God bless the LA Times Editorial board, it met with Walt and Mearsheimer and published the dialogue! That’s called journalism. It was a real give and take.
The LA Times people were critical, at times even conservative: Nick Goldberg suggested that W&M are wrong to want to "upend" a 60-year-relationship that has been a good one. The Times people also questioned the word "lobby;" they asked, quite perceptively, whether the lobby hasn’t functioned in Israel’s interest over the years (W&M like to say that the lobby has not served Israel’s interests; I tend to side with the LAT). And the LAT people asked, legitimately it seems to me, whether Walt and Mearsheimer regard the lobby as "pernicious." W&M sidestep this one, saying the lobby is only doing what other lobbies do. They should be more forthcoming on this point: they should point to the real damage the lobby has done, in dehumanizing Palestinians, and chilling free speech in this country. Points they make with moral force in their book. But now these ivory-tower dudes are out on the hustings, and a little gunshy. I say they should stick their necks out a little…
Stephen Walt’s best point in this conversation was when he pointed out how many times the U.S. has vetoed U.N. Security Council resolutions re Israel. 42 times or so. I was thinking this morning of how I as an aspiring freelance writer used to carry Marty Peretz’s water at the New Republic, that I did a piece sharply critical of UN Depy Secy Brian Urquhart. I didn’t understand what I was doing; but I was serving Peretz’s "party line," as he puts it in W&M’s book, of supporting Israel. Look at what this great relationship has done to Jewish identity! Smart, young Jews are compelled to practice jury nullification with the U.N., to argue that the organization has no legitimacy– for a simple reason, that in ’67 the U.N. said that the occupation and acquisition of lands through war was not alright. If only Israel had heeded UN Resolution 242! Or if our country has taken it seriously! For nearly 60 years, UN 242 has been an excellent reason for upending our relationship with Israel, or reforming it anyway.
Back to the subject: Huge props to Op-Ed Editor Goldberg and the LA Times opinion page for doing what almost no other mainstream journalists have done so far– acknowledging the tremendous seriousness of Walt and Mearsheimer’s ideas, and taking them on fairly! The world lurches forward.
I think the point "that is what lobbies do" IS the point.
The "Israel lobby" is NOT even that organized in the sense that the oil and coal and weapons lobbies do meet and agree as to comprehensive points.
As Walt and Mearsheimer points in their article, interviews and book (from reviews, not from my read yet), the "Israel lobby" is NOT monolithic, and the proposed members in fact disagrees even on the issues about Palestine.
The ONLY point they agree consistently on, is to tend to believe Israel's interpretation and motivations as defensive, rather than offensive.
If there are specific practises that you or others find objectionable, THOSE are the appropriate points of criticism.
Again, the generalization of the term "Israel lobby" is habitually misconstrued to mean some all-powerful conspiracy on the part of Jews to take over the world.
Walt and Mearsheimer's clarifications are more laudable than the more careless rhetorical.
——————————————————————————
Richard, at the end of the interview, the objection is raised that people as diverse as Martin Indyk and Abe Foxman can't possibly have anything in common — so how can you possibly speak of an "Israel" lobby, as opposed to a "settlement" lobby, or a "2-state" lobby?
This is a very commonly raised point, and I think your inability to grasp the answer is very revealing. M&W have of course repeated a million times that it is the UNCONDITIONALITY of the support which defines the lobby, but there seems to be a strange blind spot about this among American Zionists.
Walt has to remind them that Indyk has NEVER suggested that the United States should make its support for Israel conditional on ending the settlements. Zionists can conceive of different directions for Israel, and will argue over whose ideas are best and who should get to lead, but it's always taken for granted that this discussion is strictly in-tribe. It's never the power of the lobby which gets questioned, but only which faction should get to lead it. (Think of Dan Fleshler.)
The idea that Middle East policy should be taken out of their hands and given back to the gentile American public is beyond their comprehension.
To exclude Jews from policy decisions that effect us, would be a form of fascism.
If you read the post above yours, you'd note that I described my sense that the common attitude among those described as the Israel lobby (including your apparent characterization of myself and Dan in there, as well as the MAJORITY of liberal Jews), is a predisposition to accept the assertion that x was done for defense, rather than offense.
A common attitude does NOT equate to a suppressive conspiracy. There are fools that exagerate their responses and call names and threaten reputations even, not unlike the enthusiastic fringes in the US (left and right).
When the left stops calling people names, then there will be a moral point to make about the Israel lobby.
A case in point is a recent statement by Yossi Beilin, reported in Haaretz, about last week's apparent IDF strike in Syria.
Another parliament member in the very liberal Meretz party requested to be informed as an MK (member of the knesset). Yossi Beilin responded that he regarded the matter as appropriately secret, trusting the IDF to deal with it accordingly.
Israeli intelligence sources apparently intentionally leaked that they had discovered shipment of nuclear materials to Syria, and prospectively en route to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Who knows if its true?
The point was of the willingness of a noted Israeli progressive to accept that Israeli defense needs are genuine and that the IDF is trustable (prospectively as a genuine popular army, in contrast to the American largely mercenary one in Iraq at least).
———————————————–
Meanwhile, Richard's "vibrant democracy" is getting ready to cut off power, water and fuel from the Gaza population by declaring the Gaza strip an "enemy entity".
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/19/world/main3274069.shtml
For those who don't understand what this really means, it suffices to point out that the collective punishment of a civilian population is a crime against humanity and a war crime, one of the most blatant violations of international law – not that Israel has ever shown ANY respect for international law, but this is really totally unacceptable and if the US will not bring Israel back to her senses, which she won't, then the US will also be once again guilty of enabling a war crime. So much for our "humanity" and our "moral high ground".
