochement, however, when you think about it, it makes perfect sense: after all, these two do have something in common – a monomaniacal focus on the military and political supremacy of the U.S. Chomsky sees it as a bad thing, while Hitchens sees it as a positive development, yet they come together in averring that the omnipotent warlords of Washington could not possibly have been captured by a foreign lobby. The former sees the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis as a diversion away from his anti-capitalist message and the "war for oil" spiel we are so used to hearing, while the latter derides as "smelly" the very idea that Israel had anything to do with us going to war against Iraq. Both go all the way back to the days of Dwight Eisenhower to chronicle incidents of U.S.-Israel disharmony. The problem with this argument is that the study says the consolidation of the Lobby's power was achieved much later, after the 1973 war. But ideologues have a habit of ignoring bothersome details.
While complimenting Mearsheimer and Walt for taking what he admits is a "courageous stand," Chomsky says he doesn't find their argument "very convincing." He attributes the causes of our Middle East policy of "regime change" and perpetual war to "strategic-economic interests of concentrations of domestic power in the tight state-corporate linkage," rather than the machinations of the Lobby. The proof? Haven't the oil companies made "profits beyond the dreams of avarice?" What more do we need to know?
Oh, and don't forget how Israel performed a great "service" for the evil American capitalists by "smashing secular Arab nationalism, which threatened to divert resources to domestic needs." Leaving aside the oddity of a professed "anarchist" like Chomsky pining for the "independent nationalism" of the "secular" Arab leaders, killers like Nasser and the Mesopotamian Ba'athists, the big problem for Chomsky and his co-thinkers on the Left is that their reasoning is dizzyingly circular. They ascribe everything to the machinations of a "corporate" cabal, but their case is stated in terms of the broadest generalities, leaving the details to the imagination.
It is the lack of details, however, that is most telling. Because wars are started not by abstract "forces" nor by ideological constructs floating in mid-air, but by individuals – not corporate entities, but specific government officials, their advisers and employees. One could say that, in the abstract, the "stovepiping" of false information about Iraq's alleged WMD was the result of late capitalism's moral corruption and the "class interests" of Scooter Libby, but most people would find such a formulation baffling – and it is certainly inadequate.
The question of how and why we were lied into war is a matter of fact, not ideology. Abstract "forces" had nothing to do with it: specific individuals carried out specific acts. The misinformation that was deliberately planted was produced not by decaying capitalism, but by the decayed moral sense of certain government officials. And I'd be very surprised if the Niger uranium forgeries were fabricated by capitalists in top hats.
The confluence of views on this matter between Chomsky and the War Party – not only Hitchens, but Martin Peretz, whose magazine, The New Republic, has long been the house organ of the Lobby – is, as the Marxists used to say, no accident. Peretz, too, wants to know why Mearsheimer and Walt give a free pass to Big Oil, not to mention the supposedly powerful Saudi lobby. What I want to know is where was the Saudi lobby when the U.S. decided to invade and occupy Iraq? Apparently they went missing in action. As for attributing the genesis of the war to oil companies, is the editor of The New Republic confessing, in public, that in all those long years of agitation for war with Iraq, his magazine was merely the instrument of "strategic-economic interests of concentrations of domestic power in the tight state-corporate linkage," as the Chomskyite jargon would phrase it?
Of all the commentary on this subject – and there has been a lot – the most rational, aside from Daniel Levy's, is to be found in a Financial Timeseditorial:
"Reflexes that ordinarily spring automatically to the defence of open debate and free enquiry shut down – at least among much of America's political elite – once the subject turns to Israel, and above all the pro-Israel lobby's role in shaping US foreign policy.
"Even though policy toward the Middle East is arguably the single biggest determinant of America's reputation in the world, any attempt to rethink this from first principles is politically risky.
"Examining the specific role of organizations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, commonly considered to be the most effective lobby group in the US apart from the National Rifle Association, is something to be undertaken with caution."
