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Post by RPankn on Mar 19, 2006 18:23:39 GMT -5
Last update - 11:13 17/03/2006 Study: U.S. Middle East policy motivated by pro-Israel lobby By Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz Correspondent WASHINGTON - The U.S. Middle East policy is not in America's national interest and is motivated primarily by the country's pro-Israel lobby, according to a study published Thursday by researchers from Harvard University and the University of Chicago. Observers in Washington said Thursday that the study was liable to stir up a tempest and spur renewed debate about the function of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby. The Fatah office in Washington distributed the article to an extensive mailing list. "No lobby has managed to divert U.S. foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. and Israeli interests are essentially identical," write the authors of the study. [ I'm waiting for the study which concludes Israel has never been our 'friend'.] John J. Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago's political science department and Stephen M. Walt from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government do not present new facts. They rely mainly on an analysis of Israeli and American newspaper reports and studies, along with the findings of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. The study also documents accusations that American supporters of Israel pushed the United States into war with Iraq. It lists senior Bush administration officials who supported the war and are also known to support Israel, such as Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith and David Wurmser. The authors say the influence of the pro-Israel lobby is a source of serious concern and write that it has even caused damage to Israel by preventing it from reaching a compromise with its neighbors. www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/695495.html
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Post by RPankn on Mar 20, 2006 17:51:42 GMT -5
Pro-Israel lobby in U.S. under attack.WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- Two of America's top scholars have published a searing attack on the role and power of Washington's pro-Israel lobby in a British journal, warning that its "decisive" role in fomenting the Iraq war is now being repeated with the threat of action against Iran. And they say that the Lobby is so strong that they doubt their article would be accepted in any U.S.-based publication. Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, author of "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics" and Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kenney School, and author of "Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy," are leading figures American in academic life. They claim that the Israel lobby has distorted American policy and operates against American interests, that it has organized the funneling of more than $140 billion dollars to Israel and "has a stranglehold" on the U.S. Congress, and its ability to raise large campaign funds gives its vast influence over Republican and Democratic administrations, while its role in Washington think tanks on the Middle East dominates the policy debate. And they say that the Lobby works ruthlessly to suppress questioning of its role, to blacken its critics and to crush serious debate about the wisdom of supporting Israel in U.S. public life. "Silencing skeptics by organizing blacklists and boycotts -- or by suggesting that critics are anti-Semites -- violates the principle of open debate on which democracy depends," Walt and Mearsheimer write. "The inability of Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these important issues paralyses the entire process of democratic deliberation. Israel's backers should be free to make their case and to challenge those who disagree with them, but efforts to stifle debate by intimidation must be roundly condemned," they add, in the 12,800-word article published in the latest issue of The London Review of Books. The article focuses strongly on the role of the "neo-conservatives" within the Bush administration in driving the decision to launch the war on Iraq. "The main driving force behind the war was a small band of neo-conservatives, many with ties to the Likud," Mearsheimer and Walt argue." Given the neo-conservatives' devotion to Israel, their obsession with Iraq, and their influence in the Bush administration, it isn't surprising that many Americans suspected that the war was designed to further Israeli interests." "The neo-conservatives had been determined to topple Saddam even before Bush became president. They caused a stir early in 1998 by publishing two open letters to Clinton, calling for Saddam's removal from power. The signatories, many of whom had close ties to pro-Israel groups like JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) or WINEP (Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy), and who included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, had little trouble persuading the Clinton administration to adopt the general goal of ousting Saddam. But they were unable to sell a war to achieve that objective. They were no more able to generate enthusiasm for invading Iraq in the early months of the Bush administration. They needed help to achieve their aim. That help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the events of that day led Bush and Cheney to reverse course and become strong proponents of a preventive war," Walt and Mearsheimer write. The article, which is already stirring furious debate in U.S. academic and intellectual circles, also explores the historical role of the Lobby. "For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel," the article says. "The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread 'democracy' throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only U.S. security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the U.S. been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state?" Professors Walt and Mearsheimer add. "The thrust of U.S. policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the 'Israel Lobby'. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. interests and those of the other country - in this case, Israel -- are essentially identical," they add. They argue that far from being a strategic asset to the United States, Israel "is becoming a strategic burden" and "does not behave like a loyal ally." They also suggest that Israel is also now "a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states. "Saying that Israel and the U.S. are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around," they add. "Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult. There is no question that many al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel's presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular support and to attract recruits." They question the argument that Israel deserves support as the only democracy in the Middle East, claiming that "some aspects of Israeli democracy are at odds with core American values. Unlike the US, where people are supposed to enjoy equal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens." The most powerful force in the Lobby is AIPAC, the American-Israel Public affairs Committee, which Walt and Mearsheimer call "a de facto agent for a foreign government," and which they say has now forged an important alliance with evangelical Christian groups. The bulk of the article is a detailed analysis of the way they claim the Lobby managed to change the Bush administration's policy from "halting Israel's expansionist policies in the Occupied Territories and advocating the creation of a Palestinian state" and divert it to the war on Iraq instead. They write "Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical." "Thanks to the lobby, the United States has become the de facto enabler of Israeli expansion in the Occupied Territories, making it complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians," and conclude that "Israel itself would probably be better off if the Lobby were less powerful and U.S. policy more even-handed." upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20060320-124726-1902r