See also:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/905229.html
Let's see now what our "humanist liberals" will do. Will they defend the collective punishment of the whole Gaza civilian population, a crime against humanity, as reprisal for the tin cans also known as Kassam rockets?
How many Israelis have died because of the "deadly" Kassam rocket fire in 7 years?
12 (twelve).
How many Gazans have died in Israeli reprisals?
About 1,000 (one thousand) including more than 200 children.
This is what warrants a war crime in our particularlist "liberal humanists".
Warsaw Ghetto anyone?
What the Israelis do doesn't bother me nearly as much as Dr. Rice supporting their position. That is really the center of the question for me.
————————————————————-
Meanwhile, the US Army in Iraq is developing mind control and indoctrination techniques in psyops "reeducating camps", even targeting children as young as 11 years old:
**********
"[...] Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to "bend them back to our will" and are part of waging war in what he called "the battlefield of the mind." Most of the younger detainees are held in a facility that the military calls the "House of Wisdom."
As a result of the increased U.S. troop presence in Iraq this year, the number of Iraqis in U.S. detention has swelled from about 10,000 last year to more than 25,000. The effort to reshape attitudes among the growing detainee population is aimed at addressing a problem that has vexed U.S. troops in Iraq for the past four years: Military detention facilities have served as breeding grounds for extremist views, transforming some prisoners into hard-core insurgents, according to military analysts.
Stone said he wants to identify "irreconcilables" — those detainees whose views cannot be moderated — and "put them away" in permanent detention facilities. Psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors and interrogators help distinguish the extremists from others, he said."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/18/AR2007091802203.html
**********
Imagine a foreign army invading and destroying the US. Then, when Americans decide to resist the occupation, the foreign army puts them in Abu Ghraibs. When failing to bring American insurgents who defend their country to "reason" there, they then create "Houses of Wisdom" where psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors and interrogators "help" reform American insurgents. Those who can't be reformed are then "put away" in PERMANENT detention facilities.
Think about it.
==================================
The real trouble is the hidden sadism in my fellow citizens.
This incitement against Israel through the code word Lobby, is attracting people who are angry with Israel, and are happy to find justification for killing as many Israelis as possible.
So much for peace loving facades.
It is nothing else. The rescue of the Palestinians from their misery is a secondary question to WM and the rest.
The hard choice would be to seek solutions, through non-violence and self-critical reforms in Israel, Palestine and USA.
======================================
"To exclude Jews from policy decisions that effect us, would be a form of fascism." Really? Please enlighten us as to why this would be so.
Americans are disturbed because they are spending money, making enemies and getting killed for another country. It is not complex.
And this other country does not seem to be doing much to bring an end to this situation. A 40 year occupation is a serious problem. They are not looking for peace.
Its supporters in this country are pushing us into war with other countries that pose little threat.
There are also questions about the different values of Israel as a sectarian state vs the US as a constitutional republic that are troublesome.
I think after 5000 dead, 30,000 injured, 500 billion spent and people still asking for more we have a right to be angry about this.
Here is StandWithUs's "response" to M&W aimed at campus activists–
To exclude Jews from participation in democratic process would be to dump on the 14th amendment guaranteeing equal due process of law.
The point is to improve our democratic functioning, not react (the root of the term "reactionary").
Its still an illusion that the war in Iraq is "for Israel". The war was initiated to ensure that the supply chain for oil continued without interruption.
Aside from problems with the US's excesses in throwing its weight around the world, and the manner that it does so, if you think about it, the idea that the spoils of oil wealth are available for the taking of the few, or even a nation, is a stretch.
The living biomass that comprised the carbon/nitrogen/hydrogen that got processed into tar and then oil did not die for princes and sheiks in the 20th and 21st century.
Oil, like all earth-borne resources, are fundamentally a gift, a common gift, and should be administered as such.
Free, unearned wealth, though is too much of a spoil, and brings out the odd and ugly in humans.
But, Israel is just another bozo on the bus as far as oil dependance goes. The war is not being fought for Israel. That is a racist smoke-screen.
Its about oil.
Its too simple-minded to attribute a lobby's effort to decision, especially given that the Israeli government sought to dissuade the US from invading Iraq (in favor of containing Iran).
Richard writes: To exclude Jews from participation in democratic process would be to dump on the 14th amendment guaranteeing equal due process of law.
The point is that the US constitutional system depends on the good-faith loyalty of all citizens engaged in its political life. Richard's plea for democratic participation is more than disingenuous because it is predicated on loyalty to a racial state whose interests conflict with ours, and whose ideology is cognate with the fascism he deplores. There is a bait and switch here: he identifies jews with zionists, and then claims that their freedom to advocate for Israel is a civil rights issue.
Richard seems to be saying that American jews should feel no compunction about acting from loyalty to Israel. This argument would be surprising in its shamelessness were it not openly confirmed by jewish newspapers and organizations across the country.
Richard is very credible. He never heard of Feith's Office of Special Plans which was recycling faulty intelligence provided by Israel to build the case for war.
He also never heard of the neo-cons and of the Project of the New American Century who were pressing for an Iraq invasion since the 1990s, he never heard of the Weekly Standard or the National Review or the NY Sun and NY Post, and of course he never heard of the fact that key neo-cons like Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith (among others) were investigated in the past for passing classified information to Israel.
They were all doing it for Oil!
Right.
