- "It makes no sense at all to try to deny the
reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular
culture." -- Michael Medved,
well-known Jewish author and respected film critic.
-
- For decades Israel has violated well established
precepts of international law and defied numerous United Nations
resolutions in its occupation of conquered lands, in extra-judicial
killings, and in its repeated acts of military aggression.
-
- Most of the world regards Israel's policies, and
especially its oppression of Palestinians, as outrageous and criminal.
This international consensus is reflected, for example, in numerous UN
resolutions condemning Israel, which have been approved with
overwhelming majorities.
-
- "The whole world," United Nations Secretary General
Kofi Annan recently said, "is demanding that Israel withdraw [from
occupied Palestinian territories]. I don't think the whole world ...
can be wrong." [note 1]
-
- Only in the United States do politicians and the
media still fervently support Israel and its policies. For decades the
US has provided Israel with crucial military, diplomatic and financial
backing, including more than $3 billion each year in aid.
-
- Why is the U.S. the only remaining bastion of
support for Israel?
-
- Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who was awarded
the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, has candidly identified the reason: "The
Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to
criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic," he said.
"People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the
Jewish lobby is powerful -- very powerful." [note 2]
-
- Bishop Tutu spoke the truth. Although Jews make up
only about three percent of the US population, they wield immense
power and influence -- vastly more than any other ethnic or religious
group.
-
- As Jewish author and political science professor,
Benjamin Ginsberg, has pointed out: [note 3]
-
- "Since the 1960s, Jews have come to wield
considerable influence in American economic, cultural, intellectual
and political life. Jews played a central role in American finance
during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that
decade's corporate mergers and reorganizations."
-
- Today, though barely two percent of the nation's
population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews. The
chief executive officers of the three major television networks and
the four largest film studios are Jews, as are the owners of the
nation's largest newspaper chain and the most influential single
newspaper, the New York Times ... The role and influence of Jews in
American politics is equally marked.
-
- Jews are only two percent of the nation's population
yet comprise eleven percent of what this study defines as the nation's
elite. However, Jews constitute more than 25 percent of the elite
journalists and publishers, more than 17 percent of the leaders of
important voluntary and public interest organizations, and more than
15 percent of the top ranking civil servants.
-
- Stephen Steinlight, former Director of National
Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, similarly notes the
"disproportionate political power" of Jews, which is "pound for pound
the greatest of any ethnic/cultural group in America." He goes on to
explain that "Jewish economic influence and power are
disproportionately concentrated in Hollywood, television, and in the
news industry." [note 4]
-
- Two well-known Jewish writers, Seymour Lipset and
Earl Raab, pointed out in their 1995 book, Jews and the New American
Scene: [note 5]
-
- "During the last three decades Jews [in the United
States] have made up 50 percent of the top two hundred intellectuals
... 20 percent of professors at the leading universities ... 40
percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and
Washington ... 59 percent of the directors, writers, and producers of
the 50 top-grossing motion pictures from 1965 to 1982, and 58 percent
of directors, writers, and producers in two or more primetime
television series."
-
- The influence of American Jewry in Washington, notes
the Israeli daily Jerusalem Post, is "far disproportionate to the size
of the community, Jewish leaders and U.S. official acknowledge. But so
is the amount of money they contribute to [election] campaigns." One
member of the influential Conference of Presidents of Major American
Jewish Organizations "estimated Jews alone had contributed 50 percent
of the funds for [President Bill] Clinton's 1996 re-election
campaign." [note 6]
-
- "It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality
of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture," acknowledges
Michael Medved, a well-known Jewish author and film critic. "Any list
of the most influential production executives at each of the major
movie studios will produce a heavy majority of recognizably Jewish
names." [note 7]
-
- One person who has carefully studied this subject is
Jonathan J. Goldberg, now editor of the influential Jewish community
weekly 'Forward.' In his 1996 book, Jewish Power, he wrote: [note
8]
-
- "In a few key sectors of the media, notably among
Hollywood studio executives, Jews are so numerically dominant that
calling these businesses Jewish-controlled is little more than a
statistical observation ... Hollywood at the end of the twentieth
century is still an industry with a pronounced ethnic tinge. Virtually
all the senior executives at the major studios are Jews. Writers,
producers, and to a lesser degree directors are disproportionately
Jewish -- one recent study showed the figure as high as 59 percent
among top-grossing films."