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Post by RPankn on Mar 20, 2006 19:13:47 GMT -5
March 20, 2006 The Lobby Why is American policy in the Middle East skewered in favor of Israel? by Justin Raimondo American foreign policy has been weighed down for all too many years by an albatross hung round Uncle Sam's neck, one that distorts our stance especially vis-à-vis Middle Eastern issues and ultimately works against U.S. interests in the region and around the world: that albatross is unconditional support for the state of Israel. Of course, saying this amounts to a hate crime in today's political atmosphere, and it is almost impossible to criticize the Jewish state without being accused of religious bigotry, which is just how Israel's partisans want it. In the halls of Congress and the corridors of power, Israel is above criticism. But not anymore… Of course, we've been criticizing Israel, and its inordinate influence over American foreign policy, in these pages for quite some time, and we are not alone. On the Right, some conservatives, such as Pat Buchanan and The American Conservative magazine, have broken the taboo, and on the Left, too, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, James Petras, and a host of others have refused to be a part of the Israel-can-do-no-wrong consensus. In the intelligence community, Larry Johnson, Philip Giraldi, and James Bamford have been critical of Israel and its amen corner in the U.S., while among academics, Juan Cole has often provided a skeptical view of Israeli government actions and Israel's apologists in the U.S. In the "mainstream" media, however, and certainly in Washington, D.C., the power of Israel's lobby is unchallenged. This hegemony has now been thoroughly detailed and analyzed in an important study by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, published by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison distinguished service professor of political science and a co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, is the leading advocate of the "realist" school of foreign policy. Walt is academic dean of the Kennedy School. Their study, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," [.pdf] starts out with a bang: "The U.S. national interest should be the primary object of American foreign policy. For the past several decades, however, and especially since the Six Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering U.S. support for Israel and the related effort to spread democracy throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized U.S. security. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the United States been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state?" This situation, I would submit, has no equivalent in the history of the world. Nation-states are notorious for jealously guarding and pursuing their own interests. Why, then, would the most powerful state on earth abjectly subordinate itself to the influence and even direction of an ally, one that, furthermore, does not reciprocate this altruism? Answer: the Lobby. The reality, say Mearsheimer and Walt, is that Israel is a net liability in the worldwide struggle against terrorism and efforts by the U.S. to modify the behavior of so-called "rogue states." The Israeli-centric policy pursued by Washington's warlords "exaggerates Israel's ability to help on these issues and ignores the ways that Israel's policies make U.S. efforts more difficult." Aside from that, "Israel does not act like a loyal ally." In addition to ignoring pleas to modify their own behavior in the West Bank and Gaza, the Israelis sell arms to China and continue to spy on us – yes, even since Pollard.Aside from the flaws in the practical case for an Israeli-centric policy, the moral case for elevating Israel's interests over our own is very weak. Mearsheimer and Walt note that much of the sympathy for Israel has been based on its alleged status as the underdog: David standing alone against the demographic Goliath of the Arab world. Yet this picture, strenuously promoted by the Israel lobby, is far from the truth. Israelis the underdogs? Give me a break! As the authors point out, Israel is the strongest military power in the region.Okay, then, what about the fact that Arab regimes oppress their own people, while Israel is relatively free? In the name of promoting "democracy," the Bush administration – and its predecessors – have tilted toward Tel Aviv and held Israel up as a model for the region. But this is based on an incomplete analysis of Israel's internal regime. Israel a democracy? Not for the millions of Palestinian helots it rules. And what about the racist criteria for Israeli citizenship? If a Palestinian marries an Israeli, the former cannot [.pdf] be a citizen of Israel, nor even move there. The authors even take on the widely held – although rarely expressed – view that unconditional support for Israel is deserved on account of the Holocaust: according to this logic, it's payback time. But who is doing the paying? The Israelis victimized a group that had nothing to do with this crime, which was committed by Europeans. And the Zionists went on to commit their own crimes when they expelled "up to 700,000 Palestinians," according to the authors of this study, from 1947-48.In detailing the crimes of the Israelis, Mearsheimer and Walt come to a conclusion that will outrage the Lobby, not because it is a lie but because it is indisputable: "In terms of actual behavior," they write, "Israel's conduct is not morally distinguishable from the actions of its opponents." If the suicide bombers of Hamas and Islamic Jihad continue to plague innocent civilians who fall victim to terrorist attacks in Israel, then this kind of violence is a reflection of the activities of the organized Zionist terrorist outfits who fought in the war for independence. These activities included mass expulsions, executions, and rapes by Jewish "settlers" in the early days of the Zionist state: "Between 1949 and 1956, for example, Israeli security forces killed between 2,700 and 5,000 Arab infiltrators, the overwhelming majority of them unarmed. … The IDF also murdered hundreds of Egyptian prisoners-of-war in both the 1956 and 1967 wars. In 1967, it expelled between 100,000 and 260,000 Palestinians from the newly-conquered West Bank, and drove 80,000 Syrians from the Golan Heights." The Zionists say they are merely defending themselves against "terrorism," but they themselves utilized terrorism to establish their state, as the authors of this study document. They cite Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, then a member of an underground Zionist organization, as quite honestly advocating methods that one now associates with al-Qaeda: "Indeed, Shamir openly argued that 'neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat.' Rather, terrorism has 'a great part to play … in our war against the occupier [Britain].'" Israel's alleged moral superiority is a myth. Neither strategic nor moral arguments explain America's unconditional support for Israel: instead, "the explanation lies in the unmatched power of the Israel Lobby." While it's true that there is no centralized leadership of "the Lobby," as the authors call it, and there are significant disagreements between various groups within the Jewish