[Peace-discuss] U.S. interests & Israel Lobby (continued)

[C. G. Estabrook]

David--

As I feared and as Mort's note suggests, the term Realism as it has been used in 
political theory since World War II - from Kennan and Morgenthau to 
Mearsheimer and Walt - is simply not understood by contemporary American 
liberals - probably because they've swallowed it whole.  I'm not even sure that 
Mort sees that you are attacking (and I think convincingly destroying) the 
Christisons' position, not for historical errors but for analytic ones - notably the 
notion of "national interest."

As I've suggested, these two points have to be spelt out: Realism is an immoral 
theory of politics and national interest in a lying cover for class rule. Then they 
have to be applied so as to tear down the limits of allowable debate on 
US/Israeli policy in the Middle East.

It might amuse Mort to know that on this point he's allied with Alex Cockburn 
against you (and me) 
<http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn03192010.html>. 

From an interview with Chomsky a year ago:

"Q. In many circles, there is a widespread impression that the Israel Lobby calls 
the shots in US foreign policy in the Middle East. Is the power of the Israel 
Lobby so strong that it can have sway over a superpower?

"A. My friend Gilbert Achcar, a noted specialist on the Middle East and 
international affairs generally, describes that idea as 'phantasmagoric.' Rightly. 
It is not the Lobby that intimidates US high tech industry to expand its 
investments in Israel, or that twists the arm of the US government so that it will 
pre-position supplies there for later US military operations and intensify close 
military and intelligence relations.

"When the Lobby's goals conform to perceived US strategic and economic 
interests, it generally gets its way: crushing of Palestinians, for example, a 
matter of little concern to US state-corporate power. When goals diverge, as 
often happens, the Lobby quickly disappears, knowing better than to confront 
authentic power. One of many examples took place last summer, right in the 
midst of the presidential campaign, when the Lobby's power is supposed to be 
at its peak. Following Israel's instructions, the Lobby worked hard to induce 
Congress to pass legislation (HR 362) virtually calling for a blockade of Iran, an 
act of war. They succeeded in rounding up many votes, but when the 
administration made it clear, quietly, that it did not want to be dragged into a 
war by Israel, the issue quickly vanished..."

[PS - Both you gentlemen are scheduled to be on News from Neptune on UPTV 
next Friday (3/28).  We record at 1pm (not 3pm, as before) for cablecast on 
channel 6 and 99 Friday evening at 7pm.  And we'll plan to talk about other 
things, too.]

