The (incredible) Power of the Israel Lobby

This article is long and not DIGG friendly.

I recommend you don't read it, just say fuck it, and buy The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt.




Still here?
OK, lets begin.

The Uri Avnery article is here, at counterpunch.org.

There are books that change people's consciousness and change history. Some tell a story, like Harriet Beech Stowe's 1851 "Uncle Tom's Cabin", which gave a huge impetus to the campaign for the abolition of slavery. Others take the form of a political treatise, like Theodor Herzl's "Der Judenstaat", which gave birth to the Zionist movement. Or they can be scientific in nature, like Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species", which changed the way humanity sees itself. And perhaps political satire, too, can shake the world, like "1984" by George Orwell.

The impact of these books was amplified by their timing. They appeared exactly at the right time, when a large public was ready to absorb their message.

It may well turn out that the book by the two professors, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy", is just such a book.

It is a dry scientific research report, 355 pages long, backed by 106 further pages containing some thousand references to sources.

It is not a bellicose book. On the contrary, its style is restrained and factual. The authors take great care not to utter a single negative comment on the legitimacy of the Lobby, and indeed bend over backwards to stress their support for the existence and security of Israel. They let the facts speak for themselves. With the skill of experienced masons, they systematically lay brick upon brick, row upon row, leaving no gap in their argumentation.

That is what I am trying to do in my blog.

Granted, I am trying very hard to write in as simple language as possible, in layman's language. I try to take complicated concepts, or perhaps issues that the media and the powers that be try to make complicated to the typical Joe Schmoe on the street, and clarify, simplify and make them easy to understand.

After all, as an example, the concept of hedge funds is not difficult at all - it's just that the language of acronyms and assorted bullshit makes it so to the typical citizen.

I am here to bridge that gap.

Note that I am by no means calling my readers stupid - it is just that there is power in clarity and making issues simple, as they should be.

But when I explain these issues to you, it many times turns into a loooooong article.

Like this one.

So take your time as you absorb the information.

Stop reading, stretch, walk around, grab a tea/coffee and come back.

Ready? Let's continue:

This wall cannot be torn down by reasoned argument. Nobody has tried, and nobody is going to. Instead, the authors are being smeared and accused of sinister motives. If the book could be ignored altogether, this would have been done--as has happened to other books which have been buried alive.

THE TWO professors take the bull by the horns. They deal with a subject which is absolutely taboo in the United States, a subject nobody in his right mind would even mention: the enormous influence of the pro-Israel lobby on American foreign policy.

The word taboo is the correct one to use.

Please watch the first few minutes of the Daily Show, where Jon Stewart interviews Jim Webb (Democratic Senator)



Jon Stewart: "Sir, I had no idea that you, you, are a troskyite."
Jim Webb: "There were a few, a few troskyites who got us involved in the Iraq war."
Jon Stewart: "Nicely done". (AG translation: "You didn't say outright that it was the neocon Jews who got us into Iraq, but used a code word - well done, have a cookie!")

See, this little exchange flies right over the head of 99% of USA's population. Because, while the audience seemed to get the joke, I would bet good money that the majority of TV viewers did not.

What the hell is a neocon, anyway?
peaceaware.com defines the word thus: "What is a NeoCon? Neocon is a neo-conservative who began as anti-Stalinist Trotskist before moving to the far right in U.S. politics. NeoCons have roots in the Leon Trotskyist movement of the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1950s and 1970s that movement morphed into anti-communist liberalism. Today the NeoCons are embedded in the imperial right and militarism of the U.S. defense and foreign affairs departments. If this sounds like muddled thinking, then you are not alone in such an assessment."

There is that Trotsky word again!

What the hell is a Troskyite then?

Lets look at an example.
American Conservative, profiling Christopher Hitchens:

Given Hitchens’s current role as a neocon fellow traveler, it is instructive (not to mention fun) to recall with whom he used to travel. When the United States was locked in a mortal struggle with Soviet Communism, Hitchens was at best AWOL, at worst pulling for the other team. From his safe post at The New Statesman and later The Nation, Hitchens opposed every effort to defeat Communism—including the defense of South Vietnam, the deployment of cruise missiles and Pershing missiles in Europe, the invasion of Grenada, American support for the Contras, and Reagan’s military buildup.

