| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 11:15 pm Post subject: |
| From: "Ron Corvus"
Subject: America's Campaign to Smear Israel's Critics
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:08:20 -0500
America's Campaign to Smear Israel's Critics
Our young people are dying in a war in the Middle East that does not serve America's best interests while neocons and Zionists wage on war against anyone who tries to tell the truth.
America's Campaign to Smear Israel's Critics
By Salim Muwakkil, In These Times. Posted September 11, 2007.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/62324/
In the U.S., scholars who contest the conventional wisdom about Israel all too often lose their reputations -- and their jobs.
DePaul University canceled courses taught by Norman Finkelstein, the controversial political science professor known for his forthright criticism of Israel, just a week before classes resumed in June. Finkelstein, who taught at DePaul for six years, was denied tenure at the Chicago school but permitted to teach for the one year remaining on his contract.
In late August, however, the university decided to axe him and pulled his required books from the schools' bookstore. This was a break from the academic tradition that grants a faculty member who is denied tenure one last year (the "terminal year") in the classroom. Finkelstein initially vowed to protest his suspension, but later reached an agreement (including a monetary settlement) with DePaul to end his fight. However, even as he announced the agreement, Finkelstein charged his tenure denial was due "to external pressure resulting in a national hysteria."
Finkelstein's rough treatment followed a vigorous national campaign initiated by right-wing supporters of Israel to taint his name. They attacked Finkelstein for his scholarship, which has consistently excoriated the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the deceitful arguments of the Jewish state's uncritical supporters. And Finkelstein is just one of many public figures currently under attack for contesting the conventional wisdom about Israel.
Harvard law professor and avid Zionist Alan Dershowitz mounted a relentless public campaign to have Finkelstein dismissed. Surely it is no coincidence that Finkelstein's recent book, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, is a sustained, well-researched attack on Dershowitz and his ilk for their lurid distortions of history on behalf of Israel.
DePaul's political science department and a college-wide faculty committee overwhelmingly backed Finkelstein's tenure bid. Yet that was not enough to shield him from the national campaign to punish him for his acerbic criticism of Israel. An influential dean persuaded the tenure panel to reject him for the style and tone of his scholarship rather than its content.
Finkelstein's boosters argue that right-wing supporters of Israel are persecuting him for his strident opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and for his criticism that they are unscrupulously exploiting the horror of the Holocaust to justify Israeli excesses. Finkelstein's previous book, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, makes the case that many Holocaust scholars use the tragedy to justify Israel's existence and continue to utilize it to extort guilt money from various sources.
Finkelstein also provokes ire from Jewish groups because he is the son of two Holocaust survivors, which gives his critiques more credence. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has repeatedly accused Finkelstein of being a Holocaust denier, a baseless charge.
The former DePaul professor's supporters claim his tenure denial is completely unjustified and that his suspension violates academic ethics. The Chicago Tribune reported that the American Association of University Professors would soon launch a protest of Finkelstein's treatment as a violation of normal academic procedure.
Finkelstein thus joins former president Jimmy Carter, NYU historian Tony Judt, Harvard University professor Stephen Walt and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer (the latter two are co-authors of a new book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy) whose forthright criticism of Israel have earned them accusations of anti-Semitism.
Jimmy Carter is facing a firestorm of criticism from right-wing American Jewish organizations for his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which mildly condemned the Jewish state's occupation policies in the Palestinian territories.
Judt, a descendant of Holocaust victims who argues that power in Israel has tragically shifted to religious fundamentalists and territorial zealots, is another victim of this pressure. The history professor, who also speaks out against American Jewish groups' attempts to stifle honest discussion on Israel's policies, has been forced to cancel many speaking engagements because of pressure from Jewish organizations.
Similar reactions have greeted Professors Walt and Mearsheimer, who have co-authored a book arguing that the American-Israel lobby has pushed policies that are not in the United States' best interests and encourage Israel to engage in self-destructive behavior. The two respected scholars have been denounced as anti-Semites by ADL Director Abraham Foxman, among others.
These scholars are victims of a national campaign to punish scholarship that challenges media-made myths about Israel. This grave threat to academic freedom should concern American progressives, who often remain eerily silent.
See more stories tagged with: academic freedom, palestine, israel
Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times and an op-ed columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He is currently a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society Institute, examining the impact of ex-inmates and gang leaders in leadership positions in the black community. | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:26 am Post subject: |
| http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=11586
September 11, 2007
Henry Kissinger: Realist, or Neocon?
Philip Giraldi
One of the most disturbing attributes of the neoconservatives is their willingness to subordinate the United States' national interests to those of Israel. To be sure, the attempt is frequently made to demonstrate that the two nations' interests are identical, but a careful analysis of the impact of Israel's domestic and foreign policies can only conclude that the relationship has been detrimental to the United States. To cite only one example, Washington's counter-terrorism policy has been shaped by Israel, which insists that national liberation movements like Hamas and Hezbollah must be treated as terrorists and can only be dealt with by force. This has meant that the United States, which should have dialogue with adversaries worldwide, is hamstrung by its political commitment to Tel Aviv. It also means that any progress toward the establishment of a Palestinian state is stillborn, which may be what Likud wants, but it is not in America's interests. That the neocon agenda might not serve Israel's true interests either means that the tragedy is a double one.
It is now obvious that the neocons have been marketing their agenda under deceptive labels and meticulously planning their takeover of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus to advance their Middle Eastern program. The new book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt on the Israel Lobby provides some fresh insights into how American interests have been consistently betrayed by politicians and government officials who have fought to protect Israel at all costs. Mearsheimer and Walt reveal, inter alia, that Henry Kissinger, while national security adviser and secretary of state between 1969 and 1977, might have been one of the first neocons in deed if not in name. Kissinger, who prefers to describe himself as a "realist," reportedly took it upon himself to defend Israeli positions even when those positions were in no way linked to American interests in the region.
In 1972, Kissinger and Nixon ceded to Israel a veto over any peace proposals that Washington might be considering in dealing with the Arab states, basically accepting the principle that Tel Aviv would call all the shots in the region without regard to American interests. In October 1973, the same duo airlifted military supplies to Israel during the Yom Kippur War to the tune of $2.2 billion in impromptu aid, leading to the Arab oil embargo and its catastrophic impact on the U.S. economy, which amounted to nearly $50 billion in 1974 alone (equivalent to $140 billion in 2000 dollars).
In late October 1973 Kissinger was sent to Moscow to negotiate with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to pursue a comprehensive peace process for the Middle East, but he ignored Nixon's instructions and pressed instead for a cease-fire that left Israel dominant and destroyed any chance for a multilateral peace effort. According to Mearsheimer and Walt, "The American-compiled minutes of the three meetings that Kissinger attended with Brezhnev unequivocally show that he accurately and repeatedly represented Israeli interests to Moscow, almost totally contrary to Nixon's preferences." When the UN Security Council subsequently passed a cease-fire resolution, Kissinger allowed the Israelis to ignore it for 12 hours so they could consolidate their gains.
In 1975, while secretary of state, Kissinger signed a memorandum of understanding that pledged the U.S. to provide for Israel's oil needs in the event of a crisis and to finance and stock a strategic reserve. He also agreed that Washington would not "recognize or negotiate with" the PLO as long as the group refused to recognize Israel's right to exist. This made it impossible to talk to the only group that represented the aspirations of most Palestinians, a dialogue that the Israelis wished to derail but which would have served America's interests. Kissinger's last year as secretary of state also saw Israel's aid from the U.S. skyrocket from $1.9 billion in 1975 to $6.29 billion for 1976.