I'll repost some critical information on this that was provided here by others because I'm very short on time, and this is just the tip of the iceberg:
*********
"[...]Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure. According to Philip Zelikow, a former member of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and now a counsellor to Condoleezza Rice, the ‘real threat’ from Iraq was not a threat to the United States. The ‘unstated threat’ was the ‘threat against Israel’, Zelikow told an audience at the University of Virginia in September 2002. ‘The American government,’ he added, ‘doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.’
On 16 August 2002, 11 days before Dick Cheney kicked off the campaign for war with a hardline speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Washington Post reported that ‘Israel is urging US officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.’ By this point, according to Sharon, strategic co-ordination between Israel and the US had reached ‘unprecedented dimensions’, and Israeli intelligence officials had given Washington a variety of alarming reports about Iraq’s WMD programmes. As one retired Israeli general later put it, ‘Israeli intelligence was a full partner to the picture presented by American and British intelligence regarding Iraq’s non-conventional capabilities.’
Israeli leaders were deeply distressed when Bush decided to seek Security Council authorisation for war, and even more worried when Saddam agreed to let UN inspectors back in. ‘The campaign against Saddam Hussein is a must,’ Shimon Peres told reporters in September 2002. ‘Inspections and inspectors are good for decent people, but dishonest people can overcome easily inspections and inspectors.’
At the same time, Ehud Barak wrote a New York Times op-ed warning that ‘the greatest risk now lies in inaction.’ His predecessor as prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, published a similar piece in the Wall Street Journal, entitled: ‘The Case for Toppling Saddam’. ‘Today nothing less than dismantling his regime will do,’ he declared. ‘I believe I speak for the overwhelming majority of Israelis in supporting a pre-emptive strike against Saddam’s regime.’ Or as Ha’aretz reported in February 2003,
Enough said."
Posted by: daveg | August 30, 2007 at 02:21 AM
**********
"Not if what Robert Dreyfuss reported in the Nation (June 2003)is true:
"According to the former official, also feeding information to the Office of Special Plans was a secret, rump unit established last year in the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel. This unit, which paralleled [Abram N.] Shulsky's – and which has not previously been reported – prepared intelligence reports on Iraq in English (not Hebrew) and forwarded them to the Office of Special Plans. It was created in Sharon's office, not inside Israel's Mossad intelligence service, because the Mossad – which prides itself on extreme professionalism – had views closer to the CIA's, not the Pentagon's, on Iraq. This secretive unit, and not the Mossad, may well have been the source of the forged documents purporting to show that Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake uranium for weapons from Niger in West Africa, according to the former official."
Has this been refuted?"
Posted by: Oarwell | August 31, 2007 at 01:07 PM
**********
I have to admit that Richard Witty's desperate attempts at damage control and to convince us that the Lobby has no real, decisive power or that key policymakers and journalists and think tank "scholars" and media conglomerates who are Jewish American put Israel's interests first no-matter-what are indeed very touching. However, the evidence on the public record is so overwhelming that his is just an exercise in futility. Instead of at least acknowledging that there is indeed a problem here, something which even someone like "tough dove" does, and to try to counter the power of the Zionist elite here and in Israel (which prescribes policies contrary to what ordinary Jews wanted for decades) by organizing and creating an alternative force to counter the Likudniks, he keeps covering for them by insisting we all have to live in his cuckoo land and deny reality.
Well, good luck with that one. Keep insulting the intelligence of Americans. Just keep doing it.
W&M have succumbed to pressure and ratcheted down the argument. The pro-Israel lobbies ARE pernicious.
Ethnic cleansing as a moral principle? And we have not merely takers for this but ardent defenders?
Another Israeli academic fingers the ethnic cleansing as her state's ongoing raison d'etre. link to counterpunch.org
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What is 'defensive' about this grotesquerie?
There is GOOD reason for humanists to simultaneously support Israel and to support the aspirations of the Palestinians, to keep hope alive. (PEACE!!!)
The historical and current environment remains one of perpetual aggression towards Israel, and therefore forces Israel to adopt a defensive approach, rather than a conciliatory, even as they realize that conciliation is ultimately required to have peace. The aggression predates 1967, predates 1948, and post-dates Oslo.
The valid question is in what manner and to what limit. But that is NOT a radical approach, which is only critical and usually overly simplistic in good/bad.
The best is an ethical approach, a self-governing one (in liberty and in restraint).
The ideas of Likud are in minority now. The only way they achieve credibility is by increase in aggression and isolation. (Just as the critics of Israel assert that by harming Palestinians, Islamic sensitivity is assaulted and creates additional ideologically motivated fanatics, the rhetorical approach of the left has a similar effect in Israel and among its supporters, even its critical ones.) It is evident to everyone that Israel cannot take over the West Bank and Gaza, and that the Likud strategy is at most a temporary one, and a counterproductive one.
The policies of Kadima and even Labor seem to hide an intention to slowly annex the West Bank and Gaza, using the prior specific settlement strategy of Begin and Sharon. (The specific strategy was to build fingers into the West Bank, which would become facts on the ground. It was a long-term strategy, which like the war in Iraq should have been nipped in the bud.)
But, the policies of the left of labor and Meretz are still Zionist, and respond to aggression with defense, confidently.
While the Bush administration's policies of careless and amateurish cheerleading from a distance (not intimate, not loving Israel really) should be rejected, the liberal democrat careful, loving and principled support of Israel should remain.
The problem is in choices made and reasons for those choices.
If you read the neo-conservatives before 911 and before the Iraq War, the most convincing arguments that they made to Bush and Cheney, were the utopian ones about permanently securing the oil supply chain outside of the influence of Baathist or Shia control. (They liked the Sunnis and even Wahabi influences.)
Israel was a secondary part of the equation. It amounts to a revision of emphasis and argument.