Ok, Hitchens was very left wing.

So, basically, by calling someone a Trotskyite, you are in effect calling that person a communist. It's just another word, meaning the same thing - a communist, an insane person, a nut.

Proof?

Lets read some more from that article on Hitchens:

More insight into Hitchens’s long love affair with Bolshevism came with the publication in 2002 of his close friend Martin Amis’s Koba the Dread, a masterful account of the mass murder with which the Bolsheviks busied themselves after seizing power in October 1917. Hitchens told Amis, “Lenin was ... a great man”

Hitchens told Amis, “Lenin was ... a great man”.

Excuse me, but how is this guy a far right neocon again?

Remember, he votes Republican now and was all for attacking Iraq.

Are you scratching your head yet?

These people are now Republican party. If you vote Republican, you vote for the neocons.

in the July/August 2004 issue of The Atlantic, Hitchens wrote a hagiographic essay about a figure whom he claimed “always was … a prophetic moralist.” Hitchens was not writing about Mother Teresa or John Paul II, but about Leon Trotsky—a man who was an active participant in and apologist for Lenin’s Red Terror, the inventor of the “blocking units” that would gun down Russian troops foolish enough to defy the commissars by retreating, and the author of such witty aphorisms as “We must rid ourselves once and for all of the Quaker-Papist babble about the sanctity of human life.”

This guy is now a conservative, and voting for the republican party?

This guy who adores a long dead commie - Trotsky?

The question now is, does this case prove the case that the neocons are all ex-commies?

Lets prove that thesis!

foreignaffairs.org article: Trotskyism to Anachronism: The Neoconservative Revolution:

The other important influence on neoconservatives was the legacy of Trotksyism--a point that other historians and journalists have made about neoconservatism but that eludes Ehrman. Many of the founders of neoconservatism, including The Public Interest founder Irving Kristol (father of Bill Kristol, who makes so many appearances at the Daily Show) and coeditor Nathan Glazer, Sidney Hook, and Albert Wohlstetter, were either members of or close to the Trotskyist left in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Younger neoconservatives, including Penn Kemble, Joshua Muravchik, and Carl Gershman, came through the Socialist Party at a time when former Trotskyist Max Schachtman was still a commanding figure.

Many of the founders of neoconservatism, including The Public Interest founder Irving Kristol and coeditor Nathan Glazer, Sidney Hook, and Albert Wohlstetter, were either members of or close to the Trotskyist left in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

How are these people conservatives now?

How are these people Republicans now?

These are communists, for fucks sake.

They went from communists to the far far right of the Republican party.

Amazing transformation, ain't it?

In the framework of international communism, the Trotskyists were rabid internationalists rather than realists and nationalists.

What does that mean, the Trotskyists were rabid internationalists?

The neoconservatives who went through the Trotskyist and socialist movements came to see foreign policy as a crusade, the goal of which was first global socialism, then social democracy, and finally democratic capitalism. They never saw foreign policy in terms of national interest or balance of power. Neoconservatism was a kind of inverted Trotskyism, which sought to "export democracy," in Muravchik's words, in the same way that Trotsky originally envisaged exporting socialism.

Simple.

Neocons want to export revolution, preferably using bombs and missiles and soldiers' blood...

In the beginning of their careers, they were communists (Trotskyites - different word, same shit) and wanted to change the word to suit their insane political theories.

And now, in the year 2000+, they STILL want to change the word to suit their insane political theories. It's just that they switched from communism to the republican party... their methods are the same and the goal the same - change the world to what they want it to be, using bombs, missiles, soldiers, mass murder...

Now, rewatch the Daily Show bit, and understand...

So, OK, you are saying, you have made a case that the neocons are insane ex-commies, the troty, trotsy, err, lets look it up, oh yes, ex-Troskyites, who want to change the world using war.

