[Peace-discuss] The Lobby Again

Tue Jan 22 22:22:44 CST 2008

A couple of  comments follow.  --mkb

On Jan 18, 2008, at 10:17 AM, David Green wrote:

> Just in case myself and Carl haven't beaten this horse enough, I  
> think it's important to understand that M/W (as referred to below)  
> are wrong when they say that American politicians support policies  
> that "are harmful to the Jewish state." They support policies that  
> benefit elites in the Jewish state, and harm most Israelis. That  
> reminds me of of our own country. Why should that be so hard for  
> people on the left to understand (and shame on you, Perry Anderson  
> in the New Left Review).

This [the distinction between the Jewish state and the élites of that  
state] seems a mite too fastidious. Israelis unfortunately broadly  
support the policies of their élites, except when they fail, as in  
Lebanon. So far, they've been getting away with murder and mayhem.
>
> When support for Israel proves to not be in the interest of  
> American elites, whether the neocons or the "permanent government,"  
> then there will be a "change of course", that is, a change that  
> admits no previous error and obliterates history. If in some wild  
> scenario they decided that it would be geopolitcally correct for  
> Israel and Palestine to be one secular democratic country, Jewish  
> leaders in this country would support that idea within a week,  
> because they cannot tolerate being out of step with establishment  
> opinion. In another week, Israeli leadership would support it. A  
> week after that, Jewish-American leaders would be saying that they  
> had always supported a one-state solution. The following week,  
> rabbis all around the country would be comparing Yassir Arafat to  
> Martin Luther King.