While Walt and Mearsheimer's intent may not have been to "open floodgates" of racist aggression towards Israel, it is part of the actual effect (which they are mature enough to have foreseen, and also smart enough to communicate their ideas less carelessly than to generalize.)
Defensive genocide. No one doubts that zionists are past masters at framing the debate. The defensive argument however is only plausible to the uninformed.
One place to start might be Jonathan Cook's excellent new book:
http://www.jkcook.net/Blood-and-Religion.htm#Top
When you take the trouble to read through the comments on both the Washington Post piece on Moran and the LA Times piece on W.& M. it is conspicuous how fed up the great majority of commenters seems to be with both the lobby and US policy towards Israel.
This is, of course, not a very representative sample but yet … It reminds one of poll results about Iraq that democratic politicians can read as well as anybody else but continue to disregard.
This divorce between public opinion and the actual policy espoused in governing circles is not limited to the US. It reminds me of the vote against the so-called new constitution for Europe in France and the Netherlands. In both France and the Netherlands the yes-vote was supported by virtually the entire governing establishment and the media but the people voted 'non'. The 'people' did not particularly fancy a Europe that provides corporate interests with a big supply of cheap labor on the Eastern outskirts of Europe – a supply of cheap labor that helps European capital to keep wages and conditions down in the West as well.
So plans were hatched, by Germany in particular but with the connivance of the governments in Paris and the Hague, to slip through a version of the constitution in a manner that did not require the consent of voters. A few months ago this was achieved. The whole exercise fell just one step short of Bertold Brecht’s ‘advice’: if the people don’t come up with the right decision abolish the people.
That is exactly what the US and Israel seem to be doing right now in Gaza where the people also, surprise surprise, showed themselves to be more mindful of its own interest than that of the powers that be.
In the US the problem of a corporate-governmental elite that goes its own way regardless seems to be even more acute than in most other western countries because of its two-party 'democracy' – two parties once described by Gore Vidal as the two right wings of one party: the party of possession.
American Middle East policy seems to me what American foreign policy has been anywhere else in the last sixty years: expansionist,aggressive and fuelled by corporate interests.
In a nook of the world I am particularly interested in, Indonesia, the CIA-supported countercoup of September 1965 led to a massacre of up to a million people. The take over of East Timor was encouraged and supported by the USA as was the subsequent regime of terror and the genocide of a substantial part of the population. The same story in West New Guinea, now Papua. American mining interests there provide the Indonesian government and the local military with a lot of their income – crumbs from the American table.
Sorry, but my imagination doesn't reach to picture the US as a blushing bride captured by a dark haired ravisher – however tricky the ravisher.
Even as a gentile, I find the 'talking point' being utilized to delegitimize the W&M paper/book, that it is basically another Protocols of the Elders of Zion, extremely troubling because it actually legitimizes the known propaganda by likening it (in reverse) to the scholarly and professional W&M thesis. I just find that the height of irresponsibility, from people who would undoubtedly say they are trying to protect Jews.
I pity the author too for having to carry Marty Peretz' water, I think perhaps _TNR_ could simply change its name to _Marty Peretz' Water_…
1. All Americans need to put Ameria first.
2. American Jews are American.
Therefore:
Americans of Jewish descent need to put America first.
It is that simple.
If they act otherwise they are likely to incur tremendous resentment. No decent person wants such a tragedy.
Just put America first.
.
John: As a leading proponent of dual disloyalty to US and Israel I would not put America first.
If you mean the interests of the government and those who own it I find it a ludicrous idea. That goes as well for any government we seem likely to get in the forseeable future.
If you mean the perceived interests of Americans I can't forget how they have voted for 30 years, or 50 if you don't count Carter.
If you mean my conception of the real interests of Americans, I don't see why I should prefer them to anyone else's. I would rather put truth and justice first.
It is interesting that in order to attack Mearsheimer and Walt people bring up "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", which was a notorious forgery of the czarist secret police of 19th century Russia.
I have often thought that this antisemitic screed fell into the hands of some eager Likudnik back in the 1970 and on reading it, instead of being horrified, he thought to himself, "Hmm… wow, hey fellas, look at this…. whaddya think?"
Paul E. writes: If you mean my conception of the real interests of Americans, I don't see why I should prefer them to anyone else's. I would rather put truth and justice first.
The answer to the first question is simply that you are a member of the American polity (if you are).
And why should the real interests of Americans conflict with truth and justice? As Cicero puts it in the de officiis–pace Leo Strauss and Machiavelli, from whose mouth (mediated by Joly) parts of the Protocols were apparently extracted–the bonum and the utile, the good and the expedient, are never really in conflict.
The criticisms of Walt and Mearsheimer's articles and interviews are based on observation, not talking points.
I'm sure some use talking points, but in my case, my criticism is original.
I just read that Phil has a wikipedia entry.
Is it accurate?
What a nasty little Wikipedia entry, down to the snide quotation marks in "Weiss 'moved' the blog."
Did Bill Pearlman write that?
"And why should the real interests of Americans conflict with truth and justice? As Cicero puts it in the de officiis–pace Leo Strauss and Machiavelli, from whose mouth (mediated by Joly) parts of the Protocols were apparently extracted–the bonum and the utile, the good and the expedient, are never really in conflict."
Is this so? The 'National interest' seems to me not some kind of abstract entity but a political product that only becomes a real National interest if the politics is genuinely democratic. Since in most countries this is not the case the so-called national interest is mostly a sectorial interest.
