One thing I haven't mentioned from the Yale debate last week of John Mearsheimer's argument that we end the special relationship with Israel was, Where was the left? The rightwing was pro-Mearsheimer. So were the Progressives, humorously. The sole Arabist in the debate was an Independent. Another Independent was pure lobby, as was the Conservative party–the neocons.
Well, the Left was pure Chomsky, and it argued against Mearsheimer.
David Porter said that while he could quarrel with nothing Mearsheimer said about Israel's behavior, he disputed the cause: "Israel's problems with the Middle East often derive from our problems in the Middle East." We invade countries, we bomb Arabs. We do "crazy things" on our own every day. They're just imitating us.
Mearsheimer summed up Porter neatly. He's saying, "Israel is basically our Rottweiller." Yes, the U.S. does foolish things in the Middle East. But our "special relationship" with Israel is one dimension of the problem, and an important one. Let's go after it.
I thought of Porter today when I read the great Noam Chomsky's a piece on Counterpunch about the U.S. support for Georgia vis-a-vis Russia. He takes the Porter line, and so he never even mentions the neocons and Israel, both players in the Georgia debacle, and seems to dismiss the idea of the Israel lobby as an "irrelevancy." You will see that he treats U.S-Georgia-Russia in strict and classic imperialist terms:
the
Clinton doctrine that Washington has the right to use military force to
defend vital interests such as “ensuring uninhibited access to key
markets, energy supplies and strategic resources”… derives from standard principles formulated by high-level
planners during World War II, which offered the prospect of global
dominance. In the postwar world, they determined, the US should aim “to
hold unquestioned power” while ensuring the “limitation of any exercise
of sovereignty” by states that might interfere with its global designs. …
The
goals are deeply rooted in stable institutional structures. Hence they
persist through changes in occupancy of the White House, and are
untroubled by the opportunity for “peace dividends,” the disappearance
of the major rival from the world scene, or other marginal
irrelevancies.
That I think is a clear reference to the Theory of Faction and religion that you get on this blog: that the Israel Lobby and neoconservatives have played havoc with the American national interest out of concern for a foreign state. I think Chomsky has made himself somewhat irrelevant in this debate by failing to see this. He is a highly logical man with a materialist view of history. Notwithstanding his own Zionist phase as a young man, he doesn't seem to see religion as an important factor in society or international relations. Chomsky's a seer, I've been gazing at his star since I was a kid, and am honored to have an email of his on this blog. That said, it was fascinating to me how little attention Porter got at the Yale debate. People went right past his argument. They know religion is a significant factor; they have grown up amid the orthodoxies of identity politics.
Chomsky is a phony.
"Chomsky is a phony."
Explain.
You don't know anything about the Yale Political Union. The Independent Party isn't some 'Independent' Organization. It's slogan is 'Hear All Sides'. It has republicans and democrats and yes some independents. And the Party of the Right, despite its claim, isn't a conservative organization. You should get out more often, or at least learn about the Union from conversations with more than three people from one Party or one late night milkshake at yorkside.
Phil,
Chomsky has been problematic on this issue for decades to the consternation of many, myself included. This reminds me, have you ever read anything from the late Israel Shahak. He played a critical role in getting information regarding the brutality of the occupation out to the West in the 70's through the 90's, and was a towering figure. There is a collection of his essays up on the Middle East Policy Council website, all of which are must reads. But one in particular is "Relation between Israel and the Organized American Jews"
link to mepc.org
Chomsky is right on this one. Mearsheimer is wrong.
The war in Iraq was fought to secure Saudi, Kuwaiti, UAE interests.
It had LITTLE to do with Israel. The limited extent that the Jewish neo-conservatives even if primarily or largely concerned about effects on Israel, did so because they sought to protect the stable oil interests.
Israel was a side-show. An important one, but clearly secondary.
It IS a functionally racist approach to exagerate the importance of Jewish or Zionist concerns to be the equivalence of the oil concerns.
Please provide me a shred of evidence that Saudi, Kuwaiti, UAE "interests" were threatened by an Iraqi regime on the verge of collapse from more than a decade of stringent sanctions. Mind you, Saddam was willing to sell us all the oil we desired. His military was in tatters too.
I would also love to see evidence that the oil interests' foreign policy lobby ever sought the overthrow of Saddam's regime or even wields nearly as much clout as the Israel lobby does.