--CGE


---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:47:32 -0500
>From: "Brussel Morton K." <mkbrussel at comcast.net>  
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] U.S. interests & Israel Lobby (continued)  
>To: David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com>
>Cc: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>
>   I suggest that the name "realists" doesn't convey
>   much meaning to most people. I suggest that the
>   Christison article in Counterpunch, to which you
>   link, lays it on the line, namely providing
>   convincing arguments to show that the "Lobby" has
>   had overwhelming influence on American ME policy.
>   One need not say that the Zionist apologists
>   embedded in and close to our administrations have
>   dual loyalties; one needs only to say that they have
>   close affinities to the success of Israeli
>   interests, which are not always congruent with
>   perceived American interests. Of course, the Zionist
>   or neocon apologists would like to say that the
>   national interests of Israel and the USA are
>   congruent, but that does make them so, as the
>   Christisons and Mearsheimer and Walt, argue.
>   Furthermore, it is far from clear that those like
>   the Christisons, or even M&W, who argue the unduly
>   great influence of the Lobby, are supportive of
>   imperial American policies, as you too easily
>   assume. exaggerated
>   No, I don't think the power of the Lobby has been
>   much exaggerated, but yes I do believe that the view
>   of Israeli oppression of, and brutality upon, the
>   Palestinians in Gaza most recently by Israeli armed
>   might has created a weakness for the Lobby, which
>   Israel and their Lobby are striving mightily to
>   counter. Yet, Congress and the Obama administration
>   still are in thrall… 
>   I have the impression that the bitterness you feel
>   towards the U.S. administrations, past and present,
>   leads to wayward rationalizations that the American
>   head necessarily is wagging the Israeli tail.
>   --mkb
>   On Mar 21, 2010, at 11:58 AM, David Green wrote:
>
>     In an earlier article, I made the case for a
>     leftist critique of realists who exaggerate the
>     power of the Israel Lobby. I claimed that this
>     fallacy, combined with accusations of “dual
>     loyalty,” ideologically and crassly employs
>     “national interests” as a euphemism for U.S.
>     hegemony in the Middle East and Southwest Asia .
>     The conclusion of such realists is that our
>     support for Israel undermines U.S. interests. That
>     is, realists support American hegemony in these
>     regions, just not the way our leaders are going
>     about it. I argued that for those who support
>     Palestinian human rights and self-determination
>     and support leftist principles, the realists’
>     denial of a fundamental identity between U.S. and
>     Israeli state interests means that those so-called
>     interests will never be directly and fundamentally
>     challenged, and the Palestinian cause will be
>     betrayed. I believe that so far that has indeed
>     been the case.
>
>     My article also claimed that mistaken beliefs
>     about the Israel Lobby and dual loyalty seem to
>     bear some affinity to one-state and BDS approaches
>     to strategy and tactics. I would obviously not
>     assert a global correlation regarding these
>     practical issues, but I would say that
>     one-state/BDS has proven to be inconsequential for
>     very good reasons: it doesn’t challenge American
>     policy, and it doesn’t have the support of the
>     international community—including the
>     Palestinians. Basically, it is tactics—and
>     disparate tactics at best—in search of a
>     strategy.
>
>     My criticism was directed at Jewish-American
>     blogger Philip Weiss and his website, where such
>     notions constitute an oppressive and dogmatic
>     conventional wisdom. Weiss’s response to me was
>     typical in its condescension; he first titled it
>     “reductionism sucks” (still reflected on the
>     url), before changing it. He alternates between
>     triviality and ignorance, with a kind of facile
>     college freshman Weberian analysis of human
>     motivations, and with no attempt to relate these
>     observations to the conduct of U.S. foreign
>     policy. He reveals his shallowness by accusing
>     Noam Chomsky and me of being “materialists.”
>     By the way, I never mentioned Chomsky in my
>     article. Nor will I mention him again in this one.
>     Weiss had to rush in writing this particular post
>     because he was on his way to ski. I’m surprised
>     he didn’t run straight into a tree.
>
>     But the Israel Lobby/dual loyalty approach has
>     become the party line, the doctrine, the
>     conventional wisdom, and one never knows where it
>     will strike next. This morning (3/15), it was the
>     blog of the usually reliable Glenn Greenwald. Such
>     claims really shouldn’t consume his valuable
>     time:
>
>     “Yet here we have a major split between the 
>     U.S. and Israel , with key American military and
>     political leaders explaining that the opposite is
>     true:  that Israeli actions are directly harming
>     U.S. interests and jeopardizing American lives.
>      And what is the reflexive, unambiguous response
>     of virtually every American Israel-centric
>     neocon?  To side with Israel over the  U.S. ”
>
>     Does Greenwald really think that those who spend
>     their lives grasping for power within the American
>     system are more loyal to Israel ? Moreover, has
>     Greenwald become a realist? Does he side with
>     military realists against neocons, the ones who
>     just want a more effective way to dominate the
>     region? Weiss isn’t smart enough to know better.
>     Greenwald is.
>
>     As is usually the case, Norman Finkelstein has
