http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15989.htm
Why Condemning Israel and the Zionist Lobby is so Important
By James Petras
"It's no great secret why the Jewish agencies continue to trumpet support
for the discredited policies of this failed administration. They see
defense of Israel as their number-one goal, trumping all other items on the
agenda. That single-mindedness binds them ever closer to a White House
that has made combating Islamic terrorism its signature campaign. The
campaign's effects on the world have been catastrophic. But that is no
concern of the Jewish agencies." December 8, 2006 statement by JJ Goldberg,
editor of Forward (the leading Jewish weekly in the United States)
12/26/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Many Jewish writers, including
those who are somewhat critical of Israel, have raised pointed questions
about our critique of the Zionist power configuration (ZPC) in the United
States and what they wrongly claim are our singular harsh critique of the
state of Israel. Some of these accusers claim to see signs of 'latent
anti-Semitism', others, of a more 'leftist' coloration, deny the
influential role of the ZPC arguing that US foreign policy is a product of
'geo-politics or the interests of big oil. With the recent publication of
several widely circulated texts, highly critical of the power of the
Zionist 'lobby', several liberal pro-Israel publicists generously conceded
that it is a topic that should be debated (and not automatically
stigmatized and dismissed) and perhaps be 'taken into account.'
ZPC Deniers: Phony Arguments for Fake Claims
The main claims of ZPC deniers take several tacks: Some claim
that the ZPC is just 'another lobby' like the Chamber of Commerce, the
Sierra Club or the Society for the Protection of Goldfish. Others claim
that by focusing mainly on Israel and by inference the 'Lobby', the critics
of Zionism ignore the equally violent abuses of rulers, regimes and states
elsewhere. This 'exclusive focus' on Israel, the deniers of ZPC argue,
reveals a latent or overt anti-Semitism. They propose that human rights
advocates condemn all human rights abusers everywhere (at the same time and
with the same emphasis?). Others still argue that Israel is a democracy -
at least outside of the Occupied Territories (OT) - and therefore is not as
condemnable as other human rights violators and should be 'credited' for
its civic virtues along with its human rights failings. Finally others
still claim that, because of the Holocaust and
'History-of-Two-Thousand-Years-of-Persecution', criticism of Jewish-funded
and led pro-Israel lobbies should be handled with great prudence, making it
clear that one criticizes only specific abuses, investigates all charges -
especially those from Arab/Palestinian/United Nations/European/Human Rights
sources -- and recognizes that Israeli public opinion, the press and even
the Courts or sectors of them may also be critical of regime policies.
These objections to treating the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab
conflict and the activities of Zionist Lobbies as central to peace and war
serve to dilute, dissipate and deflate criticism and organized political
activity directed at the ZPC and its directors in Israel.
The response of the critics of Israel and the ZPC to these
attacks has been weak at best and cowardly at worst. Some critics have
responded that their criticism is only directed toward a specific policy or
leader, or to Israeli policies in the OT and that they recognize Israel is
a democracy, that it requires secure borders, and that it is in the
interests of the Israeli 'people' to lower their security barriers. Others
argue that their criticism is directed at securing Israeli interests,
influencing the Zionist Lobby or to opening a debate. They claim that the
views of 'most' Jews' in the US are not represented by the 52 organizations
that make up the Presidents of the Major Jewish Organizations of America,
or the thousands of PACs, local federations, professional associations and
weekly publications which speak with one voice as unconditional supporters
of every twist and turn in the policy of the Zionist State.
There are numerous similar lines of criticism, which basically
avoid the fundamental issues raised by the Israeli state and the ZPC, and
which we are obliged to address. The reason that criticism and action
directed against Israel and the ZPC is of central importance today in any
discussion of US foreign policy, especially (but not exclusively) of Middle
East policy and US domestic policymaking is that they play a decisive role
and have a world-historic impact on the present and future of world peace
and social justice. We turn now to examine the 'big questions' facing
Americans as a result of the power of Israel in the United States.
The Big Questions Raised by the ZPC and Israeli Power in the USA:
War or Peace:
Critical study of the lead up to the US invasion of Iraq, US involvement in
providing arms to Israel (cluster bombs, two-ton bunker buster bombs and
satellite surveillance intelligence) prior to, during and after Israel's
abortive invasion of Lebanon, Washington's backing of the starvation
blockade of the Palestinian people and the White House and Congress'
demands for sanctions and war against Iran are directly linked to Israeli
state policy and its Zionist policy-makers in the Executive branch and US
Congress. One needs to look no further than the documents, testimony and
reports of AIPAC and the Presidents of the Major American Jewish
Organizations to observe their claims of success in authoring legislation,
providing (falsified) intelligence, engaging in espionage (AIPAC) and
turning documents over to Israeli intelligence (now dubbed 'free speech' by
liberal Zionists).