One would think that Kissinger's disastrous handling of Vietnam would have been enough for any one man, but he is clearly seeking to leave his mark on the Middle East as well. He continues to be a troubling presence in wars both ongoing and intended. Even though he rarely mentions Israel, preferring to couch his arguments in terms of U.S. national interests, the positions he takes would undoubtedly be welcome in Tel Aviv. Kissinger's frequent op-eds in leading newspapers support the Iraq war, the current surge, and an aggressive foreign policy directed against Iran. Such is his perspicacity that in January 2002 he argued that the U.S. should "focus on the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq in order to change the regional dynamics by showing America's determination to defend regional stability, its interests, and its friends. (This would also send a strong message to other rogue states)." Concerning Iraq, he has also been quoted as saying "Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy."
Kissinger has also embraced the neocon concept of "Islamofascism," arguing that the U.S. should stay the course in Iraq, writing in August 2005, "The war in Iraq is less about geopolitics than about the clash of ideologies, cultures, and religious beliefs. Because of the long reach of the Islamist challenge, the outcome in Iraq will have an even deeper significance than that in Vietnam. If a Taliban-type government or a fundamentalist radical state were to emerge in Baghdad or any part of Iraq, shock waves would ripple through the Islamic world. Radical forces in Islamic countries or Islamic minorities in non-Islamic states would be emboldened in their attacks on existing governments. The safety and internal stability of all societies within reach of militant Islam would be imperiled." One might note in passing that if Kissinger were an analyst at the CIA or the DIA rather than a former secretary of state his explanation of the situation in the Middle East would likely be graded a D-minus. Like all neoconservatives, he looks for an explanation that confirms his preexisting notions, in this case that militant Islam is the cause of conflict rather than a byproduct of genuine grievances.
Kissinger is reported to be a frequent visitor to the White House, most particularly to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, and has been a driving force to confront Iran. According to at least one source, he is the principal architect of the new policy to create a regional alliance of Arab states opposed to Iran while at the same time increasing direct pressure on the government in Tehran. President George W. Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have adopted another recommendation from Kissinger that in effect abandons the "freedom agenda" for Iraq and the Arab Middle East in favor of focusing on Iran as a strategic menace to the entire region. The shift in emphasis means that during Bush's last year there will be a major effort to resolve the Iranian nuclear challenge using whatever means are necessary. As diplomacy so far has consisted of shouting matches staking out adversarial positions, the only options that would be viewed as viable by the White House are military in nature. Kissinger has convinced Bush and Cheney that bringing democratic institutions to Arabs cannot be accomplished in the near future. He argues that simplifying the equation by viewing Iran as a strategic threat to the Middle East in general and to Arab dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt in particular narrows the range of options and protects all U.S. allies in the region. Relying on the Kissinger rationale, Vice President Cheney has successfully argued for retaliatory measures against Iran when an Iranian "smoking gun" can be identified. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:17 pm Post subject: |
| Forwarded:
"If the public is going to start discussing the pros and cons of America's pro-Israel foreign policy, then what better framework to do it in, our elite must be thinking, than one which asks them not to notice that Israel is based on ethnic cleansing, and instead to debate whether Israel is 'detrimental to our national interest'."
The Israel Lobby and the "National Interest"
via Turn the World Upside Down by John Spritzler on 9/12/07
http://spritzlerj.blogspot.com/2007/09/israel-lobby-and-national-interest.html | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 10:34 am Post subject: |
| Tells the Facts and Names the Names
Sept. 1-15, 2007 A Alexander Cockburn and Jeffffrey StSt. Clair vol. 14, no. 15
Special Issue
The Battle Over the Israel Lobby
As Meersheimer and Walt’s long awaited book “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” draw hysterical abuse, Kathy and Bill Christison define the lobby’s real nature, trace its history, and measure its actual power.
By Kathleen and Bill Christisoncritics’ failure to understand what exactly “the lobby” constitutes. Mearsheimer and Walt define it as “the loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively
work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction”. It is made up of American Jews and others who “make a significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign policy so that it advances
Israel’s interests”. One can further define the lobby as those influential elements
in the U.S. – individuals as well as organizations, non-Jews as well as Jews – who have as a primary objective the advancement
of Israeli interests.
The critical elements here in understanding
the definition and clearly recognizing
what constitutes the lobby are that it includes individuals as well as organizations
who actively work to advance Israel’s interests, as part of their daily lives and as one of their primary objectives. The lobby, in other words, is not merely AIPAC and not merely any one, or even all, of the other major Jewish American organizations, but it includes influential
individuals, often U.S. policymakers themselves, for whom advancing Israel’s interests is one of their major objectives. This is a key aspect of lobby power that a great many analysts fail to understand.
A recent analysis of the Mearsheimer-Walt lobby study co-authored by Mitchell Plitnick, of Jewish Voice for Peace, and Chris Toensing, editor of Middle East Report, evidenced this common misunderstanding
of what the lobby comprises.
Although giving the two scholars’ 2006 study high marks on many counts, Plitnick and Toensing label as an “essential
flaw” the Mearsheimer-Walt conclusion
that U.S. Middle East policy would be “more temperate” if the lobby were not so influential. This conclusion, Plitnick and Toensing believe, is disproved by what they call “the remarkable continuities in U.S. Middle East policy since the Truman administration, including in times when the pro-Israel lobby was weak”.
Throughout their article, Plitnick and Toensing assume that, from the beginning
of Israel’s existence in 1948, U.S. presidents and policymakers always felt a natural affinity for Israel, an automatic bond forged without benefit of any political
encouragement and, as the Cold War evolved, were increasingly impelled toward a close relationship with Israel for strategic reasons, again, without benefit
of any political encouragement. The general public, they say, also has a strong “positive disposition toward Israel” that, in turn, has an impact on policymakers’ decisions. Plitnick and Toensing seem to assume that an organized lobby did not really exist until well after a U.S.-Israeli alliance of friendship and strategic ties had been cemented. As if the lobby was some kind of Johnny-come-lately to the alliance, they contend that the “major institutions of the Israel lobby arose during
the Reagan years to defend the U.S.-Israeli strategic alliance forged in the wake of the 1967 war”.
In other words, according to this assessment,
love for Israel came first, for
One of the principal arguments of those on both the left and the right who dismiss the lobby as of only minimal importance is that the U.S.A. has been so consistently pro-Israeli through six decades, through both Republican and Democratic administrations, through periods
when the lobby was weak and periods
of great organized lobby strength, that it is impossible to posit the lobby as the principal driver behind, or a detrimental
influence on, U.S. Middle East policy.
According to this argument, U.S. ties to and general affection for Israel represent
more of a natural attraction than a matter, as one analysis puts it, of “mere promotion and advocacy”. But the critical
question that few analysts seem to address is how this affection arose in the first place: was it solely an automatic reflex,
the appeal of a persecuted people in desperate need of a haven and thought to be so “like us” socially and culturally that it has always been deemed right and proper for us to bend our interests and our policy to theirs, spending billions of dollars and inestimable international political capital on them, or did the relationship
and the very affection itself grow out of the efforts of a skillful and very influential lobby of powerful individuals and groups that existed for decades before
the establishment of Israel?
