[Peace-discuss] The Lobby Again

Wed Jan 23 09:54:13 CST 2008

Thanks for your comments, Mort. It is true that Israelis largely support their government's actions, although not to their general benefit--just like in the U.S. Identity politics works as well there as here.

  I don't mean to say that Israel is an "unwitting slave to U.S. interests." They are perfectly witting, as long as they are allowed their quid pro quo, which is aid, the occupation, and free access to the most advanced military technology available (which also facilitates their own profitable military production), etc. Again, it's elites that largely benefit from this, although the occupation does allow families of less means to move to get thrown the bone of subsidized accommodations.

  While I think that the Lobby is extremely important in setting the terms of debate in this country (and stifling informed debate), and while I of course find it despicable, I think that allegations of the influence of the Lobby on American policy have approached the level of doctrine, with all of the intra-left intolerance and sectarianism that that implies. In my opinion that's not a good thing for the Palestinian rights movement, which partly depends on a broader movement that distinguished between U.S. "interests" and the American people.

  DG

"Morton K. Brussel" <brussel4 at insightbb.com> wrote:
  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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