-
- The combined weight of so many Jews in one of
America's most lucrative and important industries gives the Jews of
Hollywood a great deal of political power. They are a major source of
money for Democratic candidates.
-
- Reflecting their role in the American media, Jews
are routinely portrayed as high-minded, altruistic, trustworthy,
compassionate, and deserving of sympathy and support. While millions
of Americans readily accept such stereotyped imagery, not everyone is
impressed.
-
- "I am very angry with some of the Jews," complained
actor Marlon Brando during a 1996 interview. "They know perfectly well
what their responsibilities are ... Hollywood is run by Jews. It's
owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity about the
issue of people who are suffering." [note 9]
-
- A Well-Entrenched Factor
-
- The intimidating power of the "Jewish lobby" is not
a new phenomenon, but has long been an important factor in American
life.
-
- In 1941 Charles Lindbergh spoke about the danger of
Jewish power in the media and government. The shy 39-year-old -- known
around the world for his epic 1927 New York to Paris flight, the first
solo trans-Atlantic crossing -- was addressing 7,000 people in Des
Moines, Iowa, on September 11, 1941, about the dangers of US
involvement in the war then raging in Europe. The three most important
groups pressing America into war, he explained, were the British, the
Jews, and the Roosevelt administration.
-
- Of the Jews, he said: "Their greatest danger to this
country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion
pictures, our press, our radio, and our government." Lindbergh went
on:
-
- "For reasons which are understandable from their
viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not
American, [they] wish to involve us in the war. We cannot blame them
for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but
we must also look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions
and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to
destruction."
-
- In 1978, Jewish American scholar Alfred M.
Lilienthal wrote in his detailed study, The Zionist Connection: [note
10]
-
- "How has the Zionist will been imposed on the
American people?... It is the Jewish connection, the tribal solidarity
among themselves and the amazing pull on non-Jews, that has molded
this unprecedented power ... In the larger metropolitan areas, the
Jewish-Zionist connection thoroughly pervades affluent financial,
commercial, social, entertainment, and art circles."
-
- As a result of the Jewish grip on the media, wrote
Lilienthal, news coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict in American
television, newspapers and magazines is relentlessly sympathetic to
Israel. This is manifest, for example, in the misleading portrayal of
Palestinian "terrorism." As Lilienthal put it: "One-sided reportage on
terrorism, in which cause is never related to effect, was assured
because the most effective component of the Jewish connection is
probably that of media control."
-
- One-Sided 'Holocaust' History
-
- The Jewish hold on cultural and academic life has
had a profound impact on how Americans look at the past. Nowhere is
the well-entrenched Judeocentric view of history more obvious than in
the "Holocaust" media campaign, which focuses on the fate of Jews in
Europe during World War II.
-
- Israeli Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer, a
professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has remarked: [note
11]
-
- "Whether presented authentically or inauthentically,
in accordance with the historical facts or in contradiction to them,
with empathy and understanding or as monumental kitsch, the Holocaust
has become a ruling symbol of our culture ... Hardly a month goes by
without a new TV production, a new film, a new drama, new books, prose
or poetry, dealing with the subject, and the flood is increasing
rather than abating."
-
- Non-Jewish suffering simply does not merit
comparable attention. Overshadowed in the focus on Jewish
victimization are, for example, the tens of millions of victims of
America's World War II ally, Stalinist Russia, along with the tens of
millions of victims of China's Maoist regime, as well as the 12 to 14
million Germans, victims of the flight and expulsion of 1944-1949, of
whom some two million lost their lives.
-
- The well-financed Holocaust media and "educational"
campaign is crucially important to the interests of Israel. Paula
Hyman, a professor of modern Jewish history at Yale University, has
observed: "With regard to Israel, the Holocaust may be used to
forestall political criticism and suppress debate; it reinforces the
sense of Jews as an eternally beleaguered people who can rely for
their defense only upon themselves. The invocation of the suffering
endured by the Jews under the Nazis often takes the place of rational
argument, and is expected to convince doubters of the legitimacy of
current Israeli government policy." [note 12]
-
- Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish scholar who has taught
political science at City University of New York (Hunter College),
says in his book, 'The Holocaust Industry,' that "invoking The
Holocaust" is "a ploy to delegitimize all criticism of Jews."[note 13]
"By conferring total blamelessness on Jews, the Holocaust dogma
immunizes Israel and American Jewry from legitimate censure. ...