Petras does a great job of explaining how this is NOT a war for oil:
Middle East: Iraq and Iran
by James Petras
For those in the US, particularly on the ‘Left’ who mistakenly argued that the invasion of Iraq was a ‘War for Oil’ (rather than a war in support of Israeli hegemonic ambitions), Iraq’s signing of a $3 billion dollar oil contract with the China National Petroleum Corporation in late August 2008 (Financial Times August 28, 2008) demonstrates the contrary, unless one wishes to revise the slogan to ‘US War for Chinese Oil’. In the 6 years since the US invaded Iraq, US oil companies have still failed to secure major oil deals.
On October 4-5, 2008, Shell, one of the world’s biggest petroleum multinationals and OMV, an Austrian energy corporation will sponsor a conference in Teheran under the auspices of the National Iranian Gas Export Company to promote ‘gas export opportunities and potentials of the Islamic Republic of Iran’. This conference is simply one more example of the role of major petroleum companies attempting, through peaceful means, to build their overseas holdings (‘economic empire’). The major opposition to this ‘oil for peace’ move on the part of Shell Oil came from the leading Jewish-Zionist promoter of US engaging in Middle East wars for Israel – the Anti-Defamation League, which criticized Big Oil. According to its two principle leaders, Glen Lewy and Abe Foxman, “…these two companies are co-sponsoring a conference with the state-owned energy company of the leading state-sponsor of terrorism and human rights violator. Bu promoting one of Iran’s strategic industries, natural gas, OMV and Shell are hindering the effort of responsible states (sic) and corporations to isolate Iran.”
The conflict between Shell/OMV and a leading American Zionist-Jewish organization highlights the fundamental conflict between economic-centered empire building and military-centered empire building. The fact that Shell and OMV went ahead with the Iranian conference shows that at least some sectors of the oil industry are finally beginning to challenge the stranglehold that Zionist-militarists have over US Middle East policy. After having lost tens of billions of dollars in lucrative oil contracts thanks to Zionist-dictated policies , the oil companies are finally taking the first tentative steps toward formulating a new policy.
By pursuing the Israeli-US Zionist agenda of sequential wars and sanctions against oil-rich Muslim countries, Washington has lost access, control and profits to global economic competitors in a strategic region.
Chomsky is right on this one. Mearsheimer is wrong.
The war in Iraq was fought to secure Saudi, Kuwaiti, UAE interests
don't you love how witty makes these pronouncements? somehow they are supposed to be persuasive just because he says them. it reminds me of the criticisms of w&m: to wit, "it's a bad book" or they show "shoddy scholarship". these two statements were made so many times and by so many pundits that it was absurdly obvious they were talking points issued from on high.
get your act together witty.
and i agree that chomsky is a phony. he is too smart to have merely overlooked the arguments against zionism. he knows. it is typical zionist technique. just keep saying the same thing over and over; the constant drone, jews have a right to palestine, jews have a right to palestine, will eventually just exhaust everyone else. they might be right.
Chomsky just doesn't want to give ammo to the ultra-Zionist fools like MRW who employ the strategy of knowingly false ad hominem character assassination in order to discredit anything he says and all his seminal academic work. I'd say his statements were more strategic than anything else here; although he agrees, he doesn't want to get bogged down in their lying bullshit, so he just removes the clip from their rhetorical gun.
I'm not sure of what was said by Saudi, Kuwaiti, UAE ambassadors or contacts.
Do you remember the original Cheney energy policy advisory group, in which he failed to disclose which oil industry lobbyists were in the room?
THAT is the underlying theme behind the White House policy on the Middle East. Chomsky describes Israel as a puppet of the US (which I also find offensive), but if anyone's interests are being protected its the oil supply chain's, and most particularly the players in the oil supply chain.
While not the main story of this week's financial tsunami, oil money made out very well, having acquired enormous amounts of cash in the last two years, which I presume that they held as cash (knowing the fragility of financial and other American equities).
There was also an SEC imposed ban on short-sales on 800+ financial entities, with likely partial loss of short liquidity on oil contracts.
I don't know if any SEC artificial protection of oil interests occurred significantly. Its a suspicion on my part.
If Chomsky agrees with W&M doesn't he just end up in the clown category with Carter?