community over U.S. policy toward Israel, there is, however, a party line that is almost never crossed or contradicted. When it is, the response from the Amen Corner is virulent. When Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, wrote a letter to President Bush expressing his opposition to the "security wall," and asking that the U.S. put pressure on Israel to stop construction, he was accused of "perfidy" by leading figures in the Lobby. The nature of the attacks revealed an attitude toward Israel not unlike that held by the Communists of the Cold War era toward the Soviet Union. As Mearsheimer and Walt point out: "Critics declared that, 'It would be obscene at any time for the president of the World Jewish Congress to lobby the president of the United States to resist policies being promoted by the government of Israel.' When Seymour Reich, president of the Israel Policy Forum, suggested to Condi Rice that the Israelis should be pressured to reopen a Gaza Strip border crossing, the Lobby went ballistic, and Reich soon recanted, announcing that 'the word "pressure" is not in my vocabulary when it comes to Israel.'" Yeah, it better not be, if he knows what's good for him – and that goes for the American Congress, and even the president himself. The reason: again, the Lobby. The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), now embroiled in a spy case [.pdf], has been rated the second heaviest hitter in the world of Washington lobbyists, just behind the AARP, but ahead of the NRA and the AFL-CIO. Adding heft to their efforts is the Christian evangelical factor: the theology of many born-again Christians is linked to unconditional support for Israel, because the ingathering of Jews in the Holy Land is seen as a signal that the End Times are upon us – and God, in the evangelicals' view, is definitely on the side of Tel Aviv. The Lobby has mastered "interest group politics" like no one else has. They rely on the general indifference of the population and their own zeal to curry favor with legislators, but beyond this they exert a unique influence, one that doesn't just dominate the debate but, instead, prevents any real debate from taking place. As Mearsheimer and Walt put it: "The Lobby strives to ensure that public discourse about Israel portrays it in a positive light, by repeating myths about Israel and its founding and by publicizing Israel's side in the policy debates of the day. The goal is to prevent critical commentary about Israel from getting a fair hearing in the political arena. Controlling the debate is essential to guaranteeing U.S. support, because a candid discussion of U.S.-Israeli relations might lead Americans to favor a different policy."This really gets at the core of the Lobby's unique effectiveness: they not only try to influence legislators and policymakers in the executive branch to take a pro-Israel position down the line, they also seek to smear the opposition, to delegitimize and marginalize critics as "anti-Semites." When it comes to Congress, "Israel is virtually immune from criticism." Some are Christian Zionists, like Dick Armey, who once proclaimed that his "number one priority" in terms of foreign policy is to support Israel come hell or high water. The authors cite Morris Amitay, a former head of AIPAC, as saying:
"There are a lot of guys at the working level up here [on Capitol Hill] … who happen to be Jewish, who are willing … to look at certain issues in terms of their Jewishness. … These are all guys who are in a position to make the decision in these areas for those senators. … You can get an awful lot done just at the staff level."AIPAC is "the core of the Lobby's influence in Congress." Money is used a weapon to bring down perceived anti-Israel candidates, such as former senator Charles Percy. Mearsheimer and Walt even bring up Jack Abramoff (naughty, naughty!) as an example of the power of lobbyists in Washington, and echo Pat Buchanan's famous line that the place is "Israeli-occupied territory": "The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress. Open debate about U.S. policy towards Israel does not occur there." The authors detail the penetration of the Clinton administration by the Lobby, which meant that the American delegation to the Oslo "peace process" negotiations basically took its orders from Tel Aviv. Yes, the delegation supported Oslo, but only within the limits determined by the Israelis. Palestinian negotiators had every reason to believe that, as they put it, they were "negotiating with two Israeli teams: one displaying an Israeli flag, and one an American flag." And things only got worse when Bush II took over. The Lobby is adept at media manipulation, so much so that real criticism of Israel is rarely heard in "mainstream" news outlets. On the editorial pages, pro-Israel commentary is the rule, while pieces sympathetic to the idea that the Arabs might have a case are exceptions that stand out due to their extreme rarity. The news-gathering and reporting departments are a bit better, because it is hard to deny the realities on the ground as Israelis bulldoze Palestinian homes and systematically colonize Arab lands, but this is offset by the intensity of the pressure tactics deployed by pro-Israel activists, who target individual reporters and news organizations. One executive at CNN is cited as saying he sometimes get as many as 6,000 e-mails in one day kvetching that a news report is "anti-Israel." The authors list most of the big Washington think tanks, and characterize them as having few if any critics of Israel on staff. What happened in this arena is exemplified, they say, by the example of the Brookings Institution, the politics of which might be described as centrist, advocating policies historically associated with the more moderate wing of the Democratic Party: "A good indicator of the Lobby's influence in the think tank world is the evolution of the Brookings Institution. For many years, its senior expert on Middle East issues was William B. Quandt, a distinguished academic and former NSC official with a well-deserved reputation for evenhandedness regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Today, however, Brookings' work on these issues is conducted through its Saban Center for Middle East Studies, which is financed by Haim Saban, a wealthy Israeli-American businessman and ardent Zionist.The director of the Saban Center is the ubiquitous Martin Indyk. Thus, what was once a non-partisan policy institute on Middle East matters is now part of the chorus of largely pro-Israel think tanks." According to Mearsheimer and Walt, the Lobby is also trying to "police" – their word – the activities and beliefs of college professors and students. Faculty deemed not supportive of Israel are targeted, monitored, and subjected to "overt intimidation," as in the infamous case of Columbia University, where pro-Israel forces went to great lengths – even making a propaganda film – to stifle any expression of support for Palestinian rights. And it isn't just pressure tactics brought by private groups: they are now seeking to outlaw criticism of Israel by denying federal funds to campuses where Israel is not treated with kid gloves. The Lobby has walled itself off from any substantive criticism by launching a smear campaign against anyone who points to their privileged status, and that the authors of this study have come to grips with this is an act of bravery that one hopes they will not come to regret: "No discussion of how the Lobby operates would be complete without examining one of its most powerful weapons: the charge of anti-Semitism. Anyone who criticizes Israel's actions or says that pro-Israel grops have significant influence over U.S. Middle East policy – an influence that AIPAC celebrates – stand a good chance of getting labeled an anti-Semite. In