A definitional misunderstanding enters
in here. One of the major problems
with the left critics’ argument with Mearsheimer and Walt appears to be the
Franklin Roosevelt had his own small group of close Zionist advisers. His views were shaped and his policy defined under the scrutiny and influence of Zionist leaders such as Rabbi Stephen Wise and Judge Felix Frankfurter.
policymakers as well as for the general public, and only much later did an organized
lobby emerge to formalize and sustain the ties of affection. Many others on the left who minimize the substance of Mearsheimer and Walt’s message put forth the same argument that a close U.S.-Israeli relationship arose in the natural
order of things and the lobby emerged only later as a mere adjunct to existing policy.
But the thesis that there have been “remarkable
continuities in U.S. Middle East policy since the Truman administration” ignores a great deal of history. Although there have indeed been “continuities” in policy, these are not actually so “remarkable”
if one recognizes that a very influential
Zionist, and later Israeli, lobby has existed in one form or another since at least the days of Woodrow Wilson and the start of the Zionist push for a Jewish national home in Palestine and that this lobby had been at work influencing policy
for 30 years before Truman recognized the new Israeli state in 1948. An organized
lobby, in the form of several Jewish American organizations, has existed since the end of World War I, waxing and waning through the years but always able to influence policymaking and legislation at critical moments in Zionist/Israeli history.
More importantly, in the early days before Israel’s establishment, the major lobbyists very often consisted of influential
individuals who were close to a series of U.S. presidents and were able to bend their ears and bend their policy toward support for the Zionist enterprise.
The Historical Background
Woodrow Wilson played a pivotal part in institutionalizing U.S.-Zionist ties. Although he was a student of the Bible and believed that a Jewish “return” to the Holy Land was in the natural order of things, he was not particularly interested in Zionism when first approached to endorse
Britain’s 1917 Balfour Declaration, which promised support for the establishment
of a Jewish “national home” in Palestine. He did, however, formally endorse
this document and several subsequent
pro-Zionist congressional resolutions
at the urging of his good friend and political ally Justice Louis Brandeis and other influential Zionist supporters.
Brandeis, whom Wilson appointed to the Supreme Court in 1916, was one of the founders of the Zionist Organization of America and at the time of his appointment
to the Court was serving as its president. Knowing of Brandeis’ close friendship with Wilson, Zionist leaders
abroad, such as Chaim Weizmann, and prominent U.S. Jews like Rabbi Stephen Wise used Brandeis as a conduit
to Wilson on matters relating to Palestine. Through this channel, Zionists frequently sought, and always received, Wilson’s public and private reassurances of continuing U.S. support for Zionism. The occasional objections to the Zionist project from officials in Wilson’s administration
were ignored and their opinions bypassed. Through their interventions with Wilson, Brandeis and his colleagues essentially committed the United States to firm, and ultimately lasting, support for the Zionist project and made Wilson a strong Zionist.
In an era when world affairs and the fate of nations were very often determined
by a handful of powerful men, the notion of one strong Zionist manipulating the thinking and the actions of a president
was not particularly remarkable, and Brandeis managed to wield considerable influence over British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour as well and often served as liaison between Wilson and Balfour. Brandeis influenced Balfour’s thinking on such weighty issues as self-determination
for colonized peoples – a critical issue in Palestine at the time – and by the time the British Mandate over Palestine was confirmed in 1922, allied support for Zionism was cast in concrete, a harbinger of relationships to come, and a harbinger too of the influence that other powerful
Zionist individuals would enjoy with many future presidents and world leaders.
A large nascent organized lobby also exerted considerable influence in these early years. Brandeis’ Zionist Organization of America grew tenfold during World War I, to a remarkable 200,000. Although membership dropped in later years, lobbyists worked closely with Congress in 1922 to pass a joint resolution supporting the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine and were strong enough to make it evident
to legislators in many key districts that support for Zionism was a critical election issue. In 1929, when Palestinian rioters launched anti-Zionist protests, Zionist activists were strong and numerous
enough to be able to mobilize several demonstrations of up to 20,000 in New York City. Zionist activists also played a role in shaping media coverage of the situation in Palestine. Throughout the 1920s, the New York Times devoted an average of one or two articles a week to the issue, and more during crisis periods – a remarkable total given the relative unimportance
of the Palestine issue to the U.S.A. in these years. The Times relied for much of its Palestine coverage on material
from Zionist press agents and on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency wire service.
september 1-15, 2007
The easy recruitment of two-thirds of the Senate and half the House to a non-Jewish Zionist organization
in 1941 is one indication of considerable
lobby strength.
A study of these early years thus shows clearly that, far from being weak or even non-existent, the pro-Zionist lobby was quite powerful from its inception. Zionist activists, from Louis Brandeis working in the halls of government, to the lobbyists pressuring Congress, to the grassroots organizers who brought supporters out onto the streets, were the prime movers both in formulating the view the general public gained of the Palestine issue and in shaping the official policy that emerged.
Franklin Roosevelt had his own small group of close Zionist advisers. His views were shaped and his policy defined under the scrutiny and influence of Zionist leaders such as Rabbi Stephen Wise and Judge Felix Frankfurter, who had ready access to the White House. Wise, a protégé
of Louis Brandeis who took over the leadership of the Zionist Organization of America in the mid-1930s, was a longtime
Democratic political colleague of Roosevelt. Frankfurter, another Brandeis’ protégé whom Roosevelt appointed to the Supreme Court, and Wise used their easy access to Roosevelt to bring Zionist issues to his attention and urge his intercession
on behalf of the Zionist cause, even during the height of World War II when Roosevelt avoided public comment on Zionism for fear of arousing anti-allied
protest among the Arabs. Just a few months before his death, even immediately
after promising Saudi King Abdul Aziz in 1945 that he would “do nothing
to assist the Jews against the Arabs”, Roosevelt authorized Wise to issue a rare public statement in his name, supporting
unlimited Jewish immigration to Palestine and establishment of a Jewish state.
Political colleagues in Congress and elsewhere in Democratic politics, themselves
influenced by Zionist activists, also had an impact on Roosevelt’s thinking.
Again, as in earlier years, a strong, well-organized lobby was active with Congress and at the grassroots level. In 1941, Zionist activists organized a group of prominent non-Jews who were pro-Zionist, to keep the issue of Palestine as a Jewish homeland alive and before the public. The group initially recruited 68 senators, 200 representatives, several governors, and two cabinet secretaries as members and within a year had a membership
of 800 “distinguished citizens”.
In 1943, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, an aggressive Zionist leader, organized a broad grassroots campaign to win congressional
and popular support for the Zionist cause. Under the American Zionist Emergency Council (AZEC), he organized local chapters in virtually every community in the country with a Jewish population and in the hometown of every influential member of Congress. Working with local non-Jewish communities,
AZEC also organized public rallies supporting Jewish statehood and generated
pro-Zionist resolutions and telegrams to Congress from 3,000 organizations, including labor unions, Rotary clubs, and church groups.