But what the hell are you on about them being Jews, AG? That smacks of anti-semitism, and brands you a loony, AG!

OK, OK, am getting to it.

From my 'I popped a gasket' article, I show you (again) the 'Clean Break' policy paper, written by Perle and a few others Jewish-American neocons.

The 'Clean Break' outlined a strategy for Israel in the new (XXI) Century, and here is what it contains:

Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.

"An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, (snip)

Got that?

Israeli objective was to "take out" Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Also, the key is that this approach was to be supported by America.

And who wrote the 'Clean Break' policy paper for then Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu?

Why, an all American all star neocon crew:
Richard Perle, American Enterprise Institute, Study Group Leader
James Colbert, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Johns Hopkins University/SAIS
Douglas Feith, Feith and Zell Associates
Robert Loewenberg, President, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
Jonathan Torop, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
David Wurmser, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
Meyrav Wurmser, Johns Hopkins University

Don't believe me?
Google "Clean Break Perle" yourself and you will get your proof. Here's one among many.

By the by, here is Wikipedia's page on Douglas J. Feith:

Feith began his career as an attorney in private practice, and first entered government as a Middle East specialist on the National Security Council (NSC) under Ronald Reagan in 1981. He transferred from the NSC Staff to Pentagon in 1982 to work as Special Counsel for Richard Perle, who was then serving as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger promoted Feith in 1984 to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy and, when Feith left the Pentagon in 1986, Weinberger gave him the highest Defense Department civilian award, the Distinguished Public Service medal.

Upon leaving the Pentagon, Feith established the Washington, DC law firm of Feith & Zell. His law firm colleague, Marc Zell, was resident in Israel. Three years later, Feith was retained as a lobbyist by the Turkish government. Among other clients, his firm represented defense corporations Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Feith left the firm in 2001, precipitated by his nomination as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.

Isn't it interesting that Mr. Feith, who wrote a paper which included this tidbit:
"Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions. "...

...after working for Israel, becomes an Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, at the Pentagon?

And did you catch how influential Perle was from that Wiki snippet?

And how they work with our military industrial complex?

Both in the capacity as "private" citizens and as Pentagon and government "public servants"?

But wait, AG, aren't you saying that the neocons involved us in this war?
This was Cheney, and that idiot bush 'W'! And they are definitely not Jews!

Well, OK, fair point.
But 'W', who is a complete tool (I have suspicions of the man being an actual, honest to goodness medical classification retard) and Cheney had some help.

Finished your coffee/tea?
Take a break.
Take a deep breath.
Ready?

In my Is Israel to blame for the Iraq war part 2 article, I used the White Man's Burden by Ari Shavit, printed in Ha'aretz, an great Israeli newspaper.

In that article, Ari begins by writing:

The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history.

Now, he states it as a fact... because it is. Only us, the dumb Americans who watch CNN and FOX, are not cognizant of this fact. This is well known to the rest of the world, however, if you choose to travel abroad and strike up a conversation with a non-American. In ANY country, whether in Europe or Latin America.

Ari Shavit continues:

a new belief has emerged in the town: the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history.

Did you catch the reference that "a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish", are responsible for American fiasco in Iraq?

This is a great article, and I recommend going either to my blog or original Ha'aretz article.

Ari interviews three prominent neocons.

The bombshell comes towards the end of the article, because Thomas Friedman said a bit too much to Ari. He was a bit too honest.

Here's what Thomas Freidmanm said to Ari:
"Is the Iraq war the great neoconservative war(Ari asks here -AG)?

It's the war the neoconservatives wanted, Friedman says.

It's the war the neoconservatives marketed.

Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and they sold it.

Oh boy, did they sell it.

So this is not a war that the masses demanded.

This is a war of an elite."

Here comes an even more important bombshell:

"I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened."

Immediately, Friedman retracts this statement. He realizes he told the truth - he said to much.

Still, it's not all that simple, Friedman retracts. It's not some fantasy the neoconservatives invented. It's not that 25 people hijacked America.

Ha ha, I was just kidding. This nation was not hijacked by 25 neocon scam artists working for a foreign power - this is all a joke. I have to go now..... exit stage, left...