Also for public figures like Chomsky who have taken on the lobby to an extent over the years but never called them out completely – could there be a little jealousy??
Polly,
Noam Chomsky HAS been in the "clown" category for years, completely marginalized in any and all Mainstream Media. Here's Noam, a pillar in linguistics as well as a laser light in political analysis, and how often do you see him invited to be a "talking head" on the MSM? Never.
To those of you calling Noam Chomsky a "phony" and a Zionist, I offer thess quotes:
"These remarks will be critical of Israel:
its consistent rejection of any political settlement that accommodates the national rights of the indigenous population; its repression and state terrorism over many years; its propoganda efforts, which have been remarkably successful – much to Israel's detriment, in my view – in the United States."
"To a remarkable extent, articulate opinion and attitudes in the USA have been dominated by people who describe themselves as "supporters of Israel," a term that I will also adopt, though with much reluctance, since I think they should more properly be called 'supporters of the moral degeneration and ultimate destruction of Israel,' and not Israel alone. Given this ideological climate and the concrete US actions that it has helped to engender, it is natural enough that Israeli policies within the US and in US-Israel relations portends a rather gloomy future…" NC
I don't call Noam Chomsky a phony Zionist, but I do agree with Phil that Chomsky's downplaying of the influence of the Lobby in the US is a significant blind spot on his part. Perhaps it's not a blind spot; perhaps he sees it, but fails to address the issue head on, as it will only make him a target of the power and fanaticism of the Zionist commissars. Perhaps Noam, who was a young boy when anti-semitism in the US was a real issue, and experienced it himself, sees that the neo-con project, coupled with the economic shenanigans carried out Wall Street and the financial institutions, seen by many as being Jewish-run or Jewish-controlled, will only reignite anti-semitism among the middle and lower class gentile American population.
If so, he's right.
PM
Whether or not you believe that Zionism is margianal to US foreign policy, it definately seems margainal to the present domestic crisis. Am I wrong?
Finkelstein agrees with Chomsky, that the Walt/Mearsheimer thesis is innaccurate and insignificant and undesirable to oppose (for its suppressive implication on ethnic grounds).
This is the reason why I stopped subscribing to leftist journals and stopped visitng their sites, for the most part, a couple years ago (and why Phil's site is such a breath of fresh air). Even the more "radical" ones, like Mother Jones and ZNet, are almost completely corrupted by the Zionist mindset to some degree. I stopped listening to DemocracyNow! and stopped going to AlterNet because they rarely had anything substantive on the Israel Lobby and on Israel (I don't think Amy Goodman, a Chomsky protege who just about has an orgasm any time she "interviews" him, has ever uttered the word "Zionism.")
I remember a fascinating exchange between Noam Chomsky and Noah Cohen that I read on ZNet a while back. At the time, I was transitioning from a "Chomskyite" to one who was opening my mind a little to the voices who were saying that Chomsky was a closet Zionist. This exchange really sealed things for me.
Despite all his fancy pronouncements proclaiming universal human dignity and equality, it is clear in this series of email exchanges that Chomsky views the Palestinians as second-class, whether he chooses to admit it to himself or not. Notice too that Cohen's last response to Chomsky didn't get posted on Z-Net, and his initial rejoinder to Chomsky's interview only got posted after Chomsky wrote a response to it. The "debate" ended with Chomsky, as is often the case on Z-Net. I've posted the links in order – Chomsky's initial interview on the Israel/Palestine question, Cohen's rejoinder, Chomsky's response, and then Cohen's response to Chomsky. This is a perfect illustration of how most leftist journals and sites are able to pay lip service to Israeli crimes and aggression, without ever offering anything substantive.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/8819
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/7980
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/7981
http://www.onepalestine.org/resources/articles/Advocacy_for_what.html
LMFAO at Richard's comment:
"The war in Iraq was fought to secure Saudi, Kuwaiti, UAE interests.
It had LITTLE to do with Israel. The limited extent that the Jewish neo-conservatives even if primarily or largely concerned about effects on Israel, did so because they sought to protect the stable oil interests."
I suppose it's just the greatest coincidence in the history of the known world that strategic planning papers prepared for Netanyahu and Israel in the mid-90s' by men who rose to positions of power and influence in the Bush administration were then carried out (after a barrage of media propaganda in support of their ideas by Kristol et al).