By the early 1940s, the assumption that Palestine should be a Jewish national
home was pervasive in U.S. political circles. Although congressional support for Zionism never reached the near-unanimous levels of today, the Zionist lobby was quite successful even in these early days in garnering wide support in Congress. The easy recruitment of two-thirds of the Senate and half the House to a non-Jewish Zionist organization in 1941 is one indication of considerable lobby strength. A year later, a similar number of congressmen signed on to a resolution pushed by the lobby, noting the urgent need to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine. In the presidential election year of 1944, both party platforms called in nearly identical language for establishment
of “a free and democratic Jewish commonwealth” and urged the British to open Palestine to unrestricted Jewish immigration.
By the time Harry Truman came to office
after Roosevelt’s death, U.S. support for the formation of a Jewish homeland in all or part of Palestine was so much a given that it had become an integral part of policy. Despite the near reverence he has enjoyed in many pro-Israel circles for 60 years because of his recognition of the new Israeli state in 1948, Truman was ambivalent
for various reasons until late in the game about the wisdom of establishing
a Jewish state. On the surface, in fact, the deck appeared to be stacked against Truman supporting Zionism to the end. He was skeptical of the appropriateness of establishing any state on racial or religious
lines; every agency and official in the government, save his own White House advisers, opposed establishing a Jewish state for strategic reasons; partition
of Palestine to give the Jews a state was thought to risk giving the Soviets entrée to the Middle East, or to endanger
Western access to Arab oil, or both; and finally, Truman was angered by the importuning of Zionist spokesmen and refused to allow visits after Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver actually shouted at Truman and pounded on his desk.
But despite all this, the pressures on Truman toward support for a Jewish state were so heavy as to be irresistible. His three closest White House aides, all strong Zionists, had a profound impact on Truman’s thinking and his decision making, doing more than anyone else to shape his viewpoint on Palestine. The three were Clark Clifford, a non-Jewish Missouri lawyer who was a key domestic
adviser; David Niles, a Roosevelt administration’s holdover who served as Truman’s adviser on minority affairs; and Max Lowenthal, a longtime political ally of Truman who served as Clifford’s legal adviser on the Palestine issue. Clifford was a vocal Zionist, possibly influenced by Niles and Lowenthal, and both of these Jewish men were so emotional about the Zionist cause that Truman once said he found it disconcerting that they burst into tears whenever he tried to talk to them about the issue.
All three of these men had constant easy access to Truman, particularly during
the height of the partition debate over Palestine in 1947 and 1948, and including
during those periods when Truman banned all other Zionist spokesmen from the White House, and they fed Truman a steady diet of material designed to influence
his own emotions and his personal perceptions of the issue. Both Niles and Lowenthal worked closely with Zionist organizations, serving as principal entrées
to the White House for Zionist activists and not infrequently passing information on White House and administration
thinking to the Zionist groups. Niles was a member of several so-called
September 1-15, 2007
The lobby took off in the 1950s, its growth and molding taking place largely under the aegis of Abba Eban, Israel’s first ambassador
to the U.S.A.
“brain trusts” established to advise Truman, one of which set out specifically to neutralize State Department opposition
to the Zionist project by enlisting prominent individuals as advocates for Zionism and, more bluntly, by impressing
on congressional leaders of both parties
the electoral danger of not supporting
the partition of Palestine.
Although Truman was always basically
Zionist-oriented in his thinking and never entertained Arab concerns at all, pure politics and an acute awareness of the importance of the Jewish vote clearly played a large part in his thinking on the Palestine issue. A Time magazine article from October 1946, recently unearthed by lobby-watcher Jeff Blankfort, indicated
that thoughts of accommodating the Jewish vote in New York were uppermost
in Truman’s mind in advance of the 1946 off-year election – a time when his own popularity ratings had dropped to around 40 per cent. A Zionist organization
ran an ad in the New York Times harshly criticizing the Democrats for allegedly
failing to fulfill their commitment to support “the aspirations of the Jewish people” in Palestine. Noting that Truman “knew as well as any Republican that the Democrats did not have a prayer to win in New York State unless they could pile up a huge majority in heavily Jewish New York City”, Time reported that David Niles sprang into action after the ad appeared
and pushed Truman to “do something
at once for the Jews”. And he did. Although his action brought heavy criticism
from Britain and obviously angered the Arabs, Truman released a letter on Yom Kippur eve demanding that Britain allow 100,000 Jews, then in Displaced Person camps in Europe, into Palestine – a move that would give Jews a considerable
demographic boost in Palestine.
The organized lobby was highly active in this period, as is evident from the Time article. Although AIPAC was not formed until 1951, multiple Zionist organizations made a massive effort to garner support for Jewish statehood between 1945 and 1948 and unquestionably played a critical
and decisive part in creating a body of opinion throughout the United States – among the public, in the press, in Congress, and at the White House – that assumed the rightness of the Zionist program
in Palestine and ignored any contrary
reasoning, whether from Arabs or from serious analysts concerned about the geostrategic implications of planting
a largely European settler colonialist project in the heart of an Arab region. Despite the lobby’s considerable success at earlier periods, historians of this era have observed that it performed a critical function by successfully “set[ting] a tone for public discussion” during the Truman presidency.
This is the critical point: the setting of a tone for public discussion. In those few years between the end of the war and the establishment of Israel, the Zionist story of Jews rising above the horrors of the Holocaust was so compelling and was portrayed as so romantic that its success
was all but inevitable. Abba Eban once wrote that Zionism was destined to be embraced by anyone with “a historic imagination and at least a modest ounce of romantic eccentricity”. Americans were eager to demonstrate that they could be romantic eccentrics in a good cause, but without the lobby to direct their energies
the moment would clearly not have lasted. Rabbi Silver’s AZEC mobilized national and local politicians – down to mayors and town council members, along with newspaper editors, radio broadcasters,
business leaders, labor leaders, and movie stars – to the Zionist cause. The word went out that every American “with a sense of fair play” should “side with justice” and support partition by writing to Truman. The result was a barrage of 135,000 telegrams, postcards, and letters to the White House during the second half of 1947, when partition was being debated
at the U.N.
The pressure extended to the political arena: in 1945, at the instigation of Zionist activists, 33 state legislatures, representing
fully 85 per cent of the U.S. population,
passed resolutions favoring a Jewish state in Palestine, and 37 governors signed a pro-Zionist cable to Truman.
The Lobby’s Many Manifestations
The lobby took off in the 1950s, its growth and molding taking place largely under the aegis of Abba Eban, Israel’s first ambassador to the U.S.A. He believed, as he stated in a memoir, that the key to Israel’s strength lay with U.S. public opinion,
and he saw his principal task as making
Israel “so acceptable to the American public” that if a disagreement ever arose between the two countries, any administration
would be reluctant to carry the issue to the point of confrontation.
AIPAC, then newly established, and the several popular Jewish American organizations formed the core of Eban’s public relations efforts. The Jewish leadership
served as his ambassadors to the U.S. public, and Eban himself, engaged for years in a constant round of lectures to bring Israel’s message to a broad audience.
This network gave Eban and all future Israeli ambassadors a clear advantage
in their dealings with succeeding
U.S. administrations. The fact that an Israeli ambassador was known to have substantial backing behind him, when he appeared at the White House or the State Department, gave heft to Israel’s representations
and, as Eban himself wrote, “elevated the level at which American-Israeli affairs were transacted".
