[Peace-discuss] (no subject)

[Brussel Morton K.]

You may be interested. He's not all wrong, even if implying that  
Shimon Peres is enlightened . --mkb


Is The “Israel Lobby” Losing Its Grip?

By Alan Hart

02/04/08 "ICH" --- - In an perceptive piece for The American  
Conservative under the headline OBAMA’S ISRAEL TEST, Scott McConnell  
asked,  “Is the lobby losing its grip?” It seems so, but I think it’s  
important to understand the choice that will exist for the Jews of  
the world, and Jewish Americans especially, if American politicians  
(many if not all) and the mainstream media do stop being frightened  
of offending the lobby.

But first things first. The lobby in question is not what McConnell  
and others including Mearsheimer and Walt state it to be. It’s not  
“the Israel lobby”. It could only be called that if it represented  
the views of all Israeli Jews. It does not do so any more than AIPAC  
represents the views of all Jewish Americans. (According to recent  
polls, AIPAC probably speaks for not more than one-third of all  
Jewish Americans and possibly considerably less).

A more accurate (but not completely accurate) description of the  
particular phenomenon is “Likud lobby”, terminology which conveys the  
correct impression that the lobby is rightwing and very hardline,  
even extreme, and opposed to peace on any terms the vast majority of  
Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept.

Way back in February 1980, I had a private conversation with Shimon  
Peres. He was then the leader of Israel’s Labour Party, the main  
opposition to Menachem Begin’s Likud dominated ruling coalition,  
which was speeding up the colonisation of the occupied West Bank. In  
the course of this conversation, I used the term “Israel lobby”. In a  
voice laced with despair and a hint of anger, Peres said: “It’s not  
an Israel lobby. It’s a Likud lobby. And that’s my problem.” (At the  
time Peres and almost the whole world including President Carter was  
hoping that he would win Israel’s next election and deny Begin a  
second term in office as prime minister. He didn’t).

In due course, after Ariel Sharon broke with Likud to form the Kadima  
Party, the lobby became the Likud-Kadima lobby, but it remained Likud  
in its core essence. The only major difference between Likud and  
Kadima is that the latter understands, as Prime Minister Olmert  
recently admitted, that the Zionist state of Israel would be  
finished, destroyed by the demographic time-bomb of occupation, if it  
did not withdraw from some of the West Bank. (Sharon did not withdraw  
from Gaza for peace but as a first step to defusing the demographic  
time-bomb; and, if he could do it without provoking a Jewish civil  
war, he was intending at some point to withdraw from about half, more  
or less, of the West Bank. He was not at all concerned that the 40 to  
60 percent of it he was intending to withdraw from would not and  
could not constitute a viable Palestinian mini-state).

All things considered, including Israel’s on-going colonisation of  
those parts of the occupied West Bank its leaders intend to keep for  
ever, I think (and have long thought) that the best way to serve the  
cause of understanding is to give the particular phenomenon its  
proper name. It is not the Israel lobby, or even the Likud or Likud- 
Kadima lobby. It is the Zionist lobby.

For those who are unaware of what Zionism actually is - I mean  
political Zionism as opposed to spiritual Zionism - and why it is the  
complete opposite of Judaism, I offer the following brief explanation.

Judaism is the religion of Jews, not the Jews because not all Jews  
are religious. And, like Christianity and Islam, Judaism has at its  
core a set of moral values and ethical principles. All the religious  
Jews of the world look to Jerusalem as the centre of their religion  
and spiritual capital, and in that sense they could be said to be,  
and many do regard themselves as being, spiritual Zionists.

Political Zionism is the nationalism of some Jews, actually a tiny  
minority of the world’s Jews at the time of Zionism’s first public  
and dishonest mission statement in 1897, which colonised land,  
Palestine, to create a state for some Jews; an enterprise which  
required the incoming, alien Zionist colonisers - most if not all of  
whom had no biological connection to the ancient Hebrews, the first  
Israelites - to ethnically cleanse the land of most of its indigenous  
Arab inhabitants, the majority population at the time of the  
colonisation. A Zionist today is one, not necessarily a Jew, who (to  
quote Balfour) supports the Zionist state of Israel “right or wrong”,  
and who cannot or will not admit that a wrong was done to the  
Palestinians by Zionism, a wrong that must be righted on terms  
acceptable to the Palestinians for justice and peace.