fact, anyone who says that there is an Israel Lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-Semitism, even though the Israeli media themselves refer to America's 'Jewish Lobby.' In effect, the Lobby boasts of its own power and then attacks anyone who calls attention to it." Exactly. And what's more, they have gotten away with it, at least until now. The effect of all this is that, in the foreign policy arena, the Israeli tail wags the American dog. The Lobby's efforts to get us into war with Iraq are detailed, and the role played by the neocons within and outside the administration is examined with unusual candor. The central role played by neoconservatives is described, and the timeline of their triumph is explained. While they had some limited success in furthering their agenda of regime change in Iraq during the Clinton years, the authors describe 9/11 as the turning point. Key individuals are named: Dick Cheney and his staff, especially the now-indicted [.pdf] Scooter Libby, and former Undersecretary of State for Policy Douglas J. Feith, a co-author of the notorious "Clean Break" document. Without the Lobby, the authors conclude, the decision to go to war would have been far less likely. It isn't just regime change in Iraq that flowed directly from the Lobby's efforts, however: the entire project to effect a "democratic" transformation of the Middle East via direct U.S. intervention owes its origins to the Lobby's relentless efforts. After Iraq, the efforts to target Syria with sanctions and effect regime change in Iran were ratcheted up in Washington, in spite of the Bush administration's ambivalence. The dominance of the Lobby in Washington means that we are fighting wars for Israel's sake, not our own. The Jewish state is protected, in spite of whatever difficulties the U.S. military encounters in actually carrying out their project in the region, while Americans "do most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding, and paying."The authors of this important study are not optimistic that the power of the Lobby can be curtailed. While there are plenty of opportunities for American policymakers to distance themselves from policies that are not congruent with American interests, "that is not going to happen anytime soon." Why not? The authors aver: "AIPAC and its allies (including Christian Zionists) have no serious opponents in the lobbying world. They know it has become more difficult to make Israel's case today, and they are responding by expanding their activities and staffs. Moreover, American politicians remain acutely sensitive to campaign contributions and other forms of political pressure and major media outlets are likely to remain sympathetic to Israel no matter what it does." The blunt pessimism of this conclusion is, I think, unwarranted. But I don't have time or space to go into just why, right now. Suffice to say that the spy charges filed against AIPAC honcho Steve Rosen and his associate, Keith Weissman, will go a long way toward exposing the real nature and role of the Lobby, and may even force AIPAC and its affiliates to register as agents of a foreign power – placing severe limits on their activities, particularly in the legislative-electoral arena. In any case, the publication of this study [.pdf] is a milestone in the annals of the debate over American foreign policy. For the first time in memory, the power of the Lobby has been challenged by two prominent academics: try as the Lobby's activists might, they won't succeed in smearing either Mearsheimer or Walt as neo-Nazis, nor will they be able to dismiss their concerns as the ravings of fringe characters. As far as the Lobby is concerned, the jig is up – and all I can say is, it's about time. antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8730
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Post by RPankn on Mar 20, 2006 19:27:30 GMT -5
Well, that didn't take long. I found the last 2 articles at DU and not even an hour later, they were removed from the Late Breaking News forum to the Israel/Palestine forum, where they cannot be voted on for the 'Greatest Page', and no one, except the frothing-at-the-mouth Zionazis that run the site, goes. Perhaps Meirsheimer and Walt should have included lobby-funded sites fronting as Democratic political discussion forums in their study. www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2178414
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Post by RPankn on Mar 22, 2006 13:47:22 GMT -5
Excellent article because this is also how the ADL and AIPAC operatives at sites like SC and DU work. And when will Harvard Law have had enough of Dershowitz? The man has proven himself a fraud and shyster in the past 5 years by advancing legal theories which have no basis in American jurisprudence or the Constitution. Harvard should be embarassed every time this bloviator appears on TV advocating torture and the legalization of preventative war, and his students should demand their money back.Using character smears to prevent foreign policy discussions Many Bush followers are enraged over a provocative new report by two of America's leading academicians -- University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard Professor (and academic dean) Stephen Walt. According to this UPI article, the report contains “a searing attack on the role and power of Washington's pro-Israel lobby . . . , warning that its 'decisive' role in fomenting the Iraq war is now being repeated with the threat of action against Iran.” The report also argues: Saying that Israel and the U.S. are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around. Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult. There is no question that many al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel's presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular support and to attract recruits. The greatest crime in the neoconservative universe is to criticize Israeli policy or, worse, discuss and express concern about the influence on American foreign policy of neoconservatives and/or its principal American lobbying group, AIPAC. Since Mearsheimer and Walt have committed this grave sin, it is time for the punishment, which begins -- as it always does for this crime -- with a nice, oozing dose of character smear, courtesy of the likes of Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds, Powerline, and The New York Sun (The Weekly Standard can't be far behind). The New York Sun kicked off the smearing yesterday with a very lengthy, breathless article entitled “David Duke Claims to be Vindicated by a Harvard Dean.” Apparently, the fact that the utterly inconsequential David Duke expressed support for some of Mearsheimer and Walt's conclusions is highly newsworthy -- meriting an endless article in The New York Sun -- because, well . . . isn't obvious why? Because Professors Mearsheimer and Walt, by virtue of the report they issued, are now evil racists who are the equivalent of David Duke. No need to listen to or think about any of the arguments they advance. After all, they're just a couple of thinly disguised KKK members who are motivated by racial hatred, so we should vent some hatred towards them and then ignore everything they say. Following along with the character smearing script is, first, Alan Dershowitz, who, in the Sun article, calls the report “trash,” says that it could have been written by “some of the less intelligent members of Hamas,” and obligatorily insists that the report “sounds very similar” to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the anti-Semitic tract from the early 20th Century. To make sure there is no confusion about what he means, Dershowitz calls Mearsheimer and Walt “two bigots.” Following along, as always, Instapundit links to The New York Sun article and adds his own character