[Peace-discuss] More about The Lobby

Thu Mar 12 04:41:41 CDT 2009

Israel has its own vicious agenda, as Chomsky is among the first to point out.
But it would not be able to enact it without the US.

Other people write well on this matter, but Chomsky has been doing it 
particularly well, for a long time.  It's hard to equal "Fateful Triangle: The 
United States, Israel, and the Palestinians" (1983), updated ten years ago, and 
that's only one among many.

Chomsky points out that the debates over the Lobby "are paralyzing. They have no 
implications for activism, except one. If the claims are correct, then I’ve been 
wasting my time for years in talking, writing, organizing, activism. I should 
instead put on a tie and jacket and go to the corporate headquarters of Intel, 
Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, and a host of other major corporations investing in 
Israel, and should explain to them, politely, that they are harming their 
interests by doing so, and should use their political and economic power to put 
the lobby out of business, as they can do in five minutes. No one adopts that 
tactic. But why?"

Brussel Morton K. wrote:
> You dodge the point that Ray McGovern, and others, are making in a kind of
> obsession to  attack the U.S.—and now seemingly Obama policies— (which in
> other contexts deserves your condemnation), overlook the influence of the
> Lobby who the more astute (like McGovern) recognize as pernicious and
> effective, and excuse Israeli policies by suggesting that they are simply
> puppets of the U.S.  It's bait and switch, once more.
> 
> Your concluding paragraph leaves the impression that Israel does not have its
> own vicious agenda relative to the Palestinians, Iraq, Iran, Syria,
> Hezbollah, or Hamas, which seems to me arrant nonsense.
> 
> Stop worshipping Chomsky; even he has his blinders.. --mkb
> 
> On Mar 11, 2009, at 9:52 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> If it weren't such an indication of pathological denial and refusal to note
>> the simple facts, it would be funny -- the insistence of American liberals
>>  that the US crimes in SW Asia are the fault of the Bad Jews and their
>> Lobby who have somehow manipulated and misled the Good Obama.
>> 
>> What will it take for them to recognize that the murderous policies that
>> the US follows from the Mediterranean to the Indus are American (not
>> Israeli) policies, pursued in the interest of American elites?  Obama had
>> been feverishly auditioning to work for them for years: see "The Audacity
>> of Hope" (an honestly self-referential title).  He's the jumped-up
>> button-man of the American ascendancy, a Mob lawyer whose client is the
>> greatest Mob of all -- the American ruling class.
>> 
>> Israel sold its soul to the American Devil years ago -- ca. 1967 -- for the
>> mess of pottage (about $4B/yr) that the US provides. The result has been
>> the corruption of Israeli government and society -- perhaps predictable, 
>> because of the roots of that society in what has been accurately termed a 
>> "settler-colonialist" ruling class.
>> 
>> --CGE
>> 
>> 
>> Brussel Morton K. wrote:
>>> From Ray McGovern: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/11-13 /…Sen.
>>> Chuck Schumer, D-New York, led Lobby boasting just minutes after the 
>>> Freeman debacle was announced. Schumer was clear: "His [Freeman's] 
>>> statements against Israel were way over the top. ... I repeatedly urged
>>> the White House to reject him, and I am glad they did the right thing."/ 
>>> /And, as Glen Greenwald has noted, "Lynch mob leader Jonathan Chait [of
>>> The New Republic and author of //an influential op-ed/ 
>>> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022702485_pf.html>/for
>>> 
>>> 
>>> the Washington Post] who spent the last week denying that Israel was the
>>> driving force behind the attacks on Freeman," now concedes the obvious./ 
>>> /Greenwald quotes Chait: "Of course I recognize that the Israel Lobby is
>>> powerful, and was a key element in the pushback against Freeman."/ 
>>> /Neoconservative Daniel Pipes offered an anatomy of the crime, 
>>> blog-bragging about how it was conducted:/ /"What you may not know is
>>> that Steven J. Rosen of the Middle East forum was the person who first
>>> brought attention [on Feb. 19] to the problematic nature of Freeman's
>>> appointment. ... Within hours, the word was out and three weeks later
>>> Freeman has conceded defeat. Only someone with Steve's stature and 
>>> credibility could have made this happen."/ /The same Steve Rosen who is
>>> currently on trial for violations of the Espionage Act involving the
>>> transmission of classified information intended for Israel? One and the
>>> same! This has to be the purest brand of gall that ever came down the
>>> Pipes./ /This "morning after," I find myself wondering when White House
>>> chief of staff Rahm Emanuel - another staunch supporter of the Lobby who
>>>  reportedly was Schumer's go-to guy on the get-Freeman campaign - saw fit
>>> to let Admiral Blair in on the little secret that no way could he have
>>> Freeman. And why Blair tucked tail./ /In //a March 8 letter/ 
>>> <http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/031009a.html>/ to Admiral Blair, we
>>> Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) endorsed his
>>> appointment of Freeman and decried the campaign to derail it./ /We seven
>>> signatories (with cumulative experience of 130 years) noted that the
>>> Freeman case was the first time we witnessed such a well-coordinated 
>>> campaign to reverse the appointment of an official to an intelligence job
>>> not requiring Senate confirmation./ /In other words the influence of the
>>> Israel Lobby is seeping ever deeper into the ranks of the intelligence
>>> community.…/ Ending with: /On Oct. 5, 2007, I published //an article/ 
>>> <http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/100507a.html>/ about Israel's 
>>> deliberate attempt on June 8, 1967, to sink the USS Liberty in
>>> international waters off the Sinai, killing 34 of the Liberty crew and
>>> wounding over 170 in the process./ /The lead was:/ /"So Who's Afraid of
>>> the Israel Lobby? Virtually everyone: Republican, Democrat -
>>> Conservative, Liberal. The fear factor is non-partisan, you might say,
>>> and palpable. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee brags that it 
>>> is the most influential foreign policy lobbying organization on Capitol
>>> Hill, and has demonstrated that time and again, and not only on Capitol 
>>> Hill."/ /The point? In June 1967, the Israelis learned that they could
>>> get away, literally, with murder and still not endanger their influence 
>>> in Washington./ /Events of the past weeks demonstrate that they and their
>>> Lobby are equally good at character assassination. It is embarrassingly
>>> shameful to watch President Obama acquiesce in all this./ 
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
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