If, as the overwhelming evidence indicates, the ZPC played a major role in
the major wars of our time, wars capable of igniting new armed conflicts,
then it ill behooves us to dilute the role of the Zionist/Jewish Lobby in
promoting future US wars. Given Israel's militarist-theocratic approach to
territorial aggrandizement and its announced plans for future wars with
Iran and Syria, and given the fact that the ZPC acts as an unquestioning
and highly disciplined transmission belt for the Israeli state, then US
citizens opposed to present and future US engagement in Middle East wars
must confront the ZPC and its Israeli mentors. Moreover, given the
extended links among the Islamic nations, the Israel/ZPC proposed 'new
wars' with Iran will result in Global wars. Hence what is at stake in
confronting the ZPC are questions which go beyond the Israeli-Palestine
peace process, or even regional Middle East conflicts: it involves the big
question of World Peace or War.
Democracy or Authoritarianism
Without the bluster and public hearings of former Senator Joseph McCarthy,
the Jewish Lobby has systematically undermined the principal pillars of our
fragile democracy. While the US Congress, media, academics, retired
military and public figures are free to criticize the President, any
criticism of Israel, much less the Jewish Lobby, is met with vicious
attacks in all the op-ed pages of major newspapers by an army of
pro-Israeli 'expert' propagandists, demands for firings, purges and
expulsions of the critics from their positions or denial of promotions or
new appointments. In the face of any prominent critic calling into
question the Lobby's role in shaping US policy to suit Israel's interests,
the entire apparatus (from local Jewish federations, AIPAC, the Presidents
of Major American Jewish Organizations etc) go into action - smearing,
insulting and stigmatizing the critics as 'anti-Semites'. By denying free
speech and public debate through campaigns of calumny and real and
threatened repercussions the Jewish Lobby has denied Americans one of their
more basic freedoms and constitutional rights.
The massive, sustained and well-financed hate campaigns directed at any
congressional candidate critical of Israel effectively eliminates free
speech among the political elite. The overwhelming influence of wealthy
Jewish contributors to both parties - but especially the Democrats -
results in the effective screening out of any candidate who might question
any part of the Lobby's Israel agenda. The takeover of Democratic campaign
finance by two ultra-Zionist zealots, Senator Charles Schumer and
Israeli-American Congressman Rahm Emanuel ensured that every candidate was
totally subordinated to the Lobby's unconditional support of Israel. The
result is that there is no Congressional debate, let alone investigation,
over the key role of prominent Zionists in the Pentagon involved in
fabricating reports on Iraq's 'weapons of mass destruction', and in
designing and executing the war and the disastrous occupation policy. The
Lobby's ideologues posing as Middle East 'experts' dominate the op-ed and
editorial pages of all the major newspapers (Wall Street Journal, New York
Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post). In their pose as Middle East
experts, they propagandize the Israeli line on the major television
networks (CBS, NBC,ABC, Fox, and CNN) and their radio affiliates. The
Lobby has played a prominent role in supporting and implementing highly
repressive legislation like the Patriot Act and the Military Commission Act
as well as modifying anti-corruption legislation to allow the Lobby to
finance congressional 'educational' junkets to Israel. The head of
Homeland Security with its over 150,000 functionaries and multi-billion
dollar budget is none other than Zionist fanatic Michael Chertoff, head
persecutor of Islamic charity organizations, Palestinian relief
organizations and other ethnic Middle Eastern or Moslem constituencies in
the US, which potentially might challenge the Lobby's pro-Israel agenda.
The biggest threat to democracy in its fullest sense of the word - the
right to debate, to elect, to legislate free of coercion - is found in the
organized efforts of the Zionist lobby, to repress public debate, control
candidate selection and campaigning, direct repressive legislation and
security agencies against electoral constituencies opposing the Lobby's
agenda for Israel. No other lobby or political action group has as much
sustained and direct influence over the political process - including the
media, congressional debate and voting, candidate selection and financing
of congressional allocation of foreign aid and Middle East agendas as the
organized Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) and its indirect spokespeople
heading key Congressional positions. A first step toward reversing the
erosion of our democratic freedoms is recognizing and publicly exposing the
ZPC's nefarious organizational and financial activities and moving forward
toward neutralizing their efforts.
Their Foreign Policy or Ours?