The whole point of Zionism’s colonial enterprise was, as it still is,  
to take for keeping the maximum amount of Arab land with the minimum  
number of Arabs on it; an enterprise that was assisted by the  
obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, which gave Zionism a blackmail card  
to silence criticism of Israel throughout the mainly Gentile Judeo- 
Christian world and suppress informed and honest debate about who  
must do what and why for justice and peace.

In summary it can be said that Zionism makes a mockery of, and has  
contempt for, the moral values and ethical principles of Judaism.  
That being so, it’s all the more amazing that Zionist spin doctors  
succeeded in making the mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian world believe  
that Judaism and Zionism are one and the same thing. They are  
emphatically not. Zionism, as the title of my latest book asserts and  
its substance demonstrates, is the real enemy of the Jews, as well as  
being the biggest single threat to the peace of the region and  
arguably the world.

Knowledge of the difference between Judaism and Zionism is the key to  
understanding. It’s the explanation of why it is perfectly possible  
to be passionately anti-Zionist (opposed to Zionism’s colonial  
enterprise) without being in any way, shape or form anti-Semitic  
(anti-Jew). It’s also the explanation of why it it is wrong to blame  
all Jews for the crimes of the relative few. (As a matter of fact,  
almost all Arabs have always known the difference between Judaism and  
Zionism; and that’s why they call for the de-Zionization of  
Palestine, and not, repeat not, the destruction of  the Jews now  
living in it).

McConnell noted that President Kennedy buckled under Zionst lobby  
pressure. He did indeed, and he was very angry about having to do so  
and become what he himself described as a “political whore”.  As I  
document in Volume Two of my book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the  
Jews, presidential candidate Kennedy said the following to an old and  
trusted friend, newspaper columnist Charles Bartlett, after he,  
Kennedy, had been summoned to a fund raising meeting:

“As an American citizen I am outraged to have a Zionist group come to  
me and say - ‘We know your campaign is in trouble. We’re willing to  
pay your bills if you let us have control of your Middle East  
policy.” (In further remarks to Bartlett, a furious JFK emphasised  
“they wanted control!” My guess is that they didn’t put it that way,  
but that what they said left no room for JFK to doubt that control  
was what they wanted).

As I also document in my book, there is good evidence for believing  
that, if he had been allowed to live, a second term President Kennedy  
would have addressed the root cause of the conflict in and over  
Palestine, even at the cost of, Eisenhower-like, confronting the  
Zionist lobby. (I think  - see McConnell’s obeservations below - that  
it’s not unreasonable to speculate that a second term President  
Obama, if he is allowed to live, could be the White House occupant  
who calls and holds Zionism to account).

McConnell wrote that several wars and many billions of dollars later  
(after JFK), the politics of Israel-Palestine are not exactly the  
same as 50 years ago but not that different either. “Israel is more  
powerful and more dependent on American largesse. Americans are far  
more deeply engaged in the Middle East and for the most part they are  
not happy about it.”

And this about the man most likely to be America’s next President:  
“On the surface, the tie between Barack Obama and Israel’s  
establishment supporters is warm and comfortable…  Nonetheless,  
there’s a sense among the Jewish establishment (I imagine McConnell  
probably means the Zionist establishment) that all is not as it seems  
- and if the view has not yet crystallized that Obama has a less  
Israelocentric perception of he Middle East than any other major  
party nominee since Eisenhower, there is foreboding that times are a  
changin’.” (My emphasis added).