With the organized lobby entrenched as a fixture in U.S. politics and policymaking,
the importance of individuals in a position to influence presidential decisions
diminished. Nonetheless, many later presidents had their own pro-Israel friends and advisers who in their individual
capacity served as lobbyists in every sense of the word. Lyndon Johnson had an entire coterie of powerful advocates fo Israel among his closest friends.
Bill Clinton’s principal policymakers on Palestinian-Israeli issues – Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, and Aaron David Miller – were all so close to Israel that Miller once acknowledged that he did not know where the line lay between his professional and his personal involvement
in the issue. In Bush Jr.’s administration,
the phenomenon of individuals who have long been active promoters of Israeli interests serving as policymakers in the administration has grown by several
orders of magnitude. Elliott Abrams, Bush’s senior Middle East adviser, and David Wurmser, Cheney’s Middle East adviser, both still serving after many other neocons have left office.
Right now, today, perhaps the single most important result of the Israel lobby’s activities in the U.S. arises from its policy of deliberately
seeking to kill off public debate on the influence of the lobby itself.
time advocates who advance Israel’s interests
as their primary function in the U.S. government.
With the impressive array of individual lobbyists who have worked in some administrations,
Israel has hardly needed an AIPAC. But AIPAC does carry out a vital role in keeping Congress in line, maintaining grassroots support for Israel, and coordinating the activities of the massive numbers of Jewish American and Christian fundamentalist supporters of Israel. The lobby, in all its manifestations,
is unquestionably a vital entity in determining U.S. policy and in setting the U.S. on a course that serves the interests of Israel’s leadership but often does harm to true U.S. interests.
Those like Plitnick and Toensing who maintain that affection is the primary driver of the U.S. relationship with Israel cannot be entirely gainsaid. Nor can those, also on the left, who say that, as a policy driver, the lobby has only minimal significance opposite the huge military-industrial complex. Obviously, affection and a sense of U.S. affinity for Israel and its culture and society play a large part in sustaining the unique closeness of the relationship. Obviously also the interests of the oil industry, and of arms manufacturers,
and of global corporations have a large impact on the formulation of policy. But in the face of the historical record, it is surely impossible to sustain the notion that the intense lobbying just described, on behalf first of Zionism and later of Israel, over nearly a century, was secondary
to or was transcended by the interests of arms manufacturers or the oil industry, and that the lobby is simply incidental to policies determined by the military-industrial
complex.
The arms industry did not talk Woodrow Wilson into ignoring the objections
of some of his policymakers who believed that accommodating Zionist goals ran against U.S. interests. The lobby did. The oil industry did not talk Harry Truman into supporting the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine over the objections
of every agency and department in his administration, which all saw the creation
of a Jewish state at the expense of an entire native Arab population as dangerously
inimical to U.S. interests. The lobby essentially made Truman’s decision for him. (In fact, the oil industry generally
did not favor Israel’s creation for fear of the anger and the possible disruption of oil supplies that this would lead to in the Arab world. The oil industry, ever invested in geopolitical stability, also did not welcome Israel’s victory in 1967 and its defeat of Egypt’s Gamal Abdul Nasser, as many on the left contend.)
Neither, demonstrably, has the military-
industrial complex played any role in determining the course of Israel’s occupation
of the West Bank and Gaza, its oppression of nearly four million Palestinians living there, and the total U.S. acquiescence in and enablement of virtually every Israeli act of oppression. The United States’ unquestioning support
for the occupation is engineered and brought about by the lobby and is without doubt the U.S. policy that is most damaging
to U.S. interests in the Middle East.
This issue of U.S. interests is at the heart of arguments over the power of the lobby. Anyone who supports a particular policy in Washington will always seek to demonstrate that what he wants is “in the national interest”, and anyone opposed
will argue the contrary. Whenever a supporter of the Israel lobby suggests that the lobby only advocates policies that advance the “true interests” of both the U.S. and Israel, or that the interests of both countries are identical, this statement
is nothing but an opinion. The opposite
is also true. When the authors of this article, or perhaps Mearsheimer and Walt, argue that a particular policy advocated
by the Israel lobby does not reflect “true U.S. interests”, that position is also an opinion that no one can convert into a fact by pointing to an official U.S. government
document that defines approved national interests.
In practice, every year the executive or other branch of the U.S. government, assisted
or steered by the dominant lobbies and special interests in the country, has a fairly free hand in manipulating what become
the nation’s interests and national policies for that particular year or session
of Congress. The national interests themselves will not, at least publicly, be written down at all. The policies allegedly implementing them will be debated, but often only in the context of “how much” or “how little”. All sides that participate in this game may agree, for instance, that one national interest of the U.S. is possession
of a strong military force, and the arguments
are only over how strong. In the main, the only democratic input comes from the Congress’s fairly limited powers
to accept, reject, modify in minimal ways and/or delay detailed acts of legislation
that have already been worked out by the dominant lobbies, special interest groups, senior White House and executive
branch staffers, and a few senior congressional
committee chairmen and staff people. In the following year or session of Congress, the procedure repeats itself.
In this system, lobbies and lobbyists play a major role in decision making on all types of national interests and policies.
On anything to do with Israel and the Middle East, the role of the Israel...
Last edited by Alpha on Mon Sep 17, 2007 5:32 pm; edited 1 time in total | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 10:12 am Post subject: |
| Mearsheimer & Walt likened to Protocols of Zion
From: "Peter Kirsch"
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 14:27:10 +0200
I was delighted to read the series of vicious, vindictive and virulent
attacks on two respected academics (mainly attacks ad hominem and
attacks questioning the academic integrity of M&W). It confirmed my
long-standing view that the only answer to jewish depredation in
Occupied Palestine is the ad hominem attack in the absence of reasoned
discussion of the problem.
Of course Dershowitz was well represented. Thank you for including his
remarks which are, many of them, blatant lies which confirm my low
opinion of his integrity. Just one example: his remark about the right
of people to become citizens of israel - he lied. A jew, as defined by
jewish law, is one born of a jewish mother (like our friend Rupert
Murdoch). Any non-jew is regarded is a little less human than they
regard themselves, while Arabs are described as cockroaches, according
to a former chief of staff of the israeli army. Even a jew who has
converted to the jewish faith is not regarded as a "complete jew" - he
is always distinguished in the jewish liturgy, in births, marriages,
circumcisions and death, NOT as "Samuel son of David" (Samuel ben
David) , but as "Samuel, son of Abraham our Father". That distinction
might appear trivial but it goes to the very root of jewish
chosen-racism, as I choose to call it, and will have an impact on
jewish
life in Occupied Palestine as hundreds of thousands of Russian jews of
questionable jewish ancestry are trying to find their place in this
country of the Chosen Ones.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Silent treatment for controversial book
HERB KEINON
Australian Jewish News, July 13, 2007
JERUSAIEM — The controversial new book by Stephen Walt and John
Mearsheimer slamming the Israel lobby for allegedly hijacking US
foreign
policy has been given the silent treatment by the Israeli Government
and
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The book, The
Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, went on sale this week in bookshops
after being available on the internet.
Israeli Government officials in Jerusalem, explaining why the Foreign
Ministry has chosen to ignore the book, said that Israel had no desire
to "help the sales of the book".
AIPAC's policy on the book, and other similar books and articles that
attack it and organisations lobbying on behalf of Israel, is to avoid a
mud-slinging campaign that would detract from the organisation's work.