Organized Jewry has exploited the Nazi holocaust to deflect criticism
of Israel's and its own morally indefensible policies." He writes of
the brazen "shakedown" of Germany, Switzerland and other countries by
Israel and organized Jewry "to extort billions of dollars." "The
Holocaust," Finkelstein predicts, "may yet turn out to be the
'greatest robbery in the history of mankind'."
-
- Jews in Israel feel free to act brutally against
Arabs, writes Israeli journalist Ari Shavit, "believing with absolute
certitude that now, with the White House, the Senate and much of the
American media in our hands, the lives of others do not count as much
as our own." [note 14]
-
- Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the US
Joint Chiefs of Staff, has spoken with blunt exasperation about the
Jewish-Israeli hold on the United States: [note 15]
-
- "I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he
is -- stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles the mind. They
always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the
time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the
American people understood what a grip those people have got on our
government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don't
have any idea what goes on."
-
- Today, the danger is greater than ever. Israel and
Jewish organizations, in collaboration with this country's pro-Zionist
Christian fundamentalist "amen corner," are prodding the United States
-- the world's foremost military and economic power -- into new wars
against Israel's enemies.
-
- As the French ambassador in London recently
acknowledged, Israel -- which he called (a quote which shocked
millions -ed) "that shitty little country" -- is a threat to world
peace. "Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of
those people?," he said. [note 16]
-
- In summation:
-
- Jews wield immense power and influence in the United
States.
-
- The "Jewish lobby" is a decisive factor in US
support for Israel.
-
- Jewish-Zionist interests are not identical to
American interests. In fact, they often conflict.
-
- As long as the "very powerful" Jewish lobby remains
entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish-Zionist
distortion of current affairs and history, the Jewish-Zionist
domination of the U.S. political system, Zionist oppression of
Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the
Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace.
-
- Notes
-
- 1. Quoted in Forward (New York City), April 19,
2002, p. 11. 2. D. Tutu, "Apartheid in the Holy Land," The Guardian
(Britain), April 29, 2002. 3. Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fatal Embrace:
Jews and the State (University of Chicago, 1993), pp. 1, 103. 4. S.
Steinlight, "The Jewish Stake in America's Changing Demography:
Reconsidering a Misguided Immigration Policy," Center for Immigration
Studies , Nov. 2001. http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/back1301.html 5.
Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, Jews and the New American Scene
(Harvard Univ. Press, 1995), pp. 26-27. 6. Janine Zacharia, "The
Unofficial Ambassadors of the Jewish State," The Jerusalem Post
(Israel), April 2, 2000. Reprinted in "Other Voices," June 2000, p.
OV-4, a supplement to The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. 7.
M. Medved, "Is Hollywood Too Jewish?," Moment, Vol. 21, No. 4 (1996),
p. 37. 8. Jonathan Jeremy Goldberg, Jewish Power: Inside the American
Jewish Establishment (Addison-Wesley, 1996), pp. 280, 287-288. See
also pp. 39-40, 290-291. 9. Interview with Larry King, CNN network,
April 5, 1996. "Brando Remarks," Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1996, p.
F4 (OC). A short time later, Brando was obliged to apologize for his
remarks. 10. A. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection (New York: Dodd,
Mead, 1978), pp. 206, 218, 219, 229. 11. From a 1992 lecture,
published in: David Cesarani, ed., The Final Solution: Origins and
Implementation (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 305, 306.
12. Paula E. Hyman, "New Debate on the Holocaust," The New York Times
Magazine , Sept. 14, 1980, p. 79. 13. Norman G. Finkelstein, The
Holocaust Industry (London, New York: Verso, 2000), pp. 130, 138, 139,
149. 14. The New York Times, May 27, 1996. Shavit is identified as a
columnist for Ha'aretz, a Hebrew-language Israeli daily newspaper,
"from which this article is adapted." 15. Interview with Moorer, Aug.
24, 1983. Quoted in: Paul Findley, They Dare to Speak Out: People and
Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby (Lawrence Hill, 1984 and 1985),
p. 161. 16. D. Davis, "French Envoy to UK: Israel Threatens World
Peace," Jerusalem Post, Dec. 20, 2001. The French ambassador is Daniel
Bernard.6/02
-
-
- About the author
-
- Mark Weber is director of the Institute for
Historical Review. He studied history at the University of Illinois
(Chicago), the University of Munich, Portland State University and
Indiana University (M.A., 1977). For nine years he served as editor of
the IHR's Journal of Historical Review. www.ihr.org
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