But even a genuine national interest is not necessarily a global interest – and is not necessarily in accordance with truth and justice. It is probably a matter of genuine national interest for the US that the dollar retains its reserve currency status. This allows the American people at large, among other things, to import annually 800 billion dollars worth more than it exports. Thus Americans can live partly at the cost of the rest of the world population. Yet if there was a referendum on this it is a pretty sure bet that Americans would vote for the continued privileged status of the American dollar (even though this would not depend on their volition of course).
One can take a point of view apart from all those voting Americans and argue that it would be better for them if they had to cope with a situation of scarcity which might stimulate their productive capacity etc.etc. but it is up to a people to define its own interest.
Interesting topic – but it is getting bed time here.
Still, is it accurate?
.
Here is a relevant quote:
"A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one nation the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens who devote themselves to the favorite nation, facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country."
- George Washington’s Farewell Address
**********
On another topic, here is why people keep on insisting on opinions not supported by facts whatsoever while simultaneously disregarding the overwhelming evidence that contradicts them:
"There is a difference between opinions and working hypotheses. One difference is that a good scientist does not get emotionally attached to a hypothesis (easier said than done when one has invested in a hypothesis) but one's ego is by definition, almost, invested in opinions. A hypothesis is easy to discard when contradicted by facts. With opinions one discards (or ignores) facts that contradict one's opinion."
And:
"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."
John Kenneth Galbraith
.
Bad copy-paste. Let me try again:
"[...] So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation."
- George Washington's Farewell Address, 1796
George Washington was talking about a 45% minority sympathetic to England, immediately after fighting a secessionary war to separate from England.
The two concepts aren't even remotely parallel.
Even if they were, the idea that the "Israel lobby" can implement its individual passions (if they are shared, which they are not), is a conspiratorial exageration.
National interest is vetted at the executive and legislature. There are political influences, but they are various and conflicting.
"The two concepts aren't even remotely parallel."
Interesting concept, parallelism, like: "the current jews aren't even remotely parallel with the ancient peoples of Judea". Parallelism, meaning things which cannot connect because they go the same way all the time, like the neurons inside Witty's head.
.
Richard: I think the essential problem is that you don't know what is happening. The way I came to my perspective is by following Haaretz online for a few years, and I suggest you do the same. Then you would disabused of silly ideas such as for example that the IDF is a responsible organization.
I can't know the official policy of the IDF, but clearly many members like to kill all the Palestinians they can, including women and children, and not one has ever been disciplined for this. If any Israeli adult does not know about this it is only because they don't want to.
"Imagine a foreign army invading and destroying the US. Then, when Americans decide to resist the occupation, the foreign army puts them in Abu Ghraibs."
Already happened, but the indigenous population we called "redskins," and our policy, as conquerors, was without argument genocidal. The survivors live on today in their wretched Bantustans (never mind the mafia/casino situation, two centuries later).
I find no difference between an American person of Jewish descent who cares for Israel, and turns a blind eye to the Palestinian persecution, and myself, sympathetic to the plight of the Native Americans, yet in no mood to consider relinquishing my land and house to their claims.
What is the difference? Only time, really. The Palestinian oppression is occurring now, while (for the most part), active killing and starvation of Native Americans ended over a hundred years ago.
This does not mitigate the horror of the Palestinian plight, but as an American I cannot forget our own bloody history.
I'm also aware that the lens applied to Israel's conduct is, non pareil, a distorting lens, serving to magnify the problem, and that this distorting affect also must be taken into account.
But (to Richard), it seems quite understandable that the American public, seeing how their "leaders" are so fearful of offending their contributors, ignore and traduce the will of the people when it comes to crucial issues of war. Including, currently, impeachment of the Executive for war crimes.
I wish someone would refute the assertion hilighted above, which appeared in the Nation in 2003, that an Israeli intelligence unit fed falsified info to eager recipients in our administration, to advance Israeli interests in making war on Iraq.
If true, it nullifies any argument that Israel was a disinterested party in the march to war in Iraq.
After all, what was Iran-Contra about? The Israeli interest was in getting TOW missiles to Iran to destroy advanced Iraqi armor, which had been designed by Gerry Bull. Bull, according to a Frontline documentary, was murdered by an Israeli hit team.
I still maintain that it was a happy marriage of Israeli enthusiasts and old-fashioned oil imperialism that brought U.S. troops into Iraq. Without oil, there would have been no war. Without Israel? Harder to answer.
On the other hand, the propaganda for war in Iran seems to come from only one source.
I think Richard argues from his heart, and can't fault him for that. But he continues to throw up obfuscatory word clouds to hide what is obvious to anyone who has followed the issue: the U.S. "leadership" (quotes are to indicate, again, derision) is in thrall to those who fund their electoral campaigns. This is hardly debatable, and attempts to discount this reality are disingenuous.
It is the disingenuousness of the arguments that make people angry.
***************
Also, a few posts back, someone, I think Arie, posted a number of quotes from 1940-era Jewish leaders, including Rabbi Stephen Wise, to the effect that Jews had to die to effect the creation of Israel in Palestine.
The quotes struck me as the most anti-semitic imaginable, unless …
Unless they were real.
Assuming they were not fabricated (and I'm not trying to gainsay the poster) has Alan Dershowitz or anyone else ever countered this?
They seem monstrous.
Although, admittedly, they are no different in kind than any of the other totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century, where utilitarianism ran amok, treating human beings as ciphers, valuable only as grist for delusional utopian mills.
Or, for that matter, Mad Maddy Albright's affirming that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children caused by U.S. sanctions was "worth it."
It is evil to deny the sanctity of human life.
"I think Richard argues from his heart"
Then I must presume he had a heart transplant performed by a proctologist.