smear: YALE HAS ITS TALIBAN, HARVARD HAS DAVID DUKE: By this “reasoning,” if a racist like David Duke supports one of your views or says anything complimentary about your argument, it means that you, too, are a racist, and are the equivalent of David Duke. Let's take that "reasoning" and apply it to some other examples. Many Republicans and conservatives share all kinds of views with overt white supremacists, including their shared vigorous opposition to immigration, affirmative action and gay rights. If Mearsheimer and Walt are now to be branded as racists and anti-Semites simply by virtue of David Duke's agreement with some of their arguments, wouldn't that same rationale compel the conclusion that anyone espousing anti-immigration, anti-gay equality, or anti-affirmative action views ought to be labelled the equivalent of the Aryan Brotherhood by virtue of the latter's embrace of those same positions? And then there is this Village Voice article -- entitled “Conservatives, White Supremacists Take to the Florida Streets” -- which details the support given to the Bush campaign during the recount fight by the Florida White Supremacist group Stormfront. Its leader, former KKK Grand Wizard Donald Black, said that "he is counseling fellow 'pro-white' extremists to show up to support Bush." By the reasoning of Instapundit and The New York Sun, I think it would have been fair to blast headlines all around the country proclaiming “White Supremacists say that Bush supports their agenda” And even now, don't we need to ask why Glenn Reynolds belongs to a political movement so vigorously supported by former KKK members and current heads of racist hate groups? Doesn't this line of thinking lead inexorably to this blog post: Yale Has its Taliban; University of Tennessee Law School has its Stormfront Member That sort of guilt-by-agreement reasoning is inane and bankrupt, but there are never any limits when it comes to destroying the reputation of anyone who even dares to address the pernicious and disastrous influence of neoconservatives over U.S. foreign policy. It is a discussion strictly off-limits and the minimum punishment is to be quickly and widely branded as an anti-Semitic bigot, in this case, the moral equivalent of David Duke and Hamas. This tactic is all the more reprehensible coming, as it does, from a corner of the political universe filled with supporters who enthusiastically wield the very anti-Semitic imagery they claim to decry. One of the favorite tactics of Bush followers is to darkly suggest that lurking behind every anti-Bush or liberal project is the menacing power of George Soros, the Jewish, currency-trading financier who has funded numerous political organizations and campaigns. Bill O'Reilly barely completes a show without hysterically warning of Soros's invisible but omnipotent evil. O'Reilly specifically warned the country that Soros is the “moneyman” who is “insulting Christian America” with his War on Christmas. In a post from December, 2005, Hunter over at Daily Kos collected a series of quotes from a whole slew of Bush allies, such as O'Reilly, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, The Liberty Counsel, and The Catholic League's William Donahue, declaring that there is a secret movement in America to wage war on Christmas, with O'Reilly, Donahue, and the Liberty Counsel -- joined by David Duke -- expressly blaming that war on Jews. And, of course, O'Reilly infamously told a Jewish caller last December who said that he found O'Reilly' views on Christmas objectionable to "move to Israel." [ Well, C&L, you fell for this red herring.] Why does the Bush Administration attract so many supporters who traffic in such blatant anti-Semitism? What does it say about Powerline that they defend Bill O'Reilly even as he spews this sort of bigotry? And what can we conclude about Glenn Reyonlds and the Powerline buddies that they are part of the same political movement, and support the same President, as those who claim to the country that Jews are waging war on Christianity and Christmas and that lurking behind every political danger is a slippery, Christ-hating, money trading, international financier Jew who wants to feed America drugs and kill off Christianity? These are the lowly smear tactics which neoconservatives have long used to prevent any discussion of their influence, the wisdom of our current policy towards Israel, or the fact that war neoconservatives have wanted to use military force to re-shape the Middle East long before the 9/11 attacks which they now use as a pretext to justify those policies. Given that many of them still occupy very influential positions in the Bush Administration -- influence which they are attempting to exert over, among other things, America's approach to Iran and to the always critical Israel-Palestinian conflict -- it is unconscionable, and quite dangerous, to allow them to intimidate everyone away from discussing these matters through the cheap, malicious and intellectually lazy use of character smears of bigotry and anti-Semitism. Michael Kinsley long ago pointed out that the large white elephant in the room when it came to the war in Iraq -- which caused people to tread very lightly, when they were brave enough to raise it at all -- was Israel and the role which that country and its most fervent American supporters played in selling the war to American citizens. There are, to be sure, some anti-Semitic impulses among some people who exploit that connection, just as there are racist impulses among some people who, say, exploit the issue of affirmative action or immigration. But just as someone can oppose affirmative action or immigration without being a racist, so, too, can someone discuss and even oppose the role of Israel and its lobbying efforts in U.S. foreign policy without being a “bigot” or an anti-Semite. With our little adventure in Iraq become more disastrous and costly by the day, and with the all-too-familiar election year militarism heating up over Iran, this country has some very serious and consequential choices to make about our foreign policy. A substantive and frank discussion is exactly what we did not have leading up to the Iraq War, where war opponents were mocked and smeared and their arguments scorned but not answered. We should not allow the Instapundits and The New York Sun's of the world to drive our country -- again -- into foreign policy debacles through the use of character smear and cheap sloganeering in lieu of adult, meaningful and serious discussions about our foreign policy and the people who are seeking to shape it. There is much in the conclusions of Mearsheimer and Waltwith which one can reasonably, even vehemently, disagree. But one need not agree with them to recognize the importance of the issues they raise and of the equally important need to be able to discuss them without the smear tactics and personal attacks which, increasingly, have become the only tactic left to Bush followers. [ Because they can't deny the truth of the report, that's why they're resorting to insults and smears. Anytime one of the frothing-at-the-mouth Zionazis screetches 'anti-semitism', it means one has gotten close to the truth.] ---Glenn Greenwald www.crooksandliars.com/stories/2006/03/21/usingCharacterSmearsToPreventForeignPolicyDiscussions.html
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Post by Moses on Mar 28, 2006 23:48:53 GMT -5
Since the media is operating as a Naziesque propaganda outlet, their conduct on behalf of a foreign power, and a small wealthy elite, should be exposed at every opportunity. I think that the lack of sympathy with which the media's pleas for Judith Miller were greeted, indicates that a sizable percentage of people know that the media have betrayed the people of the United States of America. And their hands are bloody.
