Comments on: Berman, Congressional Foreign Affairs Boss, Cites Israel as a Prime Motivator in His Politics, Then Calls Israel Lobby a ‘Total Canard’

By: Jim Haywood

Jim Haywood — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

In response to the Mearsheimer-Walt charge that the Iraq War was orchestrated by the Israel Lobby, Berman falls back upon the identical formula which the New York Jewish News employed last year in an editorial:
"We were much more concerned about IRAN than Iraq."

Well, yes. Rattling the sabers against Iran has been the centerpiece of AIPAC's legislative strategy for several years now. In response, Congress has passed resolution after resolution condemning Iran. But Howard Berman asks us to believe that "there is no Lobby."

Funny, in the latter half of the video, Berman looks like a kid caught red-handed with his whole arm buried in the cookie jar, denying that he even LIKES cookies as he struggles to speak through the wad of cookie dough in his mouth.

By: MM

MM — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

I think you know the answer to that one, Phil.

This is one of your best posts on the Lobby that I've read in the last year--Berman is the archetypal "sensible" American Zionist congressman, and your post pierces his propagandistic armor like a blazing arrow. Once again, bravo.

(I was going to do a Witty caricature but recently he has been his own best parody. I'm sure he will extoll the fact-challenged bizarro Zionist view of Berman's, that the 98% want their country to send billions of dollars and lose thousands of young lives for Israel every year, because FRIENDS do that for each other, yadda yadda yadda.)

By: D.

D. — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

BTW, Berman was one of the Democrats who voted for the war.

By: Richard Witty

Richard Witty — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

I just watched the video.

Berman was right. The question and the questioner were insulting, innaccurate, a canard.

Good for adrenaline, lousy for discussion of real issues.

By: Shlomo #5

Shlomo #5 — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

to R. Witty: You just saw a man say he joined the Foreign Relations committee because of his concern for Israel, and then say that the idea of a pro-Israel lobby is a "canard". These are mutually contradictory statements.

By: Shlomo #5

Shlomo #5 — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

true, Jessica, but it is naive to think of the lobby in terms of votes. it's more about power and money and the ability to control the media discussion.

By: Peter H

Peter H — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Richard,

When you say that Hilary and Obama are "Supportive, but NOT rubber stamps", wht do you mean? Can you give an example where either Hilary or Obama has criticized Israel?

By: Ed.

Ed. — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

“Berman is the post-'67-war Jewish generation"

It's no coincidence that guys like Berman have brought their compartmentalized thinking to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and today claim that Palestinian resistance is due exclusively to Islamic anti-Semitism and has nothing to do with Jewish Zionist-perpetrated terror.

He's also in the ignoramus Holocaust indoctrinated generation that convinced itself and everybody else that the Holocaust happened in a vacuum due to innate Christian and gentile hatred of Jews, as opposed to the truth, which is that Jewish Bolshevism’s slaughter of millions of Christians in the Soviet Union established the rules of conduct that led to the Holocaust.
http://www.vdare.com/misc/051105_macdonald_stalin.htm

Left-liberals who cynically joined with Jewish-liberal authoritarians to scapegoat Christianity for the Holocaust made a huge mistake by collaborating with them, and are now reaping what they have sown in the Clinton-Neolib/Bush-Neocon Zionist-loving Leviathan.

This is what happens when professional-victim political movements take control of a society: suddenly everything that any group that can finagle its way into the victim class does is justified, and we become a society of self-pitying narcissists with a chip on our shoulders looking for a fight--ie the post-9/11 America that went rampaging into Iraq that was played for fools by…yes, you guessed it…the Jewish Neocons.

American left-liberals were wrong when they allied themselves with opportunistic Jewish authoritarian “liberals”, and they are wrong to ally themselves with interventionist Neolibs who will continue to make matters worse, because they are only different from the Neocons in style, not substance.

Only a culture of self-sufficiency and self-responsibility -- anathema to parasitic Neocons and Neolibs, will provide any kind of long-term answer.

By: Richard Witty

Richard Witty — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

The thesis of the Israel Lobby is entirely a canard. Its a fascist invocation.

Berman said it right. The presumption that any external entity, Israel Lobby or Israel, dictates or even bounds what Congress does or feels is ludicrous.

The common thread among individuals of responsibility is empathy for others that share similar responsibilities to civilians.

The urging of Peace (rather than revenge) is the morally and politically right stance.

The inflation of Berman stating that he entered politics to be able to act from that political sensitivity, to some suspicion that he is a puppet of the Israel Lobby, is a fraud.

Phil,
You end up in the status of malicious, when you conflate his comments so. What do you say about me in private?

Next time say them to my face.

By: the sword of gideon

the sword of gideon — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Let me see if I have this straight Ed. We're parasites who really had that whole gas chamber thing coming. And those happy go lucky lads from hamas and hezbollah, islamic jihad, and Iran aren't really anti-semitic its just that things like the president of Iran calling Israel a microbe is all in good fun. The rockets that come every day, its just a joke. I understand it all now. By the way, were you born an asshole or did you just develop into one?