The Lobby has nothing to worry about from the Noam Chomskys of this world. No amount of evidence can prove the Chomskyite case that abstract economic forces somehow unleashed the U.S. military on the people of Iraq, and are now threatening Iran with more of the same. In this way, the real culprits are let off the hook, while popular ire is directed at a conjuration of shadows.
Any attempt to cut through this smokescreen is met with an organized campaign of calumny, exemplified by the smears aimed at Mearsheimer and Walt. Alan Dershowitz screeches that the Harvard paper is the equivalent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and virtually every news story about the matter mentions neo-Nazi David Duke in the same breath as the academic dean of the Kennedy School and his co-author, the foremost advocate of foreign policy "realism." The Financial Times rightly diagnoses the problem:
"Only a UK publication, the London Review of Books, was prepared to carry their critique, in the same way that it was Prospect, a British monthly journal, that four years ago published a path-breaking study of the Israel lobby by the American analyst, Michael Lind.
"Moral blackmail – the fear that any criticism of Israeli policy and US support for it will lead to charges of anti-Semitism – is a powerful disincentive to publish dissenting views. It is also leading to the silencing of policy debate on American university campuses, partly as the result of targeted campaigns against the dissenters."
I emphasize the phrase "moral blackmail" because it aptly characterizes what the foreign policy community and the people of the United States are being subjected to. As we awaken from the fever-dream induced by war propaganda and recover our senses, we look around at the disaster unfolding in the Middle East and ask: How did we get here? The Lobby is right to feel endangered by this question: several administration figures, including Douglas Feith, a former top Pentagon official, are being investigated for having unusually "close" relations with the government of Israel. The Larry Franklin spy case is not being prosecuted – against a veritable tsunami of criticism, including from the judge – for nothing.
As we learn more about the activities of Scooter Libby, and more indictments come down, the key role of the neoconservatives in the Bush administration as the sparkplugs who ignited this war will become as plain as the wart on Ahmed Chalabi's nose. To Hitchens and the rest of the neocon fellow travelers, this is merely "code" for "the Jews." This is the sort of moral blackmail that has always ended all discussion of this vitally important topic – but not anymore.
It is ridiculous to identify the neocons as somehow representative of Jewish opinion on matters of foreign policy: not only is this demonstrably false, but it is also indicative of real anti-Semitism. David Duke inveighs against "the Jewish neocons," and the Lobby echoes his rhetoric, albeit from the opposite perspective. Both argue that we ought to dispense with the "code words" and call a spade a spade. But this is nonsense: as Mearsheimer and Walt point out, the distortion of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East by the Lobby is no more in Israel's interest than it is in America's. Aside from that, the majority of American Jews are against this war, no doubt in greater proportion than the rest of the population.
The problem isn't "the Jews" – it's the Lobby. Until it is reined in by public awareness, and the appropriate legislation – which might start, for example, by requiring AIPAC to register as a foreign agent, like all the other lobbyists for foreign governments – the danger of a prolonged and widened war in the Middle East will continue unabated. Aside from that, however, what is needed is further investigation by Congress into the "faulty" intelligence that lured us into the Iraqi quagmire: I'd bet the ranch that a lot of it came directly from Tel Aviv to Washington.
I might add this dollop from the Financial Times editorial:
"Judgment of the precise value of the Walt-Mearsheimer paper has been swept aside by a wave of condemnation. Their scholarship has been derided and their motives impugned, while Harvard has energetically disassociated itself from their views. Mr Walt's position as academic dean of the Kennedy School is in doubt."
No one is buying Harvard's denials, least of all the Lobby. They glory in their power: note how the New York Sun, a house organ of the Israel-Firsters, was gloating all last week over the troubles inflicted on the authors of the Harvard study. The Lobby means business: like the Mafia, which likes to make an example of recalcitrants who fail to pay protection money, they want people to take notice of their ruthlessness. Fear prevents debate – and a real debate is what the Lobby can least afford.
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/justin | | | | Alpha | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