>     been on target:
>
>     “The historical record strongly suggests that
>     neither Jewish neo-conservatives in particular nor
>     mainstream Jewish intellectuals generally have a
>     primary allegiance to Israel , in
>     fact, any allegiance to Israel . Mainstream Jewish
>     intellectuals became "pro"- Israel after the June
>     1967 war when Israel became the U.S. 's strategic
>     asset in the Middle East , i.e., when it was safe
>     and reaped benefits. To credit them with
>     ideological conviction is, in my opinion, very
>     naive. They're no more committed to Zionism than
>     the neo-conservatives among them were once
>     committed to Trotskyism; their only ism is
>     opportunism.
>
>     “As psychological types, these newly minted
>     Lovers of Zion most resemble the Jewish police in
>     the Warsaw ghetto. ‘Each day, to save his own
>     skin, every Jewish policeman brought seven
>     sacrificial lives to the extermination altar,’ a
>     leader of the Resistance ruefully recalled.
>     ‘There were policemen who offered their own aged
>     parents, with the excuse that they would die soon
>     anyhow.’ Jewish neo-conservatives watch over the
>     U.S. "national" interest, which is the source of
>     their power and privilege, and in the Middle East
>     it happens that this "national" interest largely
>     coincides with Israel 's "national" interest. If
>     ever these interests clashed, who can doubt that,
>     to save their own skins, they'll do exactly what
>     they're ordered to do, with gusto?”
>
>     The ZNet website has also lapsed, with an article
>     by the often informative but nevertheless realist
>     political scientist Jerome Slater. “American and
>     Israeli Peace Organizations” are defined as
>     JStreet, Americans for Peace Now, Israel Peace
>     Now, and B’Tselem. First, B’Tselem doesn’t
>     belong in this category. Second, these are not
>     “peace” organizations, except in the sense
>     that everyone wants peace—on their own terms.
>     Neither are they serious advocates of Palestinian
>     human rights and self-determination. Slater, like
>     Weiss, is disappointed in the post-Gaza and
>     post-Goldstone behavior of people like Jeremy
>     Ben-Ami. Why should he be? As I stated in my
>     previous article, these are political climbers and
>     triangulators. They are concerned about American
>     and Israeli “interests.” So is Slater. So why
>     should I be surprised? But I am disappointed with
>     ZNet. Their readers deserve better than realist
>     assumptions.
>
>     Slater writes: “Even those who deny the
>     existence of an Israel lobby that dominates U.S.
>     policies towards Israel are not likely to deny
>     that the Jewish community is the most important
>     sector of American public opinion on all issues
>     pertaining to Israel . Consequently, domestic
>     politics ensures that there will be no change in
>     American government policies in the absence of
>     strong Jewish support for sustained pressures on
>     Israel . And if they are to have any chance of
>     success, those pressures must include making U.S.
>     diplomatic, economic, and military assistance of
>     Israel conditional on major changes in its
>     policies.”
>
>     “Conditional?” Why not just withdraw it, and
>     see what happens? But that might endanger our
>     interests.
>
>     This is what passes for tough realist talk, but
>     reveals only conceit—the Jews will make it
>     happen. Whatever the influence of the Jewish
>     community regarding Israel and U.S. foreign policy
>     (again, exaggerated as a primary cause), let’s
>     not wait for that to change. The Palestinians
>     can’t afford it. We will have to address and
>     challenge the assertion of U.S. and Israeli state,
>     military, and corporate interests, regardless of
>     the tactical differences between our generals and
>     theirs.
>
>     I well understand the power of the Israel
>     Lobby and its apparatchiks in Chicago and
>     Urbana-Champaign to influence the media, public
>     opinion, academic institutions, and politicians.
>     I’ve challenged it for 13 years, at synagogues,
>     at Jewish Federations, on campus, and in the
>     community. I’ve especially challenged it in my
>     local newspaper and campus newspaper, with dozens
>     of published letters and articles, as well as
>     previously in the Chicago Tribune and Philadelphia
>     Inquirer. Over the last dozen years, I have seen a
>     sea change in the manner in which the Lobby
>     operates in a community like Urbana-Champaign,
>     including in relation to Jews themselves. In the
>     post-Gaza and post-Goldstone era, the Lobby and
>     the Jewish community are quiescent, because they
>     no longer are unified in their shamelessness, and
>     non-Jews (or dissident Jews) are greatly more
>     informed and less easily intimidated.
>
>     If principled supporters of Palestinian rights
>     will proceed with their political business in
>     relation to the public, the media, and the
>     electoral process, I suspect that they will find
>     that the already-exaggerated influence of the
>     Lobby is in decline. But for unprincipled
>     supporters (i.e., realists), the Lobby and dual
>     loyalty serve as a convenient excuse to throw up
>     their hands and do nothing (except write endlessly
>     about the Lobby and dual loyalty). But as realists
>     who identify themselves with state interests, what
>     should one expect? The Palestinians and their
>     advocates deserve much better, especially from
>     those who claim to be on the left. Let’s
>     dispense with this misguided and
>     counter-productive analysis, and the creeping and
>     obnoxious Stalinism that’s gone along with it.
>
>     -- 

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