[Peace-discuss] Discard the mythology of 'the Israel Lobby'...

[Morton K. Brussel]

Good according to whom? Another superficial "analysis", not unlike  
many he writes. --mkb

On Mar 24, 2009, at 5:21 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> [A British columnist who's good on this stuff, tho' he may be a bit  
> sanguine about J Street.  --CGE]
>
>
> 	Discard the mythology of 'the Israel Lobby',
> 	the reality is bad enough.
> 	They are not all-powerful, but Israel's advocates
> 	in the US do play hardball - often hurting the cause
> 	they are meant to serve
>          o Jonathan Freedland
>          o The Guardian, Wednesday 18 March 2009
>
> Now they have their Joan of Arc. Those who have long claimed that  
> the sinister, shadowy forces of "the Israel Lobby" pull the strings  
> of US foreign policy at last have a martyr. Last week Charles  
> Freeman, a former diplomat, said he would not take the job he had  
> been offered, chairing the US National Intelligence Council: he had,  
> he said, been the victim of a campaign of "character assassination"  
> conducted by an "Israel Lobby [willing to] plumb the depths of  
> dishonour and indecency". In a furious statement, he declared that  
> the "aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process".
>
> Those who in 2006 lapped up the thesis argued by the US academics  
> John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, attributing to the mighty lobby  
> the power to divert the US from its own interests, seized on  
> Freeman's fall as decisive proof. Walt himself declared: "For all of  
> you out there who may have questioned whether there was a powerful  
> 'Israel lobby'," he blogged, "think again."
>
> As the reception to the original Mearsheimer-Walt article showed,  
> this is radioactive terrain. Those who wade in carelessly can find  
> themselves burnt. The explanation is not complicated. The notion  
> that Jews wield excessive power, and do so in mysterious ways; that  
> they advance the interests of a foreign power; that they function as  
> some kind of fifth column, and that as such they have often led  
> their country into needless wars - all these are accusations that  
> have been hurled at Jews going back many centuries. It should be no  
> surprise that Jews' ears prick up if they think they can hear these  
> old tunes hammered out once more.
>
> And yet, after several conversations with Israel supporters in both  
> Washington and Tel Aviv, I have found no one who denies that Freeman  
> was indeed the victim of advocates for Israel. It is quite true that  
> many on Capitol Hill disliked Freeman's devotion to Saudi Arabia,  
> the country where he had once served as US ambassador: he recently  
> suggested King Abdullah be renamed "Abdullah the Great". True, too,  
> that a critical blow came from Nancy Pelosi, the house speaker,  
> reportedly outraged by Freeman's overly indulgent attitude towards  
> China's rulers. But I'm reliably told that these lines of attack  
> originated with the pro-Israel crowd. Nor have Freeman's character  
> assassins bothered to hide their fingerprints.
>
> On the contrary, several have bragged about their role, among them  
> Steve Rosen, a former official of the American-Israel Public Affairs  
> Committee, or Aipac, who launched the attack on Freeman.
>
> Surely, then, as Walt claimed, this settles not only the Freeman  
> whodunit but the larger question of the mighty "Lobby". Clearly it  
> is every bit as vicious - and effective - as its detractors have  
> claimed, able to derail even a new and popular administration such  
> as Barack Obama's simply because it had the temerity to pick a man  
> who had, among other things, condemned the Israeli occupation as  
> "brutal oppression" - right? Not quite.
>
> The flaws in the Mearsheimer-Walt case remain as visible as when  
> they were exposed by the Palestinian-American scholar Joseph Massad,  
> Noam Chomsky and a clutch of other anti-Zionists. For one thing, if  
> Israel and its backers really did control United States foreign  
> policy, there would never be any divergence between them: Washington  
> would simply do "the Lobby's" bidding. But that is hardly the case.  
> One can go back to the mid-1980s, when Israel and its friends begged  
> the Reagan administration not to sell Awacs surveillance planes to  
> Saudi Arabia - to no avail: the Saudis got their planes. Or spool  
> forward to 1991 when George Bush pressured Israel to attend a peace  
> conference against its will and withheld $10bn in much-needed loan  
> guarantees unless Israel agreed to freeze settlements on occupied  
> land. You might mention Israel's proposed arms sales to China:  
> Washington compelled Israel to back down, first in 2000 and again in  
> 2005. More awkwardly, Israel has long sought the release of those  
> who spied for it against the US. Washington has consistently refused.
>
> Chomsky asks a useful question. If the US has been led to behave the  
> way it does in the Middle East by the cunning "Israel Lobby", how  
> come it behaves the same way elsewhere? "What were 'the Lobbies'  
> that led to pursuing very similar policies throughout the world?" As  
> for the Middle East, Chomsky quotes the scholar Stephen Zunes:  
> "There are far more powerful interests that have a stake in what  
> happens in the Persian Gulf region than does Aipac [or the Lobby  
> generally], such as the oil companies, the arms industry and other  
> special interests whose lobbying influence and campaign  
> contributions far surpass that of the much-vaunted Zionist lobby ..."
>
> The naive assumption at work here is that the American dog has no  
> interests of its own, leaving it free to be wagged by the pro-Israel  
> tail. It's a convenient view, casting the great superpower as a  
> hapless, and essentially innocent, victim. But guess what: the US  
> emphatically does have its own strategic interests - oil chief among  
> them - and it guards them fiercely. Support for Israel as a loyal,  
> dependable ally - ready to take on Arab and other forces that might  
> pose a threat to those interests - has served America's purposes  
> well. That's why the US acts the way it does, not because Aipac  
> tells it to.
>
> Perhaps the most powerful example - if only because so many believe  
> the reverse to be true - is the Iraq war. Plenty of Mearsheimer-Walt  
> followers reckon it was the "Lobby" wot done it: it was Israel that  
> pushed for war. But as Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to  
> Colin Powell, and others have explained, Israel's leaders in fact  
> repeatedly warned against an attack on Saddam, fearing it would  
> distract from, and embolden, what it regarded as the real threat,  
> namely Iran. As it happened, they were right.
>
> So the myth of an all-powerful Israel lobby, pulling the strings, is  
> a delusion. But it's equally false to pretend that Aipac and its  
> allies don't exist or exert genuine influence. They do and they play  
> hardball, as the Freeman affair has vividly demonstrated. (Indeed,  
> the negative publicity that has resulted may make this victory a  
> pyrrhic one.)
>
> Viewed this way, clearly and through a lens unclouded by  
> exaggeration and mythology, they are to be strenuously opposed.  
> Their attempt to limit the voices heard in Washington is not just an  
> offence against pluralism, it also hurts the very cause Aipac  
> purports to serve: Israel.
>
> Aipac's approach - not so much pro Israel as pro the Israeli right  
> wing - ends up pushing US politicians away from the policies Israel  
> itself needs, specifically the dialogue with enemies and territorial  
> concessions that are necessary if Israel's long-term future is to be  
> secured.
>
> The good news is that alternatives are emerging. Founded last year,  
> J Street styles itself as a "pro-Israel, pro-peace" advocacy  
> organisation, thereby creating a space for those US politicians who  
> support Israel but believe the policy of recent Israeli governments  
> is hurting Palestinians and imperilling the future of the Jewish  
> state. Aipac and its allies have had the monopoly on Israel advocacy  
> for too long. Let's hope the Freeman episode prompts America's  
> leaders to take a hard look at them, to see them as they really are:  
> not all-powerful - and not always right either.
>
> freedland at guardian.co.uk
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