And this is how McConnell sees change manifesting itself:

“For the first time in a presidential race, the Israel-Palestine  
issue will consist of something other than two men squabbling over  
who will more rapidly overrule the State Department and absolutely  
positively move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. (I note  
that although he is sticking pretty much to Zionism’s script as all  
candidates must when running for office - all offices not just the  
highest - Obama has already indicated that he does not accept that  
Likud and Israel are synonymous).

“A welcome corollary will be realization that there are different  
ways for Americans to be “pro-Israel” and push back against the view  
that being pro-Israel means supporting the right of the Jewsh state  
to lord it over 5 million Palestinians in conditions increasingly  
seen as resembling South Africa apartheid. The alternative view won’t  
sweep the country, but it will migrate from its present home on  
university campuses and liberal Protestant churches into the wider  
body politic.”

And finally will come recognition, McConnell wrote, that “the Israel  
lobby’s power to dominate the American debate is beginning to weaken.”

The reason why I agree with McConnell can be simply stated. In the  
last few years, and for the first time ever, Zionism’s version of the  
history of the making and sustaining of conflict in and over  
Palestine has started to be exposed for the propaganda nonsense it  
is. And that is thanks in large part to the work and courage of  
Israel’s “new” or “revisionist” historians. (The terms “new” and  
“revisionist” in this context are euphemisms. The more accurate or  
proper adjective to describe Israel’s truth-telling professors of  
history - Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe are the giants in their field -  
is honest. Am I suggesting that before them Israel’s historians were  
dishonest by default if not design? Yes, I most certainly am). The  
task of telling the truth of history is also being assisted by a  
bottom-up media revolution made possible by the internet.

Zionism’s narrative, upon which the first and still existing draft of  
Judeo-Christian history is constructed, is rooted in denial of ethnic  
cleansing. (The most comprehensive and fully documented work on this  
subject is Ilan Pappe’s latest book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine).

There are people who’ll say that what’s done is done. Israel, no  
matter how it was created, exists. But that’s not the point. There is  
not a snowball’s chance in hell of a real peace process unless and  
until the Jews, and Israelis especially, are prepared to acknowledge  
the wrong done to the Arabs of Palestine by Zionism.

Zionism’s denial of ethnic cleansing is underpined by two great  
propaganda lies.

The first is that poor little Israel has lived in constant danger of  
annihilation - the “driving into the sea” of its Jews. The truth of  
history is that Israel’s existence has never, ever, been in danger  
from any combination of Arab force. Not in 1948/49. Not in 1967. And  
not even in 1973. Zionism’s assertion to the contrary was the cover  
which allowed Israel to get away where it mattered most, America and  
Western Europe, with presenting its aggression as self-defence and  
itself as the victim when, actually, it was and is the oppressor.

The second great lie of Zionism’s version of history was that Israel  
had “no partners” for peace. On this account the truth of history  
includes the fact, for example, that Arafat the pragmatist opened the  
door to a genuine and viable two-state solution as far back as 1979,  
more than a quarter of a century ago. And long before that, another  
example, Eygpt’s President Nasser, who never had any intention of  
fighting Israel to liberate Palestine, authorised, and himself took  
part in, secret, exploratory exchanges with Israel in the hope of  
making an accomodation with it. (Avi Shlaim’s magnificent book, THE  
IRON WALL, Israel and the Arab World, which is informed in part by  
Avi’s access to de-classified Israeli state papers, leaves no room to  
doubt that it was Israel’s leaders, not Arab leaders, who never  
missed an opportunity to close the door to peace).

Professors Mearsheimer and Walt (the distinguished authors of The  
Israel Lobby) have declared that the best way of dealing with the  
lobby is “to encourage a more open debate… in order to correct  
existing myths about the Middle East and to force groups in the lobby  
to defend their positions in the face of well informed  
opposition.” (My emphasis added).

The problem for Zionism (as I’m sure Mearsheimer and Walt know) is  
that its positions are indefensible when they are challenged by those  
who are armed with the documented facts and truth of history. And  
that’s why the Zionist lobby is beginning to lose its grip.