Walt and Mearsheimer charge in the book that Israel and its American
supporters "have been able to stymie any detente between Iran and the
United States, and to keep the two countries far apart" and that "many
policies pursued on Israel's behalf now jeopardise US national
security"
Walt is a political scientist from Harvard, and Mearsheimer from the
University of Chicago.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
JPOST.COM
Israel, AIPAC won't parry Walt-Mearsheimer book; Bible is a bigger
seller
By HERB KEINON
JPost.com » Jewish World » Jewish News » Article
Aug 27, 2007 1:34 | Updated Aug 27, 2007 2:00
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188128150170&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Neither Israel nor the American Israel Public Affairs Committee are
putting together a proactive campaign to combat the new Stephen
Walt-John Mearsheimer book slamming the Israel lobby for allegedly
hijacking US foreign policy.
The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy is scheduled to hit the stores
on
September 5, but is already being sold on the Internet.
Government officials in Jerusalem, explaining why the Foreign Ministry
has chosen to ignore the book, said Sunday that Israel had no desire to
"help the sales of the book," something that would happen, one official
said, if Israel aggressively fired back. "We don't want to play into
their hands."
AIPAC's policy on the book, and other similar books and articles that
attack it and organizations lobbying on behalf of Israel, is to avoid a
mud-slinging campaign that would detract from the organization's work.
Walt and Mearsheimer charge in the book that Israel and its American
supporters "have been able to stymie any detente between Iran and the
United States, and to keep the two countries far apart," and that "many
policies pursued on Israel's behalf now jeopardize US national
security."
"Some pro-Israel individuals and groups have occasionally taken their
defense of Israel to illegitimate extremes, attempting to silence
individuals who hold views they dislike. This endeavor can involve
intimidating and smearing critics of Israel, or even attempting to
damage or wreck their careers," the authors say.
Walt, a political scientist from Harvard, and Mearsheimer, from the
University of Chicago, also wrote that pressure from "Israel and the
lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq... but
it was a critical element."
Without Israel's and the lobby's efforts, "America would not be in Iraq
today," according to the book.
"Although we believe that America should support Israel's existence,
Israel's security is ultimately not of critical strategic importance to
the United States," they wrote.
Former Israeli ambassador to the US Danny Ayalon dismissed the new book
as "not serious" and one that "lacks academic depth." He supports the
"do nothing" policy regarding the book, saying Israel "should not
distinguish the authors by paying them or the book any regard at all."
The position advocated in the book, Ayalon said, remains on the fringes
of American society. He said rather than reacting to books such as this
or Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, Israel and Jewish
groups in the US should undertake a comprehensive proactive campaign on
university campuses to introduce Israel and to counter the Middle East
Studies departments funded by the Saudis and Gulf states on many
campuses.
"Firing back would just promote the book," Ayalon said. "What needs to
be done is to make sure there are other books, and to ensure that what
students studying on campus is objective."
Arieh O'Sullivan, the Anti-Defamation League's spokesman in Israel,
said
the concern was that "these conspiracy-theory books are very sexy among
academics and will be used on college campuses as required reading."
ADL national director Abe Foxman has written a book to combat
Mearsheimer and Walt entitled The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and
the Myth of Jewish Control. It is also due out on September 5 and now
available on the Internet.
Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-New York), currently in Israel with a group of
community leaders on a visit sponsored by the New York Jewish Community
Relations Council, dismissed the notion of exaggerated pro-Israeli
influence on American foreign policy as "a bunch of hocus-pocus."
"America has to do what is in America's interest, and that's what it
does," he said, adding that "99.99 percent of American Jews" and "the
overwhelming majority of average Americans" were "proud and supportive
of the relationship between the US and Israel."
Asked whether critics of that relationship, such as Walt and
Mearsheimer, were gradually weakening American support for Israel,
Ackerman told The Jerusalem Post he was aware of the potential
"corrosive effect," but that there would have to be "an awful lot" of
criticism for it to have a substantive impact.
The Jewish community, because of bitter experience, was acutely
sensitive to the potential impact of such criticism, he said. But
regarding the two academics, he said, "I don't think these guys have
the
gravitas of a Jimmy Carter... who got his perspectives all screwed up
on
Israel."
There was a "bigger group" in America "who say Israel can do nothing
wrong" than those who say Israel can do no right, Ackerman said,
referring to evangelical Christians.
"The Bible is a bigger seller than these guys' book." | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:04 pm Post subject: Why They Won’t Debate U.S. Mideast Policy |
| Why They Won’t Debate U.S. Mideast Policy
A FELLOW IN UPSTATE NEWYORK is mailing journalists in America asking us to pressure the powers that be to hold a presidential debate on the subject of America’s Middle East policy.
The debate is an excellent idea. After all, we are fighting a war there, and the bulk of our problem with Middle East terrorism derives from our foreign policy, which can be summarized as supporting Israel’s terrible treatment of the Palestinians while pretending to be interested in peace.
That is no longer the entire source of hostility, since the Bush administration has invaded two Muslim countries and is threatening war with a third, but the topic of our Middle East policy certainly deserves an airing and a full debate.
Alas, it will never happen. This might surprise you, but the reluctance of American politicians to hold an open debate on America’s foreign policy in the Middle East is not the fault of the Israeli lobby. Oh, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee prefers to avoid any debate, but AIPAC couldn’t stop one if the presidential candidates insisted on having it.
Support for Israel in this country is more complicated than just AIPAC. There is the real AIPAC and there is the exaggerated belief in AIPAC’s influence by most American politicians and not a few media people. Then there is the Israeli government itself. Next, there are American neo-conservatives, many but not all of whom are Jewish and who have an unhealthy personal attachment to Israel. Finally, there is the cult of the Christian Zionists, who believe the Messiah can return only when all the world’s Jews have gathered in Israel.
One would think a Messiah could return anytime he darn well felt like returning, but don’t worry about it, all the world’s Jews don’t want to move to Israel.
As for the presidential debate, I think many of the candidates would develop scheduling conflicts, and those who didn’t would simply engage in a contest of who loves Israel the most. That’s what happens when American politicians visit AIPAC’s annual meeting. It’s “I love Israel,” and the next candidate says, “I love Israel even more.” There is such a frenzy of loving Israel, it’s a wonder that members of the Israeli consular staff don’t get swept up and kissed.
Jewish political influence stems from two factors. One, Jews tend to put their money where their mouth is. In contradiction to the stereotypes, Jews who can afford it are unusually generous givers, not only to politicians but to causes, charities and organizations they believe in. They set an example of generosity all Americans would do well to follow.
The second factor is just an accident of geography. America’s Jews are largely concentrated in a few states with a lot of votes in the Electoral College—NewYork, Illinois, Ohio, California and Florida. In very close races, the Jewish vote could tip a state toward one candidate or another. Since most states have a winner-take all system, Jewish voters are courted by the politicians. The same thing applies to black voters, of course.