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Post by Moses on Mar 28, 2006 23:50:08 GMT -5
I take it that this report received very little publicity?
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Post by Moses on Mar 29, 2006 2:09:57 GMT -5
29.03 / 09:19 | www.inform.kz/txt/showarticle.php?lang=eng&id=140828WASHINGTON. March 29, 2006. KAZINFORM - Following the fury detonated by two eminent professors who challenged the value of the pro-Israel lobby’s impact on American foreign policy, Harvard University said it will remove its logo from the study in order to distance itself from the paper’s conclusions. Professor Stephen Walt, the academic dean of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Professor John Mearsheimer, a top international relations theorist at the University of Chicago, the authors of the controversial study, kicked up a storm in academic and political circles with their 83-page paper, called “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy,” published last week, KAZINFORM quotes Barbara Ferguson of The Arab News. They argue that the “unwavering support” of the US for Israel cannot be justified on strategic or moral grounds and is a result of a powerful and pernicious “lobby.” Both men charge that American foreign policy has been subordinate to Israeli interests and accused the pro-Israel lobby of responsibility for America’s invasion of Iraq. Part of that lobbying influence, they claim, extends deep into the US political system, namely Washington think tanks – not only the neoconservative and right-wing institutions, but also liberal ones. The head of the liberal Brookings Institute forcefully rejected their claims that his prestigious Washington think-tank was part of the “pro-Israel chorus.” Officials at Jewish organizations are said to be furious. The report — versions of which appear on the Kennedy School Web site and in the March 26 issue of the London Review of Books — describes “the Israel lobby” as a “loose coalition” of politicians, media outlets, research institutions, Jewish groups and Evangelical Christians that steers America’s Middle East policy in directions beneficial to Israel, even if it requires harming American interests. The report appears to have caused little mention in the mainstream press. “Several editors, foreign affairs reporters and columnists for major American newspapers contacted by The Forward did not know about the study. They didn’t sound especially interested when told about the report’s findings,” noted the New York Jewish newspaper, The Forward. The Forward said Jewish organizations are holding fire in order to avoid generating publicity for their critics. But behind the scenes, pro-Israel activists are planning a briefing for congressional staffers to be held Thursday. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are also considering releasing a letter in response to the new paper, congressional staffers said. “The truth is that this really wouldn’t be worth spending any time discussing if not for the fact of where these people are located and what their reputations are,” said Ken Jacobson, associate national director of the Anti-Defamation League told reporters. He said the paper contains no new revelations or insights, is riddled with factual errors and makes arguments that the ADL is accustomed to dealing with from extremists on the margins of America’s political arena. Jacobson said that he had prepared a rebuttal to the study, but for the time being it is only being used for internal ADL purposes. “In these kinds of things you’re always trying to debate how important will it be in terms of the impact, if you give it more attention,” he said. “The amount of attention we will give it will depend on how it plays out” in the public domain. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post by RPankn on Apr 2, 2006 16:30:12 GMT -5
April 1, 2006 Keeping It Quiet: The Israel Lobby's Crushing of Dissent by Charley Reese The first weapon of choice for the Israeli lobby when someone with prestige publishes a soundly researched paper or book critical of Israel or its powerful lobby is silence. If it's a book, it rarely gets reviewed; its author doesn't get interviewed. If it's a paper, there are no news stories in the big corporate press, no interviews with the authors, no television appearances. For the average American who depends on the press to tell him what's going on, it's as if the criticism never existed. The second weapon is, of course, to launch vicious personal attacks. Both methods are being used against an astounding paper titled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy." It was written by two renowned academics, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. So far as I've been able to determine with the help of Google, while the paper and talk about it are all over the Internet, they are missing from the big corporate press as of this writing. It was published in the London Review of Books, and you can read it or download an edited version at www.lrb.co.uk. There was one news story about it in the Christian Science Monitor and an attack on it by David Gergen in U.S. News & World Report. Gergen is editor at large of the magazine, which is owned by an ardent Zionist, Mortimer Zuckerman. Gergen is a professional spinmeister who has always served the people who have the butter for his bread. The essence of the paper, which is thoroughly footnoted, is that Israel's lobby has so skewed American foreign policy in the Middle East that the U.S. places the security of Israel ahead of security for the United States. "This situation has no equal in American history," the authors state. The Anti-Defamation League was quoted in a Jewish publication as saying that if the paper gained the attention of the mainstream media, then a "more vigorous attack" would be launched. So far, it has not, though in the Christian Science Monitor story one of the attack dogs of the Israel lobby branded these two esteemed academics from prestigious universities as "incompetents." This paper isn't the first to criticize the Israeli lobby. There have been lots of papers and books written by distinguished individuals, none of which you've probably ever heard of. They Dare to Speak Out, by former Rep. Paul Findley, and The Passionate Attachment, by George W. Ball, one of America's most distinguished diplomats, are two that come to mind. It was the late Sen. William J. Fulbright who first called Congress "Israeli-occupied territory." What the authors of the current paper hope to do is start a sensible public debate about the Israeli lobby and America's policy in the Middle East. Of course, avoiding an honest debate is one of the primary objectives of the lobby. That's why it uses silence and, if that doesn't work, vicious personal attacks. It has certainly buffaloed Congress and most of America's news media. Another author given the silent treatment as well as vicious personal attacks is Norman Finkelstein, a professor at DePaul University. He's written three outstanding books you've probably not heard of: The Holocaust Industry, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, and his latest, which got not a line of review, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. Finkelstein, by the way, is Jewish and the son of Holocaust survivors. This is a most serious issue and deserves an honest public debate. Whether you agree with any of the above authors and academics, you should read what they have to say and not be deterred by cheap ad hominem attacks. You've heard the same message from me, of course, but I'm only a country boy turned journalist with no fancy degrees. If you're impressed with credentials, Finkelstein, Findley, Walt, Mearsheimer and Ball have them up to their armpits. www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=8791