"But (to Richard), it seems quite understandable that the American public, seeing how their "leaders" are so fearful of offending their contributors, ignore and traduce the will of the people when it comes to crucial issues of war. Including, currently, impeachment of the Executive for war crimes."
There are multiple and conflicting contributors, each with limited ability to control representatives or other elected officials.
To presume that lobbyists "control" is to give them more power than they have, and in doing so to reduce the power that individuals, or movements have.
I find generalization offensive. Walt/Mearsheimer did it grandly in their article, to the point that any insights that they had raised were voided (that would have been taken seriously without defensiveness by liberal dissenters).
There are other ways to dissent than generalization and rhetoric. Specifics, in context, and some connection between conclusion and evidence (what makes it evident to you?, actual reasoning, not propaganda.)
I object to the radical left (and fascist right – though I'm not as surprised by them) adopting the same threatening language to those that love (and criticize) Israel as what they condemn.
Real world consequences of Bush's disastrous machinations:
"Saudi Arabia has refused to cut interest rates in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve for the first time, signalling that the oil-rich Gulf kingdom is preparing to break the dollar currency peg in a move that risks setting off a stampede out of the dollar across the Middle East.
“This is a very dangerous situation for the dollar,” said Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas.
“Saudi Arabia has $800bn (£400bn) in their future generation fund, and the entire region has $3,500bn under management. They face an inflationary threat and do not want to import an interest rate policy set for the recessionary conditions in the United States,” he said.
The Saudi central bank said today that it would take “appropriate measures” to halt huge capital inflows into the country, but analysts say this policy is unsustainable and will inevitably lead to the collapse of the dollar peg.
As a close ally of the US, Riyadh has so far tried to stick to the peg, but the link is now destabilising its own economy.
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The Fed’s dramatic half point cut to 4.75pc yesterday has already caused a plunge in the world dollar index to a fifteen year low, touching with weakest level ever against the mighty euro at just under $1.40.
There is now a growing danger that global investors will start to shun the US bond markets. The latest US government data on foreign holdings released this week show a collapse in purchases of US bonds from $97bn to just $19bn in July, with outright net sales of US Treasuries.
The danger is that this could now accelerate as the yield gap between the United States and the rest of the world narrows rapidly, leaving America starved of foreign capital flows needed to cover its current account deficit — expected to reach $850bn this year, or 6.5pc of GDP.
“They were willing to provide the money when rates were paying nicely, but why bear the risk in these dramatically changed circumstances? We think that a fall in dollar to $1.50 against the euro is not out of the question at all by the first quarter of 2008,” he said."
(Financial Times)
"There are other ways to dissent than generalization and rhetoric."
And yet you insist on conjuring "complexity", the archetypical generalization, in your vacuous rhetoric.
But (to Richard), it seems quite understandable that the American public, seeing how their "leaders" are so fearful of offending their contributors, ignore and traduce the will of the people when it comes to crucial issues of war. Including, currently, impeachment of the Executive for war crimes."
Oops, sorry, botched sentence. I was trying to say that it's understandable that the American people are angry about this.
Richard, you ask for specifics, I quoted a specific fact, from the Nation article in 2003, that nullifies many of your protestations. Can you refute it? If not, you might try to incorporate it into your view of things.
Here's the link again, if you don't believe it. Robert Dreyfuss wrote the article.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030707/dreyfuss
"According to current and former US intelligence analysts and government officials, the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans funneled information, unchallenged, from Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC) to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, who in turn passed it on to the White House, suggesting that Iraqis would welcome the American invaders. The Office of Special Plans is led by Abram Shulsky, a hawkish neoconservative ideologue who got his start in politics working alongside Elliott Abrams in Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson's office in the 1970s. It was set up in fall 2001 as a two-man shop, but it burgeoned into an eighteen-member nerve center of the Pentagon's effort to distort intelligence about Iraq's WMDs and terrorist connections. A great deal of the bad information produced by Shulsky's office, which found its way into speeches by Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, came from Chalabi's INC. Since the INC itself was sustained by its neocon allies in Washington, including the shadow "Central Command" at the American Enterprise Institute, it stands as perhaps the ultimate example of circular reasoning.
[...]
"According to the former official, also feeding information to the Office of Special Plans was a secret, rump unit established last year in the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel. This unit, which paralleled Shulsky's–and which has not previously been reported–prepared intelligence reports on Iraq in English (not Hebrew) and forwarded them to the Office of Special Plans. It was created in Sharon's office, not inside Israel's Mossad intelligence service, because the Mossad–which prides itself on extreme professionalism–had views closer to the CIA's, not the Pentagon's, on Iraq. This secretive unit, and not the Mossad, may well have been the source of the forged documents purporting to show that Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake uranium for weapons from Niger in West Africa, according to the former official."
Richard,how much more specific can you get? I don't like generalizations, either, but I also don't like liars, particularly liars who send U.S. troops into battlezones for no valid reason, and who promote the destruction of a nation that did us ("us" being Americans, Richard) no harm.
As for M&W's book, how can you say they're "generalizing" when they offer exhaustive, detailed, footnoted proof supporting their argument?
I've tried to be fair-minded, but you seem incapable of anything other than hand-waving arguments.
=============================
Richard, American Jews participate in the democratic process through voting. Direct Jewish participation in foreign policy formation is not required.
Oarwell,
The conclusion that you derived from that sleight of hand, around Israeli law and institutions, was that "Israel was responsible for the war" rather than a renegade operation in spite of Israeli dimplomacy, policy and law.
They probably offer exhaustive footnotes, that probably supports THEIR thesis, but does NOT support the conclusions of the radicals here.
The article did in LRB certainly did generalize widely, did NOT prove its point at least to the unconverted, and barely even described its point.