My very dear friend Ilan Pappe told me that Zionism was more worried  
by my book than any other because of its title, which, he agreed,  
represents a great and profound truth in seven words. The more the  
citizens of the mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian or Western world  
become aware that Judaism and Zionism are opposites, the less  
Zionism’s propaganda maestros will be able to suppress informed and  
honest debate with the charge, almost always false and malicious,  
that criticism of Israel is a manifesation of anti-Semitism.

Ilan also offered me this observation:

“Zionism’s main defense is not money and military might but a wall of  
propaganda lies. If one or two of the main bricks in this wall can be  
dislodged, the whole thing might collapse faster than any of us would  
dare to imagine.”

At the time of writing, as in the past, the mainstream media, almost  
all publishing houses and virtually all politicians are still too  
frightened of offending Zionism to come to grips with the truth of  
history as it relates to the making and sustaining of conflict in and  
over Palestine; but despite this complicity in Zionism’s suppression  
of the truth of history, one or two of the main bricks in Zionism’s  
wall of propaganda lies are in the process of being dislodged.

So what are the implications if the Zionist lobby really is beginning  
to lose its grip?

The short answer is that the next American president will be more  
free than any of his predecessors to use the leverage he has to  
require Israel to behave in accordance with international law, and to  
be serious about peace in accordance with the will of the organised  
international community as expressed in the spirit as well as the  
letter of UN resolutions. (If I was writing a speech for the next  
president, I’d having him saying something like the following to  
Israel. Until now there have been two sets of rules for the behaviour  
of nations - one for all the nations of the world excluding only  
Israel, and one exclusively for Israel. This double-standard is no  
longer acceptable to the peoples and governments of  the world).

If the next American president (or possibly his successor) was  
prepared to require Israel to be serious about peace on terms which  
the vast majority of Palestinians and almost all other Arabs and  
Muslims everywhere could accept,  I think that what would actually  
happen would be determined by how the Jews of the world, and Jewish  
Amercans especially, responded.

Because the Zionist lobby is beginning to lose its grip, and does not  
anyway represent the majority of Jewish Americans, it’s my guess that  
most of them would say, perhaps not out loud: “We are Americans  
first, and if our president deems it to be in our national interest  
that leverage be used to require Israel to be serious about peace, so  
be it.”

But that would be mere acquiescence and it would not necessarily be  
enough. The hardest core Zionist leadership in Israel, political and  
military, is quite capable of telling the whole world, including the  
president of America, to go to hell. Why do I say that?

Many years ago, in private conversation, I asked General Moshe Dayan,  
Israel’s one-eyed warlord, why Israel had nuclear weapons. I said we  
both knew Israel didn’t need them vis-à-vis the Arabs. Dayan replied  
as follows. “Ben-Gurion was not stupid. I’m not stupid. We know how  
international politics work. We know that a day could come when even  
our best friends will want us to do something that we would not  
consider to be in Israel’s best interests.” Dayan meant, and  
obviously did not want to be more explicit, that if ever a day came  
when an American president said to Israel, “You must do this,” Israel  
could say, “Mr.President, don’t push us further than we are prepared  
to go because, if you do, we will be prepared to use all the weapons  
at our disposal.” (I am sometimes asked if I think that Bush and  
Blair would have invaded Iraq if Saddam Hussein had had nuclear  
weapons. My answer is always “No”)

My main point in summary is this. Even if the Zionist lobby really is  
losing its grip, and even if, as a consequence, an Amercan president  
feels himself free enough to use the leverage he has to require  
Israel to be serious about peace on terms almost all Palestinians,  
most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept, a just and  
peaceful resolution of the conflict may still not be possible unless  
the Jews of the world, and Jewish Americans especially, end their  
silence on the matter of Zionism’s crimes and use all of the  
influence with the Jews of Israel.

Footnote:  The day that Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews can be  
published in America, and reviewed by the mainstream media, is that  
day that I will say, without fear of contradiction, that the power of  
the Zionist lobby has been broken.

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