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Post by RPankn on Apr 2, 2006 16:33:25 GMT -5
Stephen Walt Responds: Fired Harvard Dean Critical of Israel LobbyApr 1, 2006 By Steve Clemons I received the email note that follows below from Stephen Walt last night in response to my post yesterday about whether he was being demoted or not. I think Walt's views and account of his situation are level-headed and make sense and coincide with Kennedy School Dean David Ellwood's account, published here and on TWN yesterday. It seems that the only "new and unusual" thing at Harvard is not Walt stepping down but rather Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz getting approval to post his attack on the Walt/Mearsheimer paper on the Kennedy School web page. Here is Stephen Walt's response: Steve: The various reports about Harvard's response to my paper are either deeply misleading or simply false. First, I was directly involved in the decisions to alter the disclaimer attached to my paper and to remove the logo. This was done in response to some early news stories, which falsely described it as the product of two Harvard researchers, and termed it an "official" study. It was never a case of the Kennedy School or Harvard "distancing" itself from me. Second, my decision to step down as academic dean was made months ago. I originally began a three year term in 2002, and agreed to a one-year extension at the Dean's request last year. I made it clear then, and maintained it ever since, that I would end my service as academic dean at the end of this academic year. An announcement was sent to the faculty confirming this fact well over a month ago, and faculty were asked to propose suggestions for my successor. This step was taken long before the article was published (or before I even knew a publication date). The two events are completely unconnected. I might add that I feel Harvard and the Kennedy School have behaved admirably in challenging circumstances. Many colleagues have been wonderfully supportive as well (whether they agree with the substance of our article or not). I believe that is true for the University of Chicago as well. I hope this clarifies the situation. best, Stephen Walt Stephen M. Walt Academic Dean John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University 79 John F. Kennedy St. Cambridge, MA 02138 So, I propose that we all get back to debating the important points that Walt and Mearsheimer make in their paper -- but not ratchet up the battle assuming that Harvard is undermining one of its professors. Dershowitz may like to -- but Harvard thus far, no. mparent7777.livejournal.com/7422020.html
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Post by RPankn on Apr 2, 2006 17:24:31 GMT -5
Kind of interesting discussion at TPM re: the Clemons article. A few ADL banshees at work on there though. www.tpmcafe.com/node/28461
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Post by RPankn on Apr 2, 2006 18:18:49 GMT -5
Of Israel, Harvard and David Duke [ Note the neocon Post's headline when Duke is only mentioned once, and there are more quotes from Zionazi detractors than there are from those who support the study's findings.] Sunday, March 26, 2006; Page B05 International relations scholars John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University ignited a furious debate last week with their lengthy 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: "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 U.S., 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. . . . aying 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. . . .
[T]he 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 CONTROVERSY
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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) [Alan, you'd suck as a litigator. Based on all your previous statements, I suspect you suck as a law professor as well.]
Juancole.com: "Political scientists John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) and Stephen Walt (Harvard) 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."
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) [And I masqueraded as an "even hand" during the Oslo Accords.]
Rosner's Blog: "The new study . . . presents an interesting dilemma to the writer: Do you ignore it -- having concluded it is biased, one-sided, foolish, repetitive, and most of all, has nothing new to offer -- or do you write about it, knowing that the 'Harvard,' 'Chicago,' 'professors,' 'Kennedy School' labels will make it acceptable anyway, even newsworthy, in the eyes of many. In short: Does one need cooperate with the advancement of the cause of academic garbage?" (Haaretz.com)
David Duke: "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)
Danieldrezner.com : "Walt and Mearsheimer should not be criticized as anti-Semites, because that's patently false. They should be criticized for doing piss-poor, monocausal social science." [Who the hell is Daniel Drezner and why should we care what he thinks?]
Ruth R. Wisse: "(I)t 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) [Specious Logic of The Day Award.]
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." [And we should care what a Mossad front organization thinks because?]
THE FALLOUT
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Mearsheimer and Walt's study appeared earlier this month 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, and the document now 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."
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/24/AR2006032402147.html
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Post by RPankn on Apr 2, 2006 19:44:07 GMT -5
Some of Lang's rhetoric in this essay is inflammatory. However, like any other source on the internet, in the midst of opinion, he does note some truths. Especially with regard to the obvious disdain both political parties and the Israel lobby show toward Americans. 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 d**n where the cash it runs on comes from. And increasingly, it is beginning to appear that the American people don't give a d**n 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. [ It would be interesting to compare when Dean made his even-handedness comment and Kerry started being pushed as "electable."] 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. 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.