Nevertheless in article, interview and prospectively book, they state that the "Israel lobby" is NOT monolithic and internally disagrees often radically, DOESN'T control but merely influences, is for the most part perfectly legal and uniquely skillful, is comprised of nearly equally Jewish and Christian influences, and among the Jewish influences represent a minority of people's impressions but perhaps a majority of dollar votes (making the lobby a class distinction rather than an ethnic or even an advocacy one).
That is DIFFERENT from the inferences of many posts here which named the Jewish community as culprit for the war in Iraq for example.
It adds up to a generalization, with potentially malevolent consequences, stimulating those with malevolent purposes (even if they weren't undertaking such).
There is ethical scrutiny to words, to journalism, to academia. Scholarship, and certainly journalism, does not happen in a vacuum. It is an action, with consequences and ethical standards of presentation.
Its not just an evidence test. Intent is a test as well.
If you are imagining that I am suggesting that Israeli or American policies not be questioned or criticized or objected to, you misread me.
I am suggesting that criticism not be generalization, and instead form reasonable and considerate conclusion. (Considerate conclusion can be blunt and weighty. But, it contrasts with inconsiderate which even if true, harms unnecessarily.)
Wittycisms:
"Euphemization strategy": apartheid is not a word to describe Israel because the word was coined for another specific situation. I suggest we use the word peacepartheid, because the real problem is jews being parted from peace.
"I was talking about something else strategy": Samie, I don't care if your mother was beaten, I was talking about my mother only, don't you understand? My comments were in response to the (unmade) assertion that pogroms couldn't happen in america, ok?
"Too complex strategy": we jews don't have a unique perspective about such issues therefore we are unable to make a lobby. Can you prove we have a lobby? Can you prove we have an effective lobby? can you prove we even exist? No generalizations allowed!
"Am I cute? strategy": I want justice and flowers, a new job as a consultant and world peace. I accept criticism, but only the ones which comes in form of praise, so I can blush and say thank you.
There are similarities and differences in how Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are treated, differences sufficient enough to make the word "apartheid" misrepresentative, equivalent to calling someone "bad".
If you said "the situation for Palestinians if fucked", I would agree.
The next question would be "what does it take to change it?"
If you responded, "bring Israel to her knees", then we would be in conflict.
If you responded, "Appeal to the humanity of citizens by non-rhetorically informing them fully of the condition of the Palestinian community and the prospects for remedying their suffering", then we would be in agreement.
Are you more determined than you are angry? Or are you more angry than you are determined? Or, do you not really give a shit about Palestinians and just want to get a rhetorical shot in?
"I just read that Phil has a wikipedia entry."
I'm curious where you read that, Richard. (What type of site monitors new Wikipedia biographies?)
All,
I warn against attempts at rational argument with Mr. Witty because in my experience, at least, that way madness lies.
"I am suggesting that criticism not be generalization, and instead form reasonable and considerate conclusion. (Considerate conclusion can be blunt and weighty. But, it contrasts with inconsiderate which even if true, harms unnecessarily.)" Mr. Witty
"Word clouds" is too polite.
If you said…the next question…if you responded…if you responded…are you angry…
are you more angry…
Steady on, Witty! This is paranoid stuff.
Unbendable knees and a stiff neck may be a liability in today's world where arrogance can no longer be easily concealed by the veil of hypocrisy.
"I just read that Phil has a wikipedia entry."
I'm curious where you read that, Richard. (What type of site monitors new Wikipedia biographies?)
Richard 'vibrant democracy' Witty wrote: "Appeal to the humanity of citizens by non-rhetorically informing them fully of the condition of the Palestinian community and the prospects for remedying their suffering"
All your rhetoric about "[a]ppeal[ing] to the humanity of citizens" won't change a thing. In case you didn't know, the majority of Diaspora Jews AND Israeli citizens did not support the settlement project and wanted peace with the Palestinians by giving them something real, a state of their own along the pre-1967 borders.
Successive Israeli elections showed the overwhelming majority of Israelis voting for peace and against the settlement project. Yet ALL Israeli governments went on with the settlement project regardless, with Labor governments actually accelerating it! This is a FACT.
For all your generalizations about the power of citizens to change things by "appealing to their humanity", whatever that means, it seems someone else is calling the shots here. Could it be a tiny minority, a privileged Zionist elite that calls the shots regardless of what the majority of Diaspora and Israeli Jews want? Could it be the same class that wanted to use the deaths of ordinary Jews in concentration camps, while also blocking change to immigration laws, in order to create Israel?
And how are you going to counter these Likudnik-Jabotinskian fascists if you won't first acknowledge their power and influence Richard? How can you be so blind? Why are you defending this Lobby which supports the most right-wing and inhumane policies contrary to what most Jews really want? Why are you still identifying with them?
Do you really enjoy being a useful idiot of the Likudniks Richard? Because while you cover for them, and deny their power, they keep on pushing the same agenda, including a war with Iran with the use of tactical nuclear weapons. And this time, there can be no "Oil lobby" argument Richard. It's only them pushing for this. And this time, everyone is watching.
You better start writing letters and start organizing. You are sending "appeals to their humanity" to the wrong people. It's not the overwhelming majority of Israeli citizens or Diaspora Jews who are the problem. The problem is the Zionist elite you serve. And "appeals to their humanity" won't change a thing. Either it will be the ordinary Jews who will stop them or it will be the gentiles in this country with a serious backlash.
Your choice.