© 2007
BY KING FEATURES SYNDICATE
Charley Reese
is a nationally syndicated columnist. Long associated with
The Orlando Sentinel
, Reese was formerly active in a variety of political endeavors. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:03 pm Post subject: |
| How much does one want to bet that AIPAC's influence (for the coming war with Iran) has played a role with the Democrats as well:
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007
Headlines for September 18, 2007
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/18/1359244
Listen to Segment || Download Show mp3
Watch 128k stream Watch 256k stream
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- ElBaradei Warns Against War on Iran
- ElBaradei Accuses Democrats of Distorting Iran Nuclear Data
- Bush Nominates Michael Mukasey To Be Attorney General
- Iraqi Government to Expel Blackwater After Fatal Shooting
- Greenspan: Cost of Oil Would Be Higher If Not For Iraq War
- Iowa Democrats Exclude Kucinich & Gravel From Events
- Climate Change Activists Trek From Pole to Pole
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ElBaradei Warns Against War on Iran
The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei is warning no military action should be taken against Iran, and that threats of war are premature and counterproductive. On Sunday France warned that it was preparing for a possible war against Iran and the Telegraph of London reported that the Pentagon has developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran. ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there is no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iran.
Mohamed ElBaradei: "I repeat: we have not seen any undeclared facilities operating in Iran, we have not seen any concrete evidence that the Iran program is being weaponized. We have not received any information to that effect. So, I haven't heard any other information, to the contrary. So while we are still concerned about the nature of the Iranian program, we should not... I do not believe, at this stage, that we are facing clear and present danger that requires that we go beyond diplomacy."
ElBaradei also urged the world to remember what happened in Iraq before considering any similar action against Tehran.
ElBaradei Accuses Democrats of Distorting Iran Nuclear Data
Meanwhile Congressional Democrats are being accused of drafting a misleading and erroneous report on Iran's nuclear program. ElBaradei said the Congressional report – released by Democratic Congressman Rush Holt of New Jersey -- contained serious distortions of the IAEA's own findings on Iran's nuclear activity. The report claimed Iran had enriched uranium to weapons-grade level when the IAEA had only found small quantities of enrichment at far lower levels. | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 9:58 am Post subject: |
| Mearsheimer and Walt in the New York Times again today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/chapters/0923-1st-mear.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
September 23, 2007
First Chapter
‘The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy’
By JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER and STEPHEN M. WALT
America is about to enter a presidential election year. Although the outcome is of course impossible to predict at this stage, certain features of the campaign are easy to foresee. The candidates will inevitably differ on various domestic issues-health care, abortion, gay marriage, taxes, education, immigration-and spirited debates are certain to erupt on a host of foreign policy questions as well. What course of action should the United States pursue in Iraq? What is the best response to the crisis in Darfur, Iran's nuclear ambitions, Russia's hostility to NATO, and China's rising power? How should the United States address global warming, combat terrorism, and reverse the erosion of its international image? On these and many other issues, we can confidently expect lively disagreements among the various candidates.
Yet on one subject, we can be equally confident that the candidates will speak with one voice. In 2008, as in previous election years, serious candidates for the highest office in the land will go to considerable lengths to express their deep personal commitment to one foreign country-Israel-as well as their determination to maintain unyielding U.S. support for the Jewish state. Each candidate will emphasize that he or she fully appreciates the multitude of threats facing Israel and make it clear that, if elected, the United States will remain firmly committed to defending Israel's interests under any and all circumstances. None of the candidates is likely to criticize Israel in any significant way or suggest that the United States ought to pursue a more evenhanded policy in the region. Any who do will probably fall by the wayside.
This observation is hardly a bold prediction, because presidential aspirants were already proclaiming their support for Israel in early 2007. The process began in January, when four potential candidates spoke to Israel's annual Herzliya Conference on security issues. As Joshua Mitnick reported in Jewish Week, they were "seemingly competing to see who can be most strident in defense of the Jewish State." Appearing via satellite link, John Edwards, the Democratic party's 2004 vice presidential candidate, told his Israeli listeners that "your future is our future" and said that the bond between the United States and Israel "will never be broken." Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney spoke of being "in a country I love with people I love" and, aware of Israel's deep concern about a possible nuclear Iran, proclaimed that "it is time for the world to speak three truths: (1) Iran must be stopped; (2) Iran can be stopped; (3) Iran will be stopped!" Senator John McCain (R-AZ) declared that "when it comes to the defense of Israel, we simply cannot compromise," while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) told the audience that "Israel is facing the greatest danger for [sic] its survival since the 1967 victory."
Shortly thereafter, in early February, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) spoke in New York before the local chapter of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where she said that in this "moment of great difficulty for Israel and great peril for Israel ... what is vital is that we stand by our friend and our ally and we stand by our own values. Israel is a beacon of what's right in a neighborhood overshadowed by the wrongs of radicalism, extremism, despotism and terrorism." One of her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), spoke a month later before an AIPAC audience in Chicago. Obama, who has expressed some sympathy for the Palestinians' plight in the past and made a brief reference to Palestinian "suffering" at a campaign appearance in March 2007, was unequivocal in his praise for Israel and made it manifestly clear that he would do nothing to change the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Other presidential hopefuls, including Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, have expressed pro-Israel sentiments with equal or greater ardor.
What explains this behavior? Why is there so little disagreement among these presidential hopefuls regarding Israel, when there are profound disagreements among them on almost every other important issue facing the United States and when it is apparent that America's Middle East policy has gone badly awry? Why does Israel get a free pass from presidential candidates, when its own citizens are often deeply critical of its present policies and when these same presidential candidates are all too willing to criticize many of the things that other countries do? Why does Israel, and no other country in the world, receive such consistent deference from America's leading politicians?
Some might say that it is because Israel is a vital strategic asset for the United States. Indeed, it is said to be an indispensable partner in the "war on terror." Others will answer that there is a powerful moral case for providing Israel with unqualified support, because it is the only country in the region that "shares our values." But neither of these arguments stands up to fair-minded scrutiny. Washington's close relationship with Jerusalem makes it harder, not easier, to defeat the terrorists who are now targeting the United States, and it simultaneously undermines America's standing with important allies around the world. Now that the Cold War is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States. Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public, or even raise the possibility.
There is also no compelling moral rationale for America's uncritical and uncompromising relationship with Israel. There is a strong moral case for Israel's existence and there are good reasons for the United States to be committed to helping Israel if its survival is in jeopardy. But given Israel's brutal treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, moral considerations might suggest that the United States pursue a more evenhanded policy toward the two sides, and maybe even lean toward the Palestinians. Yet we are unlikely to hear that sentiment expressed by anyone who wants to be president, or anyone who would like to occupy a position in Congress.
The real reason why American politicians are so deferential is the political power of the Israel lobby. The lobby is a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively works to move U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. As we will describe in detail, it is not a single, unified movement with a central leadership, and it is certainly not a cabal or conspiracy that "controls" U.S. foreign policy. It is simply a powerful interest group, made up of both Jews and gentiles, whose acknowledged purpose is to press Israel's case within the United States and influence American foreign policy in ways that its members believe will benefit the Jewish state. The various groups that make up the lobby do not agree on every issue, although they share the desire to promote a special relationship between the United States and Israel. Like the efforts of other ethnic lobbies and interest groups, the activities of the Israel lobby's various elements are legitimate forms of democratic political participation, and they are for the most part consistent with America's long tradition of interest group activity.