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Post by RPankn on Apr 3, 2006 17:03:47 GMT -5
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 Crimson reports: "[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 [ proving St. Chomsky is a left gatekeeper], 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? [ Yes, this is the standard argument of "liberals" at sites like SC and DU, but they always fail to explain why Syria and Lebanon, which have no oil, are slated for "regime change," or just avoid this question altogether.] 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. [ Yes, I once pointed out that neocons like Meyrav Wurmser and Doug Feith were not motivated by the petroleum industry at DU and the post was deleted for "anti-semitism." But I think Raimondo is correct here. Hitler certainly could not have been Hitler if he didn't have the backing of Germany's corporate cartels. I guess in the present context, a parallel could be drawn here with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld's motivations for joining with Zionists like Wurmser and Feith. However, just as focusing solely on the economic aspect of Naziism wouldn't give a historically complete and accurate picture of Nazi Germany -- although it is an interesting topic unto itself, and certainly deserves its own treatment -- ignoring that the neocon plan has discreet political motivations fails to account for a substantial part of their philosophy, which economics cannot explain and why Chomsky's writings are useless in this area.] 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 Times editorial: "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. www.antiwar.com/justin/
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Post by RPankn on Apr 25, 2006 5:11:50 GMT -5
The Israel Lobby Redux
Colin Powell Disagrees With David Gergen’s Claim That There Is No Israel “Lobby”Saturday 8th April 2006, by Ira Glunts Two Israeli prominent journalists wrote that Colin Powell understood and feared the power of the lobby. In an op-ed column critical of his Harvard colleagues, ludicrously titled “There Is No Israel ’Lobby’” the well-known political consultant David Gergen proclaimed, “Over the course of four tours in the White House, I never once saw a decision in the Oval Office to tilt U.S. foreign policy in favor of Israel at the expense of America’s interest.” [1] America’s massive financial support of Israel’s territorial expansion in the West Bank is very much contrary to its own interests, his two colleagues would respond. Gergen’s blanket denial is one of the most preposterous statements in the ongoing media reporting that impugn the motivations of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, two academics who recently published the “Israel Lobby.” Their essay described what the writers understand to be the many deleterious effects of pro-Israel activists upon the formulation of American foreign policy. [2] In his critique of the essay, Gergen displays a level of chutzpah which would astound even the most blindly loyal devotee of the Israeli cause, when he excoriates Walt and Mearsheimer for “impugn[ing] the unstinting service to America’s national security by public figures like Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk ....” The truth is that Ross and Indyk are two government officials that best illustrate the presence of pro-Israel advocates in the US government. Ross, who was the lead negotiator at the Camp David Peace talks, was publicly criticized for his lack of objectivity by his own deputy Aaron Miller. Miller in a Washington Post op-ed called “Israel’s Lawyer” wrote that during the negotiations Ross and his team, instead of facilitating compromise, which would have been in America’s best interest, chose to act as an advocate for the Israelis. [3] Dennis Ross is currently the director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israel think-tank which is funded by the American Israel Policy Action Committee (AIPAC). Martin Indyk, who founded WINEP and served as its first executive director, was later both US Ambassador to Israel and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. He is a long time uncritical supporter of Israeli government policy. In their recent best-selling book, Boomerang: The Failure of Leadership In the Second Intifada, presently only available in Hebrew, Raviv Drucker and Ofer Shelah, two respected Israeli journalists, described a meeting between the then Secretary of State Colin Powell, who the lobby considered to be the “weak link” in the chain of more Israel- friendly Bush Administration officials, and Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith, who is a prominent member of what in Israel is called the Jewish lobby. The following selection indicates in a dramatic way that Gergen’s view of the influence of the Israel lobby may not be shared by all ex-government officials. In his [Powell’s] own State Department there was a keen awareness of the strength of the Jewish lobbyists. Secretaries of State did not usually meet with lobbyists, but both Jewish officials and Jews that did not officially represent specific groups from Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League to Ronald Lauder, could meet with Powell on short notice.... At the State Department, Foxman had an aura of omnipotence. He was held responsible for the appointment of Indyk as Undersecretary of State under Clinton, and was thought to have played a role in the appointments of Secretaries of State Christopher and Albright. Powell related to Foxman almost as if he were someone to whom he must capitulate. Once Foxman told one of his deputies that Powell was the weak link. When the Secretary of State heard this he began to worry. He knew that in Washington a confrontation with the Jewish lobby would make his life difficult. Once he arranged a meeting with Foxman, but the busy Foxman postponed the meeting three times. When they eventually met, the head of the Anti-Defamation League apologized to the Secretary of State [for the postponements]. “You call, we come,” replied Powell, paraphrasing a well known advertisement for a freight company. That statement had much more meaning than just a humorous polite reply. [4] Unfortunately, the American press has thus far been largely complicit in the unwarranted attacks on two professors who have written a generally well-argued essay on the disadvantages of the current American/Israeli relationship. Most press accounts of the article feature the negative criticism, but tend to ignore or downplay positive comment. In the present political climate it is not a surprise that there is not a groundswell of support for the two embattled scholars. Abe Foxman called the essay “a classic conspiratorial anti-Semitic analysis invoking the canards of Jewish power and Jewish control.” [5] I, as a Jew, agree with the Jewish editor, Mary-Kay Wilmers, who published the article. She feels, as paraphrased in The Observer, “that the most angry denunciations of anti-Semitism - while designed to serve the purpose of censorship by those attempting to forestall criticism of Israel - may actually encourage anti-Semitism in the long run.” [6] The American media does no favor to the many American Jews and Israelis who are critical of Israel’s self-defeating expansionism and its suppression of the Palestinian right of self-determination. The Israel lobby in the United States does not represent the opinions of many American Jews. The pressure it exerts on government officials to blindly and unconditionally support present Israeli policies, in the end will help neither the United States nor Israel itself. Ira Glunts first visited the Middle East in 1972, where he taught English and physical education in a small rural community in Israel. He was a volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces in 1992. Mr. Glunts lives in Madison, New York where he operates a used and rare book business. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes: [1] www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/402910p-341257c.html[2] www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html[3] www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/22/AR2005052200883.html[4] Drucker, Raviv and Shelah, Ofer, Boomerang..., Keter, 2005, pps. 132-133. Translation and text emphasized or enclosed in brackets, mine. [5] www.chicagotribune.com/news/... [6] observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1744960,00.html?gusrc=rss www.selvesandothers.org/article13772.html
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