Intimately and directly related to the loss of democratic
freedoms and a direct consequence of the Jewish lobby's influence over the
political process is the making of US Middle East policy and who benefits
from it. The entire political effort of the Lobby (its spending, ethnic
baiting, censorship and travel junkets) is directed toward controlling US
foreign policy and, through US power, to influence the policy of US allies,
clients and adversaries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The Lobby's
systematic curtailment of our democratic freedoms is intimately related to
our own inability to influence our nation's foreign policy. Our
majoritarian position against the Iraq War, the repudiation of the main
executioner of the War (the White House) and our horror in the face of the
Israeli invasion of Lebanon and destruction of Gaza are totally neutralized
by Zionist influence over Congressional and White House policymakers. The
recently victorious Congressional Democrats repudiate their electorate and
follow the advice and dictates of the pro-Zionist leadership (Nancy Pelosi,
Harry Reid, Rahm Emmanuel, Stephan Israel and others) by backing an
escalation of troops and an increase in military spending for the war in
Iraq. Bush follows the war policy against Iran proposed by the zealous
Zionist fanatics in the American Enterprise Institute, repudiating the
diplomatic proposals of the bi-partisan Baker Commission. Congress
quadruples US arms stored in Israel (supposedly for dual use) in the
aftermath of Israel's bombing of Southern Lebanon with one million
anti-personnel bomblets from cluster bombs in direct defiance of US
electoral opinion. While hundreds of millions of undernourished women and
children suffer and die in Africa, Latin America and Asia, the Lobby
ensures that over half of US foreign aid goes to Israeli Jews with per
capita incomes of over $22,000 USD.
No other organized political action group or public relations
firm acting on behalf of the Cuban and Venezuelan exiles or Arab, African,
Chinese or European Union states comes remotely near the influence of the
Zionist lobby in shaping US policy to serve the interest of Israel.
While the Lobby speaks for less than 2% of the US electorate,
its influence on foreign policy far exceeds the great majority who have
neither comparable organizational nor financial muscle to impose their
views.
Never in the history of the US republic or empire has a
powerful but tiny minority been able to wield so much influence in using
out nation's military and economic power and diplomatic arm-twisting in the
service of a foreign government. Neither the Francophiles during the
American Revolution, the Anglophiles in the Civil War and the German Bund
in the run-up to World War Two, nor the (anti-China) Nationalist Taiwan
Lobby possessed the organizational power and sustained political influence
that the ZPC has on US foreign and domestic policy at the service of the
State of Israel.
Confronting the Lobby Matters
The question of the power of the Lobby over US policies of war
or peace, authoritarianism or democracy and over who defines the interests
served by US foreign policy obviously go far beyond the politics of the
Middle East, the Israeli-colonial land grabs in Palestine and even the
savage occupation of Iraq. The playing out of Zionist influence over the
greatest military power in the world, with the most far-reaching set of
client states, military bases, deadly weapons and decisive voice in
international bodies (IMF/World Bank/United Nations Security Council) means
that the Lobby has a means to leverage its reach in most regions of the
world. This leverage power extends over a range of issues, from defending
the fortunes of murderous Russian-Jewish gangster oligarchs, to bludgeoning
European allies of the US to complicity with Israel's ethnic cleansing of
Palestine.
The ZPC represents a basic threat to our existence as a
sovereign state and our ability to influence whom we elect and what agendas
and interests our representatives will pursue. Even worse, by serving
Israeli interests, we are becoming complicit with a State whose Supreme
Court legalizes political assassinations across national boundaries,
torture, systematic violations of international law and a regime which
repudiates United Nations resolutions and unilaterally invades and bombs
its neighbors and practices military colonist expansionism. In a word
Israel resonates and feeds into the most retrograde tendencies and brutal
practices of contemporary American politics. In this sense the Lobby
through its media, Congressional influence and think tanks is creating an
Israeli look-alike. Like Israel, the US has established its own Pentagon
assassination teams; like Israel, it invades and colonizes Iraq; like
Israel, it violates and rejects any constitutional or international legal
restraints and systematically tortures accused but untried prisoners.
Because of these fundamental considerations, we cannot oblige
our Jewish 'progressive' colleagues and compatriots and refrain from
confronting the Zionist Lobby with force and urgency. Too many of our
freedoms are at stake; too little time is left before they succeed in
securing a greater military escalation; too little of our sovereignty
remains in the face of the concerted effort by the Lobby and its Middle
Eastern 'expert-ideologues' to push and shove us into a new and more
devastating war with Iran at the behest of Israel's pursuit of Middle East
dominance.
No other country, abuser or not, of human rights, with or
without electoral systems, has the influence over our domestic and foreign
policy as does the state of Israel. No other Lobby has the kind of
financial power and organizational reach as the Jewish Lobby in eroding our
domestic political freedoms or our war-making powers. For those reasons
alone, it stands to reason, that we American have a necessity to put our
fight against Israel and its Lobby at the very top of our political agenda.
It is not because Israel has the worst human rights agenda in the world -
other states have even worse democratic credentials - but because of its
role in promoting its US supporters to degrade our democratic principles,
robbing us of our freedom to debate and our sovereignty to decide our own
interests. The Lobby puts the military and budgetary resources of the
Empire at the service of Greater Israel - and that results in the worst
human rights in the world.
Democratic, just and peaceful responses to the Big Questions
that face Americans, Europeans, Muslims, Jews and other peoples of the
world passes through the defeat and dismantlement of the Israeli-directed
Zionist Power Configuration in America. Nothing less will allow us to
engage in an open debate on the alternatives to repression at home and
imperialism abroad.
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