I don't believe this hypothetical. It's too facile to imply that  
Israel is an unwitting slave to U.S. interests. There is mutual  
understanding…
>
> The major candidates positions reflect their general agreement with  
> the goals of U.S. foreign policy: as Chomsky says, "we own the  
> world." At this point, until further notice, owning the world means  
> providing Israel with arms with which to threaten its neighbors,  
> occupy Palestine, and keep the anti-Semitic pot boiling in the oil  
> states and Egypt, so their authoritarian leaders can divert the  
> attention of their subjects (make no mistake, Jewish elites love  
> anti-Semitism, would be lost without it). But if we ever decide  
> that there is a better way to control oil than state-sponsored  
> violence, then Zionism as we now know it will be history. At that  
> point, Jews and Arabs will be left with only their particular form  
> of class struggle.
>
> DG
>
> Better Safe Than Sorry for Candidates on Israel
> The Hour
> By Leonard Fein
> The Forward
> Wed. Jan 16, 2008
>
> Let?s play make-believe: Imagine that the candidates for the  
> presidential nomination, Democrat and Republican, are asked for  
> their views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (So far, that hasn? 
> t happened.) And imagine that in addition to the familiar formulas  
> regarding Israel ? America?s valuable ally, the only democracy in  
> the Middle East, entitled to live in security, and so forth ? they  
> were to add that Israel?s occupation of the West Bank must end,  
> that the illegal outposts must be removed, that all settlement  
> expansion must ended, that Israel should help rather than hinder  
> the modernization of the Palestinian security apparatus, that the  
> status quo is simply not acceptable.
>
> Can you imagine that? If so, employment awaits you at the Fantasy  
> Channel. As Howard Dean learned in September 2003, when he called  
> for an ?even-handed? American policy in the conflict, even so parve  
> a phrase as ?even-handed? crosses the no-no boundary. Dean?s call  
> begat criticism from John Kerry, his principal rival for the  
> Democratic presidential nomination, as also from Joe Lieberman,  
> Nancy Pelosi and Abraham Foxman.
>
> To the consternation of Steve Grossman, co-chair of the Dean  
> campaign and a past president of the American Israel Public Affairs  
> Committee, it generated accusations of apostasy that seriously  
> challenged the campaign. (Dean, and his enemies, didn?t help his  
> case when, several days later, trying to recover from his original  
> no-no, he chose to defend Israel?s targeted killings in Gaza. His  
> defense? ?There is a war going on in the Middle East and members of  
> Hamas are soldiers in that war, and, therefore, it seems to me,  
> that they are going to be casualties if they are going to make  
> war.? Soldiers? Howard Dean called Hamas terrorists soldiers?  
> Aiming for redemption, he hit his foot instead.)
>
> There are rules to America?s presidential campaign season. The Iowa  
> caucus comes first and the New Hampshire primaries come next. The  
> person with the most votes wins. And candidates, unless they are  
> named Kucinich, Gravel or Paul, must stay put within the four walls  
> of the house that Aipac built ? that is, within the walls of pro- 
> Israel orthodoxy.
>
> Open a door to the outside of that house, and you?ll find yourself  
> in never-never land, and not the fun kind either. Open just a  
> window, and you will spend weeks, months, explaining, apologizing,  
> repairing the damage. The Israeli-Arab conflict is to foreign  
> policy what Social Security is to domestic policy ? a third rail.
>
> It is therefore of more than passing interest that all the suspect  
> phrases listed in the first paragraph above were in fact spoken by  
> President Bush during his trip to the region last week. And the sky  
> did not fall in.
>
> The firmness of the firmament may be attributable to the fact that  
> no one was really and truly listening to what Bush was saying, or  
> to the fact that he is rapidly approaching the end of his tenure.  
> More likely, however, it is clear that the issues he raised and the  
> points he made are by now beyond serious controversy, are part of  
> the conventional wisdom.
>
> Which raises the obvious question: If such implicitly critical  
> remarks regarding Israel are part of the conventional wisdom, why  
> do prospective nominees for the presidency avoid the subject as if  
> it were avian flu?
>
> Search the Web sites of the major candidates, and you will find  
> that the only one who has anything at all to say about Israel is  
> Mike Huckabee, the erstwhile Baptist minister who has visited  
> Israel nine times. Search their speeches that touch on the subject,  
> and you will find the candidates tumbling over one another to prove  
> their superior devotion to Israel.
>
> This troubles John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt greatly, as they  
> made clear in an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times earlier  
> this month: ??the presidential candidates are no friends of Israel.  
> They are like most U.S. politicians, who reflexively mouth pro- 
> Israel platitudes while continuing to endorse and subsidize  
> policies that are in fact harmful to the Jewish state. A genuine  
> friend would tell Israel that it was acting foolishly, and would do  
> whatever he or she could to get Israel to change its misguided  
> behavior.?
>
> It is not that Mearsheimer and Walt are ignorant of the  
> consequences of the kind of ?true? friendship they champion. Their  
> piece reviews those consequences in some detail. They mention the  
> cautionary Dean precedent, and they acknowledge that ?even well- 
> intentioned criticism of Israel?s policies may lead [pro-Israel]  
> groups to turn against them and back their opponents instead?.  
> Israel?s friends in the media would take aim at the candidate, and  
> campaign contributions from pro-Israel individuals and political  
> action committees would go elsewhere.?
>
> So they are aware of the hazards that await the candidate who  
> violates the accepted ritual and speaks the truth to Israel ? the  
> very same truth spoken by Bush, who is widely regarded as genuinely  
> sympathetic to Israel, who was hailed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert  
> in terms so glowing that press reports indicate Bush was  
> embarrassed by the praise.
>
> They must then be aware that no candidate will accept their advice.  
> The ritual will be honored. And they and the rest of us can relax:  
> Whoever prevails in the 2008 presidential elections will inherit  
> the received wisdom on the conflict, the commitment to the very  
> things of which Bush spoke ? a two-state solution, a viable and  
> independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory, an end to  
> settlement expansion and all the rest.
>
> Our task ? that is, the task of those of us who seek a genuine  
> resolution to the conflict ? is to see to it that the urgings of  
> such conventional wisdom do not themselves become a new and equally  
> empty ritual.
> ______
> http://www.forward. com/articles/ 12489/
>
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