Did you pay attention?
It's not that confusing, I hope (OK, it is... can't help it, hopefully you are smart enough to follow the narrative).

We started this shindig by using Uri Avnery's "The Power of the Israel Lobby".

I got on a tangent (for 1000 words, AG! yes, yes I know I know - it seems I LIKE words).

In that tangent, I (hopefully) convinced you, or at least made you do your own research, into the following:
1) Neocons got us into the Iraq War
2) Neocons are ex commies
3) Neocons are primarily Jews

Also, there should be a fourth point emerging:
4) Neocons are fucking insane.

Lets go back to Uri Avnery's article:

THE TWO professors take the bull by the horns. They deal with a subject which is absolutely taboo in the United States, a subject nobody in his right mind would even mention: the enormous influence of the pro-Israel lobby on American foreign policy.

In a remorselessly systematical way, the book analyzes the Lobby, takes it apart, describes its modus operandi, discloses its financial sources and lays bare its relations with the White House, the two houses of Congress, the leaders of the two major parties and leading media people.

In its second part, the book shows how the Lobby uses its tremendous power in practice: how it has prevented the exertion of any pressure on Israel to for peace with the Palestinians, how it pushed the US into the invasion of Iraq, how it is now pushing for wars with Iran and Syria, how it supported the Israeli leadership in the recent war in Lebanon and blocked calls for a ceasefire when it didn't want it.

Each of these assertions is backed up by so much undeniable evidence and quotations from written material (mainly from Israeli sources) that they cannot be ignored.

Did you catch how Uri says that Walt and Mearshimer's book makes the case that the Lobby "pushed the US into the invasion of Iraq, how it is now pushing for wars with Iran and Syria"?

Also, how all those assertions are "backed up by so much undeniable evidence and quotations from written material (mainly from Israeli sources) that they cannot be ignored."?

This, in a nutshell, is my blog.

I, too, expose AIPAC and the Israel Lobby and its power over America (look to the right of the blog, at the articles under Neocons and Israeli Lobby in the USA tag.

The two professors are, of course, accused of anti-Semitism, racism and hatred of Israel. What Israel? It is the Lobby itself that hates a large part of Israel. In recent years is has shifted even more to the Right. Some of its constituent groups--such as the neo-cons who pushed the US into the Iraq war--are openly connected with the right-wing Likud, and especially with Binyamin Netanyahu. The billionaires who finance the Lobby are the same people who finance the extreme Israeli Right, and most of all the settlers.

The small, determined Jewish groups in the US who support the Israeli peace movements are remorselessly persecuted. Some of them fold after a few years. Members of Israeli peace groups who are sent to America are boycotted and slandered as "self-hating-Jews".

Towards the end of the article, URI writes:

Most of the American public now opposes the Iraq war and considers it a disaster. This majority still does not connect the war with the actions of the pro-Israel lobby. No newspaper and no politician dares to hint at such a connection--yet. But if this taboo is broken, the result may be very dangerous for the Jews and for Israel.

"Most of the American public now opposes the Iraq war and considers it a disaster. This majority still does not connect the war with the actions of the pro-Israel lobby."

I bet neither did you, until now.

If you are not freaked out, and if you are curious about the Israel Lobby in US politics, look to the right, and start on the article under the Neocons and Israeli Lobby in the USA.

Some are long, some are short (I promise!).

Or just say fuck it, and buy The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt.

Get to it.

Your country needs saving.

Bonus Material:

Bonus Material?

Buy the goddamn book.
And read my essays on the right hand side, under the Neocons and Israeli Lobby in the USA tag.

If you want more, Philip Weiss (an American Jew, if that makes a difference) runs a fantastic blog on the Lobby: philipweiss.org

There is also Richard Silverstein, another American Jew who runs a blog on the Lobby, richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam

Check them out!

Peace out!

PS
I think I just lost 95% of the DIGG'ers from my last DIGG front page article, but fuck it, this is not the news media - I don't deal in 5 second soundbites.