P.S. Oarwell. it was me who posted all that history of Zionist organizations during the holocaust. None of this is fabricated. It is the sad truth. I provided a lot of links. Do your own research. I can provide a lot more material to anyone genuinely interested because it is of paramount importance for people to understand how ugly a relic of 19th century militarist nationalism can get. Those who think that this Zionist elite only wants to screw the Palestinians but would never screw Jews for their ends are unfortunately very, very naive. Remember that a member of the Stern Gang, the terrorist group which offered Hitler to fight on his side in 1941(!!!) against the British, in the midst of WWII for god's sake, later became an Israeli Prime minister. His name was Yitzhak Shamir. Here is the offer:
**********
" The National Military Organization(NMO), which is well-acquainted with the goodwill of the German Reich government and its authorities towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans, is of the opinion that:
1. Common interests could exist between the establishment of a New Order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied by the NMO.
2. Cooperation between the new Germany and a renewed volkish-national Hebrium would be possible and
3. The establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and bound by a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in the Near East.
Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO in Palestine, under the condition the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognised on the side of the German Reich, offers to actively take part in the war on Germany’s side."
link to en.wikipedia.org
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A very good start is Lenni Brenner. His "Zionism in the Age of the Dictators" is a must-read:
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/
The specific chapter of this book dealing with the role of Zionist organizations during the holocaust is "The Wartime Failure to Rescue":
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/ch24.htm
His "51 Documents" is another shock to those who grew up swallowing Zionist mythology whole:
http://www.amazon.com/51-Documents-Zionist-Collaboration-Nazis/dp/1569802351
A lot of info and links, including what Jewish sages were saying about Zionism from the start, can be found here:
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/
An additional note to Alan's post:
Reynhard Heydrich, "Obergruppenfuehrer" of the SS (and thus directly subordinate to Himmler), was no doubt in that collection of evil men one of the most evil. Even Himmler called him 'Attila' because of his sadism and preference for the wholesale extirpation of opponents.
In 1942 this man was gunned down in CzechoSlovakia. It is well-known that in revenge for this all the males of the Czech village Lidice were murdered and the women and children transported to concentration camps were most of them died.
In 1941 Heydrich got top responsibility for the 'final solution' Earlier he had been the head of the 'Zentralstelle' for Jewish emigration from Germany. One of the most shocking documents in the Brenner-collection is a congratulatory letter from exactly this man to the Zionist leaders in which he wishes them well. I think Brenner also mentions a pre-war visit by him to Palestine.
"For all your generalizations about the power of citizens to change things by "appealing to their humanity", whatever that means, it seems someone else is calling the shots here. Could it be a tiny minority, a privileged Zionist elite that calls the shots regardless of what the majority of Diaspora and Israeli Jews want? Could it be the same class that wanted to use the deaths of ordinary Jews in concentration camps, while also blocking change to immigration laws, in order to create Israel?"
You spoke of the settlement project. The environment immediately after 1967 was one of great relief. Jews had craved access to their holy sites and the lands that were referred to in the Bible, but were largely in the West Bank. (It is an irony that the most of the "holy land" is the area close to Jerusalem, including the hill lands of the West Bank, while the coastal regions were only part of Israel/Judea for a relatively short period.)
The Palestinians and Jordanians abused Jewish sites and STRICTLY prohibited Jewish travel anywhere in any Arab state. Even American diplomats that had business in Israel had either two passports, or a removable visa sleeve, so that the Israeli entry and visa stamp was not permanently on their passport, or they would be turned away from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, even India (ironically, that was probably due to their status as pandering to the Soviet Union though).
I visited Israel in 1968 and experienced the joy of being allowed finally to visit our special land.
I regarded the place as Arab's homes, residences, but still as a real connection to Jews.
Its a respect of property (property is temporarily exclusive). The sentimental link for Jews is permanent. If Arabs have that link as well, and can coexist, so be it.
If not, then its a conflict. When really available, to ignore it is like ignoring a needed nutrient. One can live with a deficiency of some nutrients, but ask a pregnant woman intuitively craving a nutriant whether she can do without.
What caused the modern divide? The great incompatibility, the rejection of live and let live?
It took two parties to do that dance. Likud is one. The settlement program was a crime.
It was only allowed to gain a foothold during the period of pregnant craving, the joy of coming home.
It was institutionalized by calculating opportunists. Likud sought to annex the whole of the land, and to permanently prohibit a Palestinian state. I don't know if they thought that regardless of Palestinian behavior, or out of a sense of Palestinians as incapable of civility. Whatever attitude, it was hateful and calculated.
Begin and Shamir were terrorists and should have been prohibited from leadership of a genuinely democratic state on that merit.
For decades the majority of Israelis opposed the settlements, and sought to prohibit their establishment and expansion.
Its an error to claim that the settlements expanded radically during the Labor tenure. The population of the settlements increased, and certainly part of some's calculation to permanently annex the land.
However, the land area of the settlements did not increase except only very incidentally in unusual cases.
There were new outposts in which what were intended as military outposts literally accepted civilian support systems which in some cases morphed in settlements, and often by those ideologically minded enough to be "pioneers".
Last year in fact was the first time in a decade, that a new settlement had been authorized.
It came at a uniquely insensitive time.
If only the holocaust hadn't happened. (It did.) If only the Arabs had accepted moderate non-exclusive Jewish migration. (They didn't). If only WW1 hadn't settled the former Turkish empire by English and French colonial objectives, employing the norm of forced intimacy of enemies. (Palestine, India, Iraq). (They did).
A progressive perspective towards Israel would guarantee safety, but not condone expansion.
Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama propose exactly that. They should be applauded for their balanced approach, not ridiculed for building a boat by building two sides of it one step at a time (rather than attempting to build a boat by building NO sides of it).