Because the Israel lobby has gradually become one of the most powerful interest groups in the United States, candidates for high office pay close attention to its wishes. The individuals and groups in the United States that make up the lobby care deeply about Israel, and they do not want American politicians to criticize it, even when criticism might be warranted and might even be in Israel's own interest. Instead, these groups want U.S. leaders to treat Israel as if it were the fifty-first state. Democrats and Republicans alike fear the lobby's clout. They all know that any politician who challenges its policies stands little chance of becoming president.
The Lobby and U.S. Middle East Policy
The lobby's political power is important not because it affects what presidential candidates say during a campaign, but because it has a significant influence on American foreign policy, especially in the Middle East. America's actions in that volatile region have enormous consequences for people all around the world, especially the people who live there. Just consider how the Bush administration's misbegotten war in Iraq has affected the long-suffering people of that shattered country: tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes, and a vicious sectarian war taking place with no end in sight. The war has also been a strategic disaster for the United States and has alarmed and endangered U.S. allies both inside and outside the region. One could hardly imagine a more vivid or tragic demonstration of the impact the United States can have-for good or ill-when it unleashes the power at its disposal.
The United States has been involved in the Middle East since the early days of the Republic, with much of the activity centered on educational programs or missionary work. For some, a biblically inspired fascination with the Holy Land and the role of Judaism in its history led to support for the idea of restoring the Jewish people to a homeland there, a view that was embraced by certain religious leaders and, in a general way, by a few U.S. politicians. But it is a mistake to see this history of modest and for the most part private engagement as the taproot of America's role in the region since World War II, and especially its extraordinary relationship with Israel today. Between the routing of the Barbary pirates two hundred years ago and World War II, the United States played no significant security role anywhere in the region and U.S. leaders did not aspire to one. Woodrow Wilson did endorse the 1917 Balfour Declaration (which expressed Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine), but Wilson did virtually nothing to advance this goal. Indeed, the most significant U.S. involvement during this period-a fact-finding mission dispatched to the region in 1919 by the Paris Peace Conference under the leadership of Americans Henry Churchill King and Charles Crane-concluded that the local population opposed continued Zionist inroads and recommended against the establishment of an independent Jewish homeland. Yet as the historian Margaret Macmillan notes, "Nobody paid the slightest attention." The possibility of a U.S. mandate over portions of the Middle East was briefly considered but never pursued, and Britain and France ended up dividing the relevant portions of the Ottoman Empire between themselves.
The United States has played an important and steadily increasing role in Middle East security issues since World War II, driven initially by oil, then by anticommunism and, over time, by its growing relationship with Israel. America's first significant involvement in the security politics of the region was a nascent partnership with Saudi Arabia in the mid-1940s (intended by both parties as a check on British ambitions in the region), and its first formal alliance commitments were Turkey's inclusion in NATO in 1952 and the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact in 1954. After backing Israel's founding in 1948, U.S. leaders tried to strike a balanced position between Israel and the Arabs and carefully avoided making any formal commitment to the Jewish state for fear of jeopardizing more important strategic interests. This situation changed gradually over the ensuing decades, in response to events like the Six-Day War, Soviet arms sales to various Arab states, and the growing influence of pro-Israel groups in the United States. Given this dramatic transformation in America's role in the region, it makes little sense to try to explain current U.S. policy-and especially the lavish support that is now given to Israel-by referring to the religious beliefs of a bygone era or the radically different forms of past American engagement. There was nothing inevitable or predetermined about the current special relationship between the United States and Israel.
Since the Six-Day War of 1967, a salient feature-and arguably the central focus-of America's Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. For the past four decades, in fact, the United States has provided Israel with a level of material and diplomatic support that dwarfs what it provides to other countries. That aid is largely unconditional: no matter what Israel does, the level of support remains for the most part unchanged. In particular, the United States consistently favors Israel over the Palestinians and rarely puts pressure on the Jewish state to stop building settlements and roads in the West Bank. Although Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush openly favored the creation of a viable Palestinian state, neither was willing to use American leverage to make that outcome a reality.
The United States has also undertaken policies in the broader Middle East that reflected Israel's preferences. Since the early 1990s, for example, American policy toward Iran has been heavily influenced by the wishes of successive Israeli governments. Tehran has made several attempts in recent years to improve relations with Washington and settle outstanding differences, but Israel and its American supporters have been able to stymie any dÈtente between Iran and the United States, and to keep the two countries far apart. Another example is the Bush administration's behavior during Israel's war against Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Almost every country in the world harshly criticized Israel's bombing campaign-a campaign that killed more than one thousand Lebanese, most of them civilians-but the United States did not. Instead, it helped Israel prosecute the war, with prominent members of both political parties openly defending Israel's behavior. This unequivocal support for Israel undermined the pro-American government in Beirut, strengthened Hezbollah, and drove Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah closer together, results that were hardly good for either Washington or Jerusalem.
Many policies pursued on Israel's behalf now jeopardize U.S. national security. The combination of unstinting U.S. support for Israel and Israel's prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory has fueled anti-Americanism throughout the Arab and Islamic world, thereby increasing the threat from international terrorism and making it harder for Washington to deal with other problems, such as shutting down Iran's nuclear program. Because the United States is now so unpopular within the broader region, Arab leaders who might otherwise share U.S. goals are reluctant to help us openly, a predicament that cripples U.S. efforts to deal with a host of regional challenges.
This situation, which has no equal in American history, is due primarily to the activities of the Israel lobby. While other special interest groups-including ethnic lobbies representing Cuban Americans, Irish Americans, Armenian Americans, and Indian Americans-have managed to skew U.S. foreign policy in directions that they favored, no ethnic lobby has diverted that policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest. The Israel lobby has successfully convinced many Americans that American and Israeli interests are essentially identical. In fact, they are not.
Although this book focuses primarily on the lobby's influence on U.S. foreign policy and its negative effect on American interests, the lobby's impact has been unintentionally harmful to Israel as well. Take Israel's settlements, which even a writer as sympathetic to Israel as Leon Wieseltier recently called a "moral and strategic blunder of historic proportions." Israel's situation would be better today if the United States had long ago used its financial and diplomatic leverage to convince Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and instead helped Israel create a viable Palestinian state on those lands. Washington did not do so, however, largely because it would have been politically costly for any president to attempt it. As noted above, Israel would have been much better off if the United States had told it that its military strategy for fighting the 2006 Lebanon war was doomed to fail, rather than reflexively endorsing and facilitating it. By making it difficult to impossible for the U.S. government to criticize Israel's conduct and press it to change some of its counterproductive policies, the lobby may even be jeopardizing the long-term prospects of the Jewish state.
Excerpted from The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer Stephen M. Walt Copyright © 2007 by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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Can listen to the recent Mearsheimer and Walt interview with Ian Masters on his 'Live from the Left Coast' broadcast via the 'Live from the Left Coaast' link at the bottom of www.ianmasters.org (access the following URL for more on the Mearsheimer & Walt book):
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
Defend Congressman Jim Moran from AIPAC Media Attacks:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/09/20/defend-cong-moran-from-aipac-media-attacks-updated.php
Secret US air force team to perfect plan for Iran strike:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/09/23/secret-us-air-force-team-to-perfect-plan-for-iran-strike.php
http://www.stopthewarnow.net
http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com
CIA Bin Laden Unit Head Says Israel Not Worth One American Life:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/09/23/cia-bin-laden-unit-head-says-israel-not-worth-one-american.php | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