Even if one accepts your assertion that the only factor was their desire to protect Israel's stable oil flow (and not Israel's greater "security" and expansion plans), the fact still remains that they acted in ISRAEL's interests, and not that of the United States. That's called treason.
Besides, the assertion that the interest was for oil has been debunked so many times by people familiar with the realtites of the oil markets that it need not be repeated here. If it was for oil, where's the oil? Iraq just signed a huge deal with China. American oil companies have reaped nothing from this. They want stability and open markets, not war. Israel wants war, in order to furher its expansion and break its neighbors up into little tribes.
"Finkelstein agrees with Chomsky, that the Walt/Mearsheimer thesis is innaccurate and insignificant and undesirable to oppose (for its suppressive implication on ethnic grounds)."
Finkelstein and Chomsky's ideas on the Lobby are not identical. Without going into too much detail, Chomsky completely dismisses the idea that the Lobby would have any power whatsoever if it didn't just happen to coincide exactly with American imperial interests.
Finkelstein admits that the Lobby holds sway over U.S. Middle East power, but that it is confined only to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Both men, in my opinion, are wrong. Whether these are honest opinions or intentional disinformation, I do not know, though certainly in Chomsky's case, I lean heavily toward the latter.
My personal political evolution has been very similar to 'higginslads'. All politically progressive publications and sites in the country (with the exception of Phil's) toe the line on Israel–which is to say, they aren't progressive about Israel. Being Chomsky is their high priest, it's no surprise that his views on Israel are also short-sighted, to say the least.
The other watershed event for me is having read the work of Dr. Kevin Macdonald. His work blew my mind and helped me to connect the dots on all of this. See his review of M&W link to theoccidentalquarterly.com
"This view [i.e., the view that the oil lobby has a powerful influence on U.S. Mideast policy] is advanced by some of Israel’s most persistent critics—such as Noam Chomsky and Steven Zunes—as well as by fervent defenders, like Martin Peretz". Blaming the oil companies is a subterfuge used by both supporters and duplicitous critics of Israel to deflect serious criticism of Israel. That may be rather obvious in the case of knee-jerk The Occidental Quarterly supporters like Peretz (publisher of The New Republic), but it has long seemed suspicious to many that Chomsky would consistently temper his criticisms of Israel by asserting that Israel is simply doing the bidding of the United States in the region and that the real masters are the oil companies. All that energy and money the lobby devotes to influence U.S. policy is only a smokescreen for the real story: Poor, hapless Israel is Uncle Sam’s errand boy. As Jeffrey Blankfort notes:
"I was convinced that while, ironically, having provided perhaps the most extensive documentation of Israeli crimes, [Chomsky] had, at the same time immobilized, if not sabotaged, the devel-opment of any serious effort to halt those crimes and to build an effective movement on behalf of the Palestinian cause. . . . [Chomsky] goes on for two pages explaining the importance of Middle East oil and the efforts by the United States to control it. It is the basic explanation that he has repeated and republished, almost verbatim, over the years. What it has to do with the Palestinians who have no oil or how a truncated Palestinian state would present a threat to U.S. regional interests is not provided, but after two pages the reader has forgotten that the question was even posed. In his explanation there is no mention of the lobby or domestic influences." -Kevin McDonald
"If Arab petrodollars or energy companies were driving American policy, one would expect to see the United States distancing itself from Israel and working overtime to get the Palestinians a state of their own." -Walt and Mearsheimer
"Indeed, when Gulf Oil was found aiding Arab causes in 1975, it was publicly condemned by Jewish organizations and it ended up issuing an abject apology in the New York Times: 'You may be certain it will not happen again.' The recent Iran sanctions program also contravenes the interests of U.S. oil companies wanting to do business with Iran. Tellingly, Dick Cheney opposed sanctions as head of Halliburton, but has been a strong advocate of sanctions since becoming vice-president." -Kevin McDonald
Noone is "driving" US policy.
Like the founders declared, there is an enormous mix of interests that each jockey for their objectives concerns.
The neo-conservatives were not advocating primarily for Israel. They were advocating for US interests, and some that coincided with some's views of Israel's.
That is the problem, that US interests conflicted with human, and still do.
The problem is that the neo-conservatives were conservative, not that their views were some